As Colt vs S&W was brought up in another thread I decided to initiate a new thread rather than continue on a tangent to the original topic.
Of course neither Colt nor S&W invented "The Revolver". Revolvers had been on the scene for more than 200 years in limited numbers & for the most part not very successful before either Colt or S&W entered the picture. It is virtually certain that while on his tour as a seaman while in Calcutta Sam Colt saw a Collier revolver. He recognised its potential but saw its faults as well. On hie return trip home he worked on his ideas for improving the revolver, carving a wooden model in every off duty moment he had.
On his return home he continued to work on it, hiring a machinist, Anson Chase, to build a patent model in iron/steel. His subsequent patent consisted of 4 features.
1-A pawl connected to the hammer to rotate the cylinder upon cocking
2-A locking bolt to secure each chamber in line with the barrel, also operated by the hammer.
3-The cones for the percussion caps were located in the rear of the cylinder on the C/Ls of the chambers
4-He placed a partition between the caps to prevent cross flash from setting off adjacent caps, this one came as a result of a catastrophic failure of the first model built from that cause.
This patent was issued in 1836 on the day Santa Ana attacked the Alamo.
S&W thus could not build a successful revolver until the expiration of Colt's patent 21 years later in 1857. They put their little .22 short, 7 shot #1 "Tip Up" on the market in 1858, utilizing Rollin White's patent for a bored through cylinder. Bored through cylinders had been utilized in Europe for a number of years, but apparently had not been patented in the US.
