A turret gun is a type of multi-shot hand-held

firearm A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and operated by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see legal definitions). The first firearms originate ...

. It is a variation on the

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

revolver A revolver is a repeating handgun with at least one barrel and a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers (each holding a single cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold six cartridges before needing to be reloaded, ...

, designed with chambers in a drum mounted so it would rotate horizontally (around a vertically mounted pivot), rather than around a horizontal axis, in an attempt to circumvent the

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

Samuel Colt Samuel Colt (; July 19, 1814 – January 10, 1862) was an American inventor, industrialist, and businessman who established Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company and made the mass production of revolvers commercially viable. Col ...

. Chambers opened in all directions, and the weapon was prone to row ignition, all chambers firing in sequence, resulting in fatal accidents because one chamber always faces the shooter. Several designs were attempted, including an 1837 Cochran and an 1851 Porter. A number of turret rifles were also attempted. None of these weapons were successful, due to the row-firing hazard. As a result, they are very rare and much sought-after.

Sources

Jeff Kinard, ''Pistols'', 2004
(page 64) (Google Books)

External links

- This link is now defunct and is replaced by an archive link.
The Turret Pistol with firearms expert Jonathan Ferguson
on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

Firearms {{Firearms-stub