Awfully obsolete at the time of acceptance but still a very interesting cavalry arm from the American Civl War. The M 1855 pistol-carbine was adopted the same year as the M1855 rifle musket. In a time when wide variety of breech loaders were already accessible, including a few firing metallic car...

Ransom rest tests of original, Uberti and Pietta 1861 Colt Navy .36 revolvers shot with repro of original service charges. Which is more accurate?

This is something I have always wanted to try since I read Samuel Emery Chamberlain's memoires about the Mexican War. The receiver actually handled better than what I first thought, but I still have question marks about its effect.

The Hall rifle Capandball film, part 1.: https://youtu.be/qz21BC...

The first part covers the history of the development of the Hall breech loading flintlock military rifle. If you are looking for more info, please visit our Patreon page where you can find 2 studies about the rifle based mainly on primary sources describing the benefits and use of the rifle.

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Laban E. Tucker and his sons Elihu and Argyle were several of the original partners in the Tucker & Sherrard Company, which contracted with the State of Texas to produce Colt-pattern revolvers during the Civil War. The company went through several different names, driven in part by the departure ...

The LeMat revolver - even if it is a reproduction - is an arm you want to own once in your lifetime if you are black powder shooter. Definitely different from all other muzzle loading side arms of the American Civil War. This episode covers the history of the development and also shows the operat...

One of the rarest models of LeMat grapeshot revolver is this, the “Baby” LeMat. This is a substantially smaller gun than the normal LeMat, although it retains a 9-shot cylinder and a central barrel. In the Baby, however, the cylinder is in .32 caliber (rather than the standard .42) and the centra...

There was not much industrial production the the Confederate States of America during the US Civil War, and Confederate-made revolvers have been very collectible for a very long time. Today we're taking a look at three such revolvers made by a series of companies that evolved throughout the war. ...

James Kerr formed the London Armoury Company in 1856, manufacturing Adams patent revolvers (Adams was one of the founding investors) and 1853 pattern Enfield rifles. The rifles were the better business and the company rather quickly decided to focus on them, which led Adams to leave with his pate...

The Confederate States of America didn't have very much capacity for manufacturing small arms, and was happy to purchase guns from anyone who could make them. Among others who got into the gun-making business during the Civil War were the Dance brothers of Texas. They only managed to produce betw...

Griswold and Gunnison were rather unique among Confederate revolver manufacturers for their ability to actually create a reliable and high quality product and produce it on a regular and predictable schedule. So many of the Confederate revolvers were made by starry-eyed novices, but Griswold & Gu...

Shooting percussion revolvers is always interesting, but this is especially true for the 10 shot LeMat revolver. 9 .44 cal revolver cartridges and a 20ga shotgun barrel. Stay tuned for more!

The Shawk & McLanahan revolvers are a lesser-known example of a very low production Civil War era revolver not made in the Confederacy. Abel Shawk was manufacturing entrepreneur in St Louis making fire engines when he decided to take up arms manufacturing instead. He partnered with J.K. McLanahan...

The LeMat grapeshot revolver is one of the most distinctive and powerful sidearms of the US Civil War, sporting both a 9-round .42 caliber cylinder of pistol bullets and a shotgun barrel as cylinder axis. Alexander LeMat received a contract for 15,000 of these guns for the Confederate military, b...

Colonel Jean Alexandre LeMat was a native Frenchman who emigrated to the United States and in 1856 secured a patent for a "grapeshot revolver", which had both a 9-shot .42 caliber cylinder and a 20-gauge smoothbore barrel acting as the cylinder axis. A moveable striking surface on the hammer allo...

Colonel LeMat is best known for his 9-shot muzzleloading .42 caliber revolver with its 20 gauge shot barrel acting as cylinder axis pin - several thousand of these revolvers were imported and used in the field by Confederate officers during the US Civil War (and modern reproductions are available...

The Savage is one of the many revolvers that saw purchase and martial use during the US Civil War - and in this case, martial use on both sides. About 13,000 Savages were bought by the Union army and navy, and another 11,000 were sold commercially. Many of those commercially-sold guns were later ...

The Spiller & Burr was a copy of the 1854 Whitney revolver, made in .36 caliber under contract to the CSA. As with so many Confederate arms projects, many thousands were promised and only a small fraction actually delivered. The Whitney in particular suffered from a lack of suitable materials, wi...

The Tucker & Sherrard (and later Sherrard & Clark) is one of the more interesting Texas Confederate revolvers. The company initially was granted a contract with the Texas state government to provide 100 revolvers per month at $50 each, and took a total of $10,000 of investment capital from the st...

T.W. Cofer was a Virginian gunsmith who made revolvers for the Confederate cause during the Civil War - although he never had a formal contract with the CSA. His pistols were sold privately to individual soldiers, and in at least one case bought in bulk by a unit commander.

One thing that make...

The Sisterdale revolver is one of the most original designs of the Confederate revolvers. It was devised by a group of Texans led by one Alfred Kapp, son of a German immigrant in Sisterdale, Texas. He and his compatriots made six of these revolvers on the Kapp homestead with the intention of obta...