Gun engineers designed the pistol to accommodate both of these requirements. In particular, they wanted two things revolvers couldn't deliver - faster reloading and greater capacity. After the war, the Colt Peacemaker, more properly known as the Colt M1873, became the symbol of frontier life, westward expansion and outlaw justice.Īlthough revolvers functioned admirably, military personnel and gun enthusiasts wanted more. During the Civil War, his new company produced 100,000 revolvers - the M1860 Army Colt and the M1861 Navy Colt - for both Union and Confederate troops. In double-action varieties, the user pulls the trigger to rotate the cylinder and draw the hammer back to a cocked position. In single-action varieties, the user must manually cock the hammer before firing. When the trigger is pulled, the cylinder rotates and a new chamber lines up with the barrel. They have a cylinder containing multiple chambers, each of which holds a round. Over the years, the basic design of revolvers has changed little.
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And for good reason: Since the 1800s, millions of these simple, rugged, easy-to-use weapons have been used by pioneers, gunslingers, soldiers, police officers, homeowners and, of course, criminals. When most people form a mental image of a gun, they see a revolver. We won't discuss machine guns and other fully automatic assault rifles, which are heavily regulated and not generally considered civilian-friendly weapons. We also considered guns across five major small arms categories - muzzleloaders, shotguns, rifles, revolvers and pistols. To facilitate the task, we made our final selections using several criteria, including manufacturing data, historical significance and anecdotal information from gun sites and enthusiasts. Still, it's this article's job to present the five most popular guns in civilian hands. For example, some custom gun makers may produce fewer than 20 weapons a year, yet their products stir intense customer loyalty. But production levels don't tell the whole story. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) offers some insights with its firearms manufacturing and export reports, which tally the number of guns produced by U.S. Unfortunately, these statistics don't drill down to specific models.