{"id":472,"date":"2022-10-21T09:14:02","date_gmt":"2022-10-21T09:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=472"},"modified":"2022-10-21T09:14:02","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T09:14:02","slug":"collectible-firearms-for-serious-gun-collectors-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=472","title":{"rendered":"Collectible Firearms for Serious Gun Collectors"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The first Smith & Wesson<\/a> handgun was not a revolver, it was a lever-action pistol. The Volcanic family of firearms was an important experiment in the evolution of both repeating arms and self-contained cartridge ammunition, and the venture brought together some of the greatest names in American gunmaking<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What Came Before the Winchester Rifle?<\/h3>\n

While names like Horace Smith, Daniel Wesson, and Benjamin Tyler Henry are well-known in the firearms world, the story of the Volcanic pistol and its Henry and Winchester successors started with Lewis Jennings and Walter Hunt. Based on Walter Hunt\u2019s Rocket Ball cartridge patent (#5701, August 10, 1848)<\/a> and Lewis Jenning\u2019s movable ammunition carrier patent (#6973, Christmas Day, 1849<\/a>), the Jennings was the first commercially produced stepping stone in the story of the Winchester family of lever action rifles.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Jennings design took some inspiration from the ambitious but flawed Hunt Volitional repeater<\/a>, retaining the Hunt\u2019s sliding internal bolt, the Rocket Ball cartridge, and the tubular magazine running beneath the barrel. With a separate locking block at the rear of the breechblock and a solid arm that moved the breechblock in both directions, the Jennings action would resurface nearly four decades later with a similar concept that John Browning<\/a> employed in his Winchester rifle designs<\/a> from the Model 1886 and onward.<\/p>\n

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