doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 1860 10ga semi-auto

Sometimes you just stumble over things, like this auction on GunBroker. Have to wonder how different things would be today if this concept had taken off. Actually a very nice example.

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=80055990





Pete

Per the Ad;

Sounds like a revolving shotgun to me, I fail to get the connection with "Semi-Auto". I didn't wait for all 32 pics to download on my dial-up connection though, perhaps I missed something.

Nothing "auto" about it that I can see, I don’t know what a “simi-auto” is anyway. A gun is either a auto loader or it's not. Perhaps you mean it’s a "repeater", but revolver is what I would call it.
It is a neat gun, something you don't see every day. didn't say its a DA or SA.

The idea didn't catch on. Once in every while all cylinders would discharge at the same time with dire consequences to the shooters forward hand...

Regards
eug

Miller,

It was a small attempt at humor. Obviously not a good attempt. Oh well.

Pete

I'm sure cross fires happened...I still tend to believe it to be more urban legand than reality.

Looks like an iterative chamber design to me. Is it a unibarreled quintuple? I think it best to think of all shotguns as "enhanced" single shots.

jack

The gun did have problems with chain fires, and the few Army users were taught to keep both hands behind the cylinder. By the way, chain fires happen due to improperly fitted percussion caps, or those jarred lose by recoil, not across the front of the cylinder as some think. Most were issued to cavalry where the banging around on a horse didn't help with the security of the percussion caps and cross fires. It also had poor timing in that a trend was toward more powderful cartridges for rifles and away from muzzleloaders. Probably the biggest roadblock was the continued reluctance on the part of the US Army to accept higher maintenance repeaters versus rugged single shots with a sturdy bayonet. Despite the Civil War success with Spencers and Henrys they went backward to the single shot trap door for approximately 30 years. I believe We had National Guard troops armed with Springfield trapdoors as late as WW I when there were still too few 1903A3 Springfields available to equip all regular army trainees prior to departure for France.

The Colt Revolving Shotgun was pretty neat in its time. A lot of bang when needed, but slow to load, and it did have a few operational technical difficulties. It was, like its rifle mate, prone to get out of time

And, the cylinder gap presented other difficulties. Even if you didnt get a chain fire, the flash from the cylinder gap would set your shirt sleeve afire, on your forward hand. So troops held on to the trigger guard with the off hand- awkward at best.

Wingshooting is likely a bit problematic with a Colt Revolving Shotgun.

Regards

GKT

Jerry, there were no 1903A3s(only 1903s) during WW-I. The A3s were built to fill the shortage of M1s in WW-II.