The Evolution of the Pepperbox to the Modern Revolver
One of the first practical and popular revolver designs was the pepperbox, a type of pistol that had been made previously for centuries. Unlike a modern revolver, the pepperbox does not have one single barrel, but instead has a cluster of barrels. Typically percussion, but also in flintlock and the rare matchlock, the pepperbox was a clumsy and unreliable weapon. Though small and concealable, it's multiple barrels caused it to be heavy, unwieldy, and inaccurate. Each barrel had to be loaded with loose bullet and powder by hand, and it was not uncommon for multiple barrels to discharge simultaneously, a disastrous event when it occurred.
In the 1820's a French gun designer named Casimir Lefaucheux invented the pinfire self contained cartridge, one of the first successful self contained cartridges in the world. Makers of pepperbox pistols soon realized that they no longer needed clusters of large barrels, but rather a short cylinder mounted on a frame. After all pepperboxes were not made for accuracy by concealability. Since they were pinfire, they no longer needed to be loaded from the muzzle. Instead the frame could break open were either the cylinder could be loaded by the breech with cartridges, or removed entirely and replaced with preloaded cylinders. The result was a shortened pepperbox that was more concealable and a further step towards the modern revolver
Eventually by the 1830's gun makers had the idea of turning the earlier Lefaucheux pepperbox into a full sized pistol. They mounted a single barrel on the frame around which the cylinder would revolve around and align with when fired. The addition of the longer barrel increased the accuracy of Lefaucheux pepperboxes and would provide inspiration for a man named Samuel Colt to invent the modern revolver.
When Samuel Colt invented the what is now considered the first modern revolver design, he studied many earlier revolver designs, including the pinfire Lefaucheux revolver. Among the features accepted for his new revolver was the idea of having a revolving cylinder that aligned with a single barrel. However, he improved the design by morphing the cylinder into a perfectly round object rather than just a cluster of barrels. He also rejected the use of pinfire cartridges. While revolutionary, they were far too expensive for the average person to purchase. The result was the Colt Paterson, a far sturdier, more reliable, lighter, and more compact type of revolver.
Of course the Colt design would continued to be improved with the addition of centerfire metallic cartridges and the double action trigger. Lefaucheux himself would update his revolver designs to better reflect Colt's philosophy of design.
However, all modern revolvers owe their existence to the ancestor Lefaucheux pinfire revolver pepperbox.
