A revolver is a repeating handgun with at least one barrel and a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers for firing. Because most revolver models hold up to six cartridges, before needing to be reloaded, revolvers are commonly called six shooters or sixguns. Due to their rotating cylinder mechanism, they may also be called wheel guns.
A cartridge, also known as a round, is a type of pre-assembled firearm ammunition packaging a projectile, a propellant substance and an ignition device (primer) within a metallic, paper, or plastic case that is precisely made to fit within the barrel chamber of a breechloading gun, for convenient transportation and handling during shooting. Although in popular usage the term "bullet" is often used to refer to a complete cartridge, the correct usage only refers to the projectile.
The .38 Special, also commonly known as .38 S&W Special, .38 Smith & Wesson Special, .38 Spl, .38 Spc, or 9×29mmR is a rimmed, centerfire cartridge designed by Smith & Wesson.
Winchester rifle is a comprehensive term describing a series of lever action repeating rifles manufactured by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Developed from the 1860 Henry rifle, Winchester rifles were among the earliest repeaters. The Model 1873 was particularly successful, being marketed by the manufacturer as "The Gun That Won the West".
The Colt Single Action Army is a single-action revolver handgun. It was designed for the U.S. government service revolver trials of 1872 by Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company and was adopted as the standard-issued revolver of the U.S. Army from 1873 to 1892.
A center-fire is a type of metallic cartridge used in firearms, where the primer is located at the center of the base of its casing. Unlike rimfire cartridges, the centerfire primer is typically a separate component seated into a recessed cavity in the case head and is replaceable by reloading the cartridge.
The .40 S&W (10.2×22mm) is a rimless pistol cartridge developed jointly by American firearms manufacturers Smith & Wesson and Winchester in 1990. The .40 S&W was developed as a law enforcement cartridge designed to duplicate performance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) reduced-velocity 10mm Auto cartridge which could be retrofitted into medium-frame semi-automatic handguns. It uses 0.40-inch-diameter (10 mm) bullets ranging in weight from 105 to 200 grains.
The .45 Colt (11.43×33mmR), often called the .45 Long Colt, is a rimmed straight-walled handgun cartridge dating to 1872. It was originally a black-powder revolver round developed for the Colt Single Action Army revolver. This cartridge was adopted by the U.S. Army in 1873 and served as an official US military handgun cartridge for 19 years, before being replaced by the .38 Long Colt in 1892. Although there has never been a ".45 Short Colt" cartridge, the .45 Colt is frequently called the ".45 Long Colt" to better distinguish it from the shorter and less powerful .45 Schofield cartridge, which was also in use around the same time as the .45 Colt.
The .38 Long Colt, also known as .38 LC, is a black powder centerfire cartridge introduced by Colt's Manufacturing Company in 1875. In 1892, it was adopted as a standard military pistol cartridge by the United States Army for the Colt M1892 revolver. The metric designation for the .38 Long Colt is 9.1×26mm. It is slightly more powerful than the .38 Short Colt, also known as .38 SC. The original .38 SC and .38 LC differ in case length, bullet diameter, weight, and design and are not interchangeable; however, modern production .38 SC ammunition is now loaded with a smaller, internally-lubricated bullet which can be fired from firearms chambered in .38 LC or .38 Special. The modern .38 LC can be fired from a .38 Special firearm, but not from a firearm designed for the .38 SC, since the case length is too long.
The .44 Smith & Wesson Special, also commonly known as .44 S&W Special, .44 Special, .44 Spl, .44 Spc, or 10.9×29mmR, is a smokeless powder center fire metallic revolver cartridge developed by Smith & Wesson in 1907 as the standard chambering for their New Century revolver, introduced in 1908.
The .32 S&W Long / 7.65x23mmR, often called the .32 Long, is a straight-walled, centerfire, rimmed handgun cartridge, based on the earlier .32 S&W cartridge. It was introduced in 1896 for Smith & Wesson's first-model Hand Ejector revolver. Colt called it the .32 Colt New Police in revolvers it made chambered for the cartridge.
A moon clip is a ring-shaped or star-shaped piece of metal designed to hold multiple cartridges together as a unit, for simultaneous insertion and extraction from a revolver cylinder. Moon clips may either hold an entire cylinder's worth of cartridges together, half a cylinder, or just two neighboring cartridges. The two-cartridge moon clips can be used for those revolvers that have an odd number of loading chambers such as five or seven and also for those revolvers that allow a shooter to mix both rimless and rimmed types of cartridges in one loading of the same cylinder.
Harrington & Richardson Arms Company is an American brand of firearms and a subsidiary of JJE Capital Holdings. H&R ceased independent production February 27, 2015.
The M1917 Revolvers were six-shot, .45 ACP, large frame double action revolvers adopted by the United States Military in 1917, to supplement the standard M1911 pistol during World War I. There were two variations of the M1917, one made by Colt and the other by Smith & Wesson. They used moon-clips to hold the cartridges in position, facilitate reloading, and to aid in extraction since revolvers had been designed to eject rimmed cartridges and .45 ACP rounds were rimless for use with the magazine-fed M1911. After World War I, they gained a strong following among civilian shooters. A commercial rimmed cartridge, the .45 Auto Rim, was also developed, so M1917 revolvers could eject cartridge cases without using moon-clips.
The .460 S&W Magnum round is a powerful revolver cartridge designed for long-range handgun hunting in the Smith & Wesson Model 460 revolver.
The Smith & Wesson Model 3 is a single-action, cartridge-firing, top-break revolver produced by Smith & Wesson (S&W) from around 1870 to 1915, and was recently again offered as a reproduction by Smith & Wesson and Uberti.
The Remington-Beals Model Revolvers along with subsequent models and variations were percussion revolvers manufactured by Eliphalet Remington & Sons in .31 (Pocket) .36 (Navy) or .44 (Army) caliber, used during the American Civil War, and was the beginning of a successful line of medium and large frame pistols. They are commonly, though inaccurately, referred to as the Model 1858 due to the patent markings on its New Model barrels, "PATENTED SEPT. 14, 1858/E. REMINGTON & SONS, ILION, NEW YORK, U.S.A./NEW MODEL."; although wide scale production did not start until 1861.
A handgun is a firearm designed to be usable with only one hand. It is distinguished from a long barreled gun which typically is intended to be held by both hands and braced against the shoulder. Handguns have shorter effective ranges compared to long guns, and are much harder to shoot accurately. While most early handguns are single-shot pistols, the two most common types of handguns used in modern times are revolvers and semi-automatic pistols.
In firearms, the cylinder is the cylindrical, rotating part of a revolver containing multiple chambers, each of which is capable of holding a single cartridge. The cylinder rotates (revolves) around a central axis in the revolver's action to sequentially align each individual chamber with the barrel bore for repeated firing. Each time the gun is cocked, the cylinder indexes by one chamber. Serving the same function as a rotary magazine, the cylinder stores ammunitions within the revolver and allows it to fire multiple times, before needing to be reloaded.
The .500 S&W Magnum or 12.7×41mmSR is a .50 caliber semi-rimmed revolver cartridge developed by Cor-Bon in partnership with the Smith & Wesson "X-Gun" engineering team for use in the Smith & Wesson Model 500 X-frame revolver and introduced in February 2003 at the SHOT Show. It was intended to be the most powerful handgun cartridge to date, with the capacity to harvest all North American game species. More powerful handgun cartridges, such as the .500 Bushwhacker, have emerged since, however.
