Re: [DL] Reloadin'

[Lorgryt <lorgryt.detroll@verizon.net>]

About the speed-loading cylinders... All Black Powder revolvers and 
revolving rifles have speed-load cylinders.  Not out of any diliberate 
action, just the way they are designed.  Most Civil War Officers and all 
enlisted men that had a revolver carried spare, loaded, cylinders for their 
revolvers.  One Southern "Share-Cropper" had a box with 12 pre-loaded 
cylinders and all the reloading goods he carried like a purse.

As for the top-break pistol, there were several... The S&W Schofield, .38, 
the S&W Russian .44, the Webley series are all good examples of these.  the 
Russian .44 was remade after the first production run so that it had a 
Swing-Out cylinder (like modern revolvers).  A Speed-Loader was made for 
this by about '79 in America, and about '77 in Germany.

As for a design claiming to be a "speed-load Cylinder," yep, about 1879, 
but steam auto's weren't available until the '90's either... so? You look 
at the Butterfield run lately?  They are using Steam-Wagons for the 
express!  My point here is that the whole world is caty-wollered! Don't try 
to figure history and reality into it too much.  If you do then the 
Gattling-Pistol has to go RIGHT NOW!  It COULD NEVER work.  Metallurgy in 
the 1910's couldn't deal with the steals needed to make a gun like 
that.  Homogenous Steal was a theory in the 1890's, and that is what you 
need to make the gun strong enough to be usable in that caliber at those 
kinds of cyclic rates.

Bo

At 05:52 AM 2/22/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>According to a bok I read, speed load cylinders were not invented until I
>believe 1879.  Also, from what I was able to tell, the only pistolas in the
>era that would lend themselves to a quick & easy reload, would have been the
>smith & wesson (frontier? I would have to heck my book) Because it broke
>open like a shotgun... You could remove the cylinders on other guns, but it
>was much more involved, & required the use of two hands.
>
>Trav