There are a lot of cool firearms out there that seem to get lost among our tactical tupperware and ridiculous rifle builds. Every once in a while I run into these guns, and even more occasionally I think they’re weird enough to share. Such as the pepper-box revolver.
Not legal in California
The pepper-box revolver is a handgun with multiple barrels that have been grouped around a central axis. The old firearms are much like the traditional revolvers we now recognize, except each cylinder has its own barrel. Which would be all well-and-good, except every extra bit of capacity added adds another barrel and a significant amount of weight to the front, so the higher capacity pepper-box revolvers were front-heavy and, I’m guessing, extremely difficult to aim.
What intrigues me the most about the pepper-box is the extremes to which they were taken. There were percussion-cap versions of the pepper-box revolver designed with 24 barrels that took 40-60 minutes to load. (There was definitely no showing up 10 minutes before the range closed to put “a few rounds downrange”.)
The smaller capacity models were popular in the 19th century as pocket guns. Even by today’s internet-set standards the pepper-box was the perfect pocket gun: with a possible 24 round capacity, they were chambered in cartridges as large as the .476 Enfield providing excellent stopping power and, since all revolvers always work, they must have been extremely reliable. In fact, HK even has one that can shoot underwater. Sadly, this is not the 1800s anymore and we have more knowledge of ballistics (and better ammo), so it’s probably best to appreciate the pepper-box for what it is and buy a Ruger LCR or some tactical tupperware instead, although you won’t be able to attach a bayonet to the LCR.
However, if you really want to carry a pepper-box revolver, Amazon has a pretty cool replica you can pick up.
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ReplyDeleteHow much ist such a gun?
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