Percussion Revolvers: A Guide to Their History, Performance, and Use

by Mike Cumpston

Highly detailed and informative, Percussion A Guide to Their History, Performance, and Use explores the advent, development, and use of precartridge revolvers during the middle years of the nineteenth century. Through the use of modern replicas, authors and shooting enthusiasts Johnny Bates and Mike Cumpston investigate the capacities and limitations of the original revolvers, providing insight about accuracy, utility, and ballistic performance.

The percussion revolver emerged in the 1830s and remained state of the art until metallic cartridge revolvers came into common use in the mid-1870s. Bates and Cumpston discuss the development of the precartridge arms, placing them in their proper historic context. They also take a look at modern replicas, including detailed information on selection, maintenance, and shooting, while delving into both the positive and negative realities that can be encountered when using these firearms.

A valuable reference for the student, fiction writer, and active shooter, Percussion Revolvers is an in-depth and comprehensive exploration of caplock handguns and their modern replicas.

212 pages, Paperback

First published July 13, 2007

Reviews

[nicholas kreiling · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book goes into detail with some interesting facts at first, but very quickly loses you in the details of the black powder type weapons. This book would serve a much better purpose as a manual for a novice gunsmith than as a little weekend reading for that casual black powder shooter. It is well written, but I found it to be too detailed for my purposes. Like I said, if I were an amateur gunsmith working with black powder weapons only, this would be great. Otherwise it is just obnoxious.