Rollin White's Single Shot .38 Rimfire Pistol
Forgotten Weapons
•
8m 12s
Rollin White was the inventor who patented the bored-through cylinder in the US, and sold an exclusive right to this patent to Smith & Wesson. They would use it as the basis for their own work with self-contained cartridges (White’s patent was originally intended as a way to load paper cartridges from the rear of the cylinder), but when the Civil War broke out White was in an odd position. Having sold an exclusive license to his idea to S&W, he could not sell guns utilizing that system himself. He was involved in the formation of the Rollin White Arms Company in 1861, and would make .22 rimfire revolvers, but only for purchase by S&W, who acted as the seller/distributor for them.
White did produce one other model of pistol in an attempt to chase in on the demand for arms during the war, and this was a single shot pistol that thus did not infringe on his licensing agreement with S&W. The design was very similar to a Smith & Wesson revolver, but with a single shot tip-out breechblock in place of a cylinder. Two versions were made, a small frame in .32 rimfire and a large frame (as we are looking at today) in .38 rimfire. The small type sold reasonably well, with 3,000 made - but only 200-300 of the large type were built. Most likely, it was simply too large for people to justify as a single-shot pistol.
Up Next in Forgotten Weapons
-
Remington-Lee Model 1899: A Final Smo...
The Model 1899 was the last pattern of the Remington Lee Military Rifle, following the models of 1879, 1882, and 1885. In this final guise, it was redesigned to handle new smokeless powder ammunition, with a new detachable bolt head that included two additional locking lugs. Only a few thousand w...
-
Teenagers vs the British Empire: Smit...
On May 20, 1826 the United States Congress formally presented Model 1819 Hall rifles with personalized silver plaques to the 20 members of Aikin’s Volunteers, for their “Gallantry at the Siege of Plattsburg”. The Volunteers were a group of 20 boys, aged 14-17, from the Plattsburg Academy who join...
-
Polytech AKS - The First Wave of Semi...
The first semiauto commercial AK rifles to enter the US were Finnish Valmets. These established a US collector interested but while excellent in quality, they did not quite fit the visual pattern of the classic Sino-Soviet military Kalashnikov. The first of those to find its way into the US was t...
