when did cyls begin to swing out for reloading?

[Chickamauga Charlie, SASS #47963]

?

[Lone Dog, SASS #20401]

My WAG is sometime in the last decade of the 19th Century.

[Jack Houston # 35508]

When their wife got bored any wanted to "Try Something New"

[Bart Solo]

Colt did one in 1889. S&W adopted the swing out cylinder in 1896.

[Red Hooker]

A. Albini in Europe (1869) and W. Mason in 1865. Yeah, that Mason, of the Colt Mason c&b cartridge conversions. He was at Remington at the time.

Found this in The Revolver, 1865-1888, A.W.F. Taylerson, which I just picked up Saturday.

[Ivory Jack, #8534 LTG]

A. Albini in Europe (1869) and W. Mason in 1865. Yeah, that Mason, of the Colt Mason c&b cartridge conversions. He was at Remington at the time.

Found this in The Revolver, 1865-1888, A.W.F. Taylerson, which I just picked up Saturday.

 

Does Merwin Hulbert count as having a swing out cylinder?

[Irish Red OToole, #48939]

Does Merwin Hulbert count as having a swing out cylinder?

Hmmm....barrel swings down to the side and slides forward then cylinder follws suit. Don't thinks that's quite it, Jack. But it's close.

[Big Jake1001]

Ya gotta LOAD 'em before ya can Reload 'em. Just sayin' 1890's

 

Big Jake

[Marauder SASS #13056]

It was on a Thursday... :D

[Bad Hand]

I have a C S Shattuck made in Hatfield Mass. in the late 1870s with a swing out cylinder.

[Chickamauga Charlie, SASS #47963]

IJ, no.

BJ, helpful as always.

IROT, save a few spots for us on sun.

CC

[Abe E.S. Corpus SASS #87667]

I bought the movie Rango last weekend for my kids and the Colt-ish looking single action revolvers had swing-out cylinders. I suppose the answer is 1873 but no one noticed at the time.

[Adirondack Jack, SASS #53440]

While as above, some oddballs had em earlier, the style didn't come into common use until the '90s and beyond. As late as the WWI era I suspect most Constables on Patrol would have been armed with breaktops IF they had anything more than a stick and a whistle.

[Church Key, SASS # 33713]

The first S&W with a swing-out cylinder was the 1896 First Model .32 Hand Ejector. It was the beginning of many fine guns.

[Tom Bullweed]

There were several minor arms makers in Europe putting out revolvers with swing-out cylinders in the 1880 timeframe. Glisenti (Italy) and makers in Belgium and England were some of those. The S&W, H&R, Hopkins & Allen and Iver Johnsons of 1890 were pretty much simultaneous around 1890.

 

Seems unreal that the first successfull semi-auto came out in 1896 with the Mauser Broomhandle and the Bergmann. One of the most historically correct things in a Duke Wayne movie was the Bergmann pistol in 'Big Jake' circa 1900.

 

The S&W Number 1 revolver was a .22 7-shot with a tip-up action that hinged on top of the exactly backwards from a Russian or Schofield model. This model was still popular in 1876 when it is believed that G A Custer carried a pair during a little trip into the Black Hills. These tip-actions could be loaded as easily as any swing cylinder action.

[Driftwood Johnson, SASS #38283]

These tip-actions could be loaded as easily as any swing cylinder action.

 

Howdy

 

That is incorrect. Loading and unloading the Tip Ups was slow compared to loading or unloading either a Top Break or a swing out cylinder Smith. The Tip Up design was very simple. They had no form of rapid ejection of spent cases as did the later designs. In order to unload a Tip Up, the shooter would swing open the action, then remove the cylinder and manually eject each spent round in turn by pushing it out with the rod projecting out from the frame of the revolver. This was slow. Once all the empties had been ejected the cylinder could then be reloaded the loaded cylinder was replaced in the frame and the barrel swung shut. It was obviously faster to reload a Tip Up than it was to reload a Cap & Ball revolver, but it was still slow.

 

Loading A Tip Up

 

The genius of the Top Break design was that all spent cartridges were ejected automatically as the barrel was swung down. The Top Break design was mechanically much more complicated than the Tip Up design because of the mechanism that made the automatic ejection possible. Once S&W introduced their first Top Break design, the 44 caliber American Model in 1870, and once it proved successful, they went through their entire line of revolvers, eventually replacing all the Tip Ups with Top Breaks in 32 and 38 calibers.

 

When S&W introduced their first swing out cylinder design in 1896 they became known as Hand Ejectors. This was because the automatic method of ejecting spent cases that the Top Breaks used was not possible with a swing out cylinder. Instead, the shooter would eject all spent cases simultaneously by pushing back the ejector rod manually with his thumb. This method is almost as fast as the way the Top Breaks would automatically eject their empties. It is far quicker and simpler than unloading a Tip Up.