mizar,
The Savage revolving rifle used a system that shoved the cylinder forward over the forcing cone as the weapon fired. This was also a feature of their ring finger revolving pistols. As with Colts the pistol and rifles from savage are sort of a chicken and egg thing when it comes to actual production rather than tool room samples. Colt's earliest revolving carbines were used in Florida against the Seminole...then the Texas Rangers got revolving pistols based on those designs. Colt then concentrated on handguns until the Root based designs came out.
Keep in mind that when the Colt Root 1855 rifles, carbines, shotguns and handguns came out that S&W had not fielded their little rimfires yet and Henry had not developed his .44 rimfire cartridge yet nor improved the Jennings rifle enough for Oliver Winchester (the major stock holder even then) to name the resultant gun the Henry. Some people are unaware that older Winchester rimfire cartridges, used by many of us older THR-ers had a capital H headstamp to commemorate Henry's efforts. You see Henry felt he had a winner with his improvements to the Jennings rifle, but the rocket ball ammo was just not performing. When Winchester, an industrial shirt maker who really under stood machines, got a big chunk of his money involved he told Henry "A rifle is just a machine for throwing balls. If your machine is about as far as it can go you need a better ball." Thus the S&W (where Henry had worked on the Volcanic guns) .22 Rim fire cartridge that he had a hand in inventing got increased in size to .44. But this was a couple of years AFTER Colt had his Root Carbines out and in the public and government eye.
The Revolving rifle made plenty of sense before metallic cartridges and yes there were pinfire revolving carbines (in Europe) before rimfire cartridges became available as well. Interestingly some of the 12 mm pinfire carbines could use the standard revolver ammo OR a longer Carbine only cartridge interchangeably.
Today the interest in Revolving carbines is as a toy for the most part and there is no accounting for what folks want to play with. I have tried to talk down a number of folks to be reasonable on a Remington NMA based Carbine such as the company offered AFTER the Civil War. Unfortunatly folks want way to much for them, even the older repros with brass frames.
In Europe, Belgium mostly, copies of the Colt 1851 pistol were made with long barrels and fixed stocks as carbines. I think they looked nicer than the Colts equipped with normal barrels and taking the removable stock. to the best of my knowledge Colt never offered such a system for sale in the US. What became known as the Buntline special edition of the later cartridge revolver 1873 SAA was offered with a long barrel, ladder sights, and removable skeletal steel butt stock.
I just think a .31 Remington 1863 based revolving carbine about the size of one of the Cricket or Chipmunk rifles (longer length of pull and shorter barrel) would be a hoot and a half. That small and light it should be easy to handle with a two handed grip on the "pistol grip" and very much like a .22LR in power. One would certainly need eye protection with it but many of us (and all of us should) use such when shooting anything.
-kBob
