How Old is your Oldest Revolver?

Armored farmer said:

here is a Rollin White .22
Another family heirloom.

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Now that is certainly interesting. Rollin White was the guy who came up with the idea of boring the chambers through a cylinder to accept metallic cartridges. He is the guy who refused to sell his patent outright to Smith and Wesson. He is the guy who S&W paid a royalty of $.25 to for every revolver they manufactured using his patent. And he is the guy who got stuck chasing down all the patent infringements.

I see that is a solid frame revolver, rather than the Tip Ups S&W was producing at the time, otherwise it is very similar to the little revolvers S&W was making.

Do you have a photo of the markings on that revolver? My understanding is that for a time Smith and Wesson was buying up revolvers manufactured by Rollin White when they could not fulfill all their orders. White's company was located in Lowell Massachusetts. It would be really interesting to see the markings, if any, on that revolver.

Armored farmer said:

If my memory serves me, it is marked as "Rollin White Arms co for Smith and Wesson"

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Thanks!

Cornhusker77 said:

My old S&W 38 Safety Hammerless.
The guys over at the S&W forum told me it was made around 1896
The bore is shiny and clean, the pistol is tight, the trigger is terrible, and it shoots.
View attachment 811137

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One trick to shooting the old Safety Hammerless Smiths is the trigger pull will get a little bit stiffer just before the internal hammer drops. You can feel it. So try pulling the trigger to rotate the cylinder, then give it a little bit more pressure to fire the gun.