PISTOLS.
A Pistol is a small rifle, usually aimed and fired with one hand. A revol ver is a pistol having a revolving cylinder or revolving barrels. The term pistol. is, however, applied indiscriminately by many to both single shot pistols and revolvers. The earliest single-shot pistols were of foreign manufacture, and of the dueling pattern. These, frequently of smooth bore, were followed by military rifled pistols, made by machinery. These, in turn, with the advent of the metallic cartridge, were followed by a variety of cheap single-shot, breech-loading pistols of small caliber. The first American re volvers were crude; but meritorious because of the reserve fire and ability to fire rapidly. The changes from percussion to rim-fire cartridges. and from rim-fire to central-fire cartridges retarded improvements in the aim to increase accuracy. The revolver to-day holds its popularity, and is owned and shot by most pistol experts; yet the single-shot pistol is generally used in target and match shooting. They are made in calibers from .22 to .5o, most of them be ing made in the .22 caliber, the Stevens, Wurfflein and Smith & Wesson be ing chambered and rifled for the long-rifle cartridge in the .22 caliber, which is extremely accurate; .32, .38 and .44 calibers are also very popular. With few exceptions, modern American pistols and revolvers take the metallic car tridges, which are made in enormous quantities and variety of styles by our standard cartridge companies. The invention of the revolver is very far front new, specimens, with even the present system of rotation, being still in ex istence, which were manufactured at the beginning of the seventeenth cen tury. Probably the first revolver to suggest itself was one barrels were mounted on an axis, and made to revolve by the action of the trigger, so that their powder pans came succeessively under the action of the lock. This principle was never entirely abandoned, and in the reign of George IV. was produced a pistol called the "Mariette," which had front four to twenty-four small barrels, bored in a solid mass of metal, made to re volve as the trigger was drawn back. At close quarters, such a pistol would
doubtless have been useful; but its great weight and cumbrous mechanism rendered aim extremely unsteady. Contemporaneously from the first with the revolving barrels went forth the formation of a revolving chamber or breech, pierced with several cylindrical apertures to receive the charg-es. Being made to revolve, each motion brought a chamber into line with the one bar rel, common to all, whereupon the weapon was ready for use. Numerous pat ents for this principle have been taken out, including one by the celebrated Marquis of Worcester in 1661. Various improvements were made, especially in the mode of causing revolution, an American, by the name of Elisha H. Collier, patenting such a weapon in th2 United States and England about 1818. In 1835 Colonel Samuel Colt brought to a conclusion experiments of some years' standing, and patented his world-renowned Colt's revolver, which was a great advance on all previous attempts, and is substantially still in use.
Several inventors are struggling with the problem of ma,gazine pistols. The advantages of such an arm are great and obvious. So long as the powder chamber and the barrel are separate the revolver cannot lay claim to the title of an arm of precision or high power. The break in the arm where the cyl inder and barrel meet, or are supposed to meet, permits a considerable escape of gas with a resulting loss of pressure and consequent reduction of velocity. Any attempt to increase the velocity by the use of long-er and more power ful ammunition adds unduly to the length and weight of the arm without equivalent gain, for the higher and longer sustained the powder pressure the greater the escape of gass. Moreover, the present ammunition gives quite re coil enough. The defects of the revolver seem inseparable front the funda mental principles of its construction, and it is a recognition of this fact that has led to the present investigations of the possibilities of maga7ine pistols.