Any history buffs wanna explain this one to me?

[Russell13]

I can usually figure out the purpose behind most antique firearms but this one has me baffled. You rotate the cylinder with the lever and not by cocking the hammer? Why would you want this? Doesn’t seem like it would be very easy to operate. I’m not sure the type or year of the gun(only found the picture and no info on it). But if it was made after the Patterson and Walker my question would be why????

 

[ShotgunDave]

That's an 1861 Savage Navy. The bottom ring cocks the hammer and revolves the cylinder. It's basically an early attempt at a double action revolver. They were actually used during the Civil War.

 

[Russell13]

So would you use your middle finger to work the action?

 

[troy fairweather]

With gun patents you couldn't just go copy, this lead to some interesting guns.

 

[Russell13]

Yeah I thought about that also. People trying to reinvent the wheel.

 

[DocRock]

Early days.

 

[arcticap]

The gun could be fired six times without moving your arm or moving the gun off target, in part made easier by the low bore axis.
The gun was pretty much jam proof.
The chamber mouths had a gas seal with the barrel forcing cone.
The Army test fired it 102 times in a row without a misfire.
It operated as a double action yet had a light single action trigger.
The gun was overbuilt and could have been made as a .44.

 

[Russell13]

Cool videos. It’s actually a pretty smart design.

 

[entropy]

Sam Colt was very protective of his patents in the 1850's when the Savage revolver was designed. It was an attempt to circumvent his patents as well as introduced double action, and gas sealing. (used later in the M1895 Nagant revolver) The Pettengill revolver of the same period was another design that did this, and also introduced DAO.

 

[Catman42]

a really nice gun, maybe uberti should make this one again. very good video.

 

[.455_Hunter]

I like Cap & Ball because he often shoots original weapons, not just replicas like Duelist1954. I am sure the hard core "white glove" collectors wince every time one of his videos is posted.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

It is the Savage-North Navy Revolver.






One of my projects that needs completing. It functions fine, I just have to clean out all the old gunk inside.






I also need to see if I can unscrew the nipples without damaging them. I also need to figure out what size caps it needs.






Just one more project that needs some attention.

 

[792mauser]

Neat revolver workaround.
Well when the way from point A to B to C is covered... then it's time to check out what point Q is up to.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy Again

Although I have not fired mine yet, I can make a couple of comments.

Definitely takes getting used to, pulling the lower 'cocking lever' with the middle finger, then pulling the trigger with the usual trigger finger. That is the only way that is comfortable for me, much too awkward to cock the hammer with the normal trigger finger and then reposition the trigger finger to drop the hammer.

As was stated in the video, the gas seal bit is not very effective.

Each chamber mouth has a bevel cut into it.






When the cylinder slides forward, the rear of the barrel slides into the bevel of the chamber mouth.






This serves as part of the locking system for the cylinder. There are no conventional locking slots on the cylinder as with most revolvers. There are notches cut into the backing piece of the cylinder. There is a spring loaded bolt of sorts mounted in the bottom of the cylinder window of the frame. When the cocking lever is pulled back the cylinder slides back withdrawing the chamber mouths from the rear of the barrel, allowing the cylinder to turn. When the cocking lever is released prior to a shot, the cylinder slides forward again, engaging the next chamber mouth into the rear of the barrel. Interestingly enough, at this point, the bolt is only engaging the locking notches at the rear of the cylinder on one side. As can be seen int the photo below, the notches on one side are cut short. and only engage the bolt on one side. I'm not really sure why it was done this way, but at this point, the cylinder could rotate back if the chamber mouths had not 'swallowed' the rear of the barrel.

Perhaps no conventional cylinder locking slots to avoid Colt's patents, but other contemporary revolvers had them.






Anyway, if I ever get around to firing it, I do not expect pin point accuracy because somebody decided to file down the rear sight flush with the frame at some point.

 

[bikerdoc]

Interesting and intriguing, especially to a blackpowder novice like me!

 

[indy1919a4]

I did like how the video did discuss prices of the guns as they were sold new and as surplus.

the price will rise slightly in the 1930s.. this is taken from the one of the Catalogs of the great Francis Bannerman..

 

[arcticap]

I did like how the video did discuss prices of the guns as they were sold new and as surplus.

the price will rise slightly in the 1930s.. this is take from the one of the Catalogs of the great Francis Bannerman..

View attachment 922986

And Bannerman bought a lot of his US surplus by the ton.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...rmy-navy-surplus-empire.841069/#post-10919235

 

[Loyalist Dave]

With gun patents you couldn't just go copy, this lead to some interesting guns.

BINGO!

Got it in one. Colt had a reputation of defending his patent with passion, and remember folks even IF Colt or another brand lost the case against the newcomer..., how many years and how much $$ would it cost to win against the larger company?

On the other hand IF you spent the time and money and got a patent, you wanted an item not exactly easy for the bigger companies to "infringe" upon...???


LD

 

[orpington]

With gun patents you couldn't just go copy, this lead to some interesting guns.

Right. Mighty inconvenient for those not holding the pattern but it allowed for a vast array of mostly Yankee ingenuity and makes the collecting of firearms from this era vastly more interesting.

 

[Jim Watson]

Smith and Wesson's license for the Rollin White patent required him to defend against infringement. I have read that legal expenses about wiped out the license fees.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Smith and Wesson's license for the Rollin White patent required him to defend against infringement. I have read that legal expenses about wiped out the license fees.

That is correct. White would not sell the rights to his patent outright to Smith and Wesson, but he did agree to license them to make revolvers using the concept of a cylinder bored through to accept cartridges. S&W had to pay him a royalty for every revolver they produced. I forget now if it was $.25 or $.50 for each revolver, but which ever that was a sizeable sum of money in the 1850s and 1860s. The patent finally expired in 1869. Crafty old Daniel Wesson wrote into the contract that it was White's responsibility to go after patent infringements, and there were plenty. I don't recall if White actually wound up broke or not, but paying lawyers to pursue patent infringements certainly ate up a lot of his time and money.

Daniel Wesson was crafty because as a young man he had been hauled over the coals financially. Daniel's older brother Edwin was a successful gunsmith making precision target rifles and pistols. Daniel apprenticed to Edwin when he was 17 years old. At one point Daniel was pretty well running the shop while Edwin was drumming up business. Edwin anticipated expanding the business and borrowed a lot of money to expand the business. In 1849 Edwin dropped dead of a heart attack and he was $15,000 in dept, a considerable sum at the time. Edwin's creditors stepped in and took everything of value, including Daniel's personal tools. This experience taught him to always be very careful about patents and how they were written.

Speaking of patents, and how to get around them, I once asked Roy Jinks, the official S&W historian, if Joseph Merwin came up with the unusual mechanism for the Merwin Hulbert revolvers because of patent restrictions. Roy said yes, at the time S&W controlled all the patents that made a Top Break revolver possible, so Merwin had to go down a different road to make his unusual revolvers.

 

[Mike 56]

I really like that Savage! Thanks for posting. I have an M-95 Nagant I shoot it all the time I load three different carts for it 32ACP, converted 32-20 brass and 762x38r gas seal carts. I like the gas seal rounds the best. The root pocket pistol also looks interesting.