North & Skinner Revolving Rifle
Percussion Long Guns
•
4m 16s
The North & Skinner was an early 6-shot percussion-fired revolving rifle design. Its design was patented in 1852 by Henry North and Chauncy Skinner (US Patent #8982), and the guns were manufactured from 1856 to 1859 by the Savage & North company (which was Henry North and Edward Savage - not the Arthur Savage who developed the Savage 99). About 600 of these guns were made in total, with roughly 20% being .60-caliber shotguns and the remainder .44 caliber rifles. Unlike many revolving rifle designs, the North & Skinner functioned as a lever action, with the trigger guard serving as lever.
The North & Skinner design also included several features intended to protect the shooter from the cylinder gap blast (which was a significant problem with all such revolving rifle designs). It used recessed chambers and a locking wedge that would push the cylinder forward to achieve a semblance of a gas seal (a bit like the 1895 Nagant revolver). How well this worked, I have not been able to determine - perhaps one of these days I will find an example of the gun that I can shoot and find out.
Up Next in Percussion Long Guns
-
The 1843 Side-Lever Hall Carbine by S...
The final production version of the Hall was Simeon North’s Model 1843 Carbine, of which 10,500 were made between 1844 and 1853. It used North’s percussion update to the design, and a cleverly simple calming lug connected to a lever on the right side of the action to open the breech. These were s...
-
Bilharz Hall & Co : A Crude Confedera...
In 1863, the Bilharz, Hall, & Co firm of Pittsylvania Court House, Virginia (now Chatham VA) received a contract to make 1,000 examples of a simple percussion cavalry carbine modeled after the US Model 1855 carbine. They would work until the end of 1864, but only make a total of 750-800 of them. ...
-
Morse Carbine: If the Army Says No, S...
George Morse was one of the most significant American inventors in the development of modern ammunition. In 1856 he received a patent for the first completely self-contained brass cartridge, and a breechloading firearm to use it. Morse’s cartridge was made of several parts, a solid brass case hea...
