Pepper-box

The Pepper-box revolver or simply pepperbox (also "pepper-pot") is defined as "a repeating firearm that has three or more barrels grouped around a central axis". It mostly appears in the form or a a multi-shot handheld firearm. This type of weapon was popular in North America around the time of the American Civil War, however the concept was introduced much earlier, in the fifteenth century when several single shot barrels were attached to a stock, being fired individually by means of a match. Later (around 1790) pepperboxes were built on the basis of flintlock systems, notably by Nock in England and "Segallas" in Belgium. These weapons were fitted with three, four or seven barrels. The pepperbox, at least the weapon that we mostly associate this term with, was invented in the 1830s and was meant mainly for civilian use. It spread rapidly in the United Kingdom, the USA and some parts of continental Europe. It started disappearing gradually in the 1850s with the manufacture of true revolvers by Colt, Webley and others. It was similar to the later revolver in that it contained bullets in separate chambers in a rotating cylinder. Unlike the revolver, however, each chamber had its own barrel, making a complex indexing system unnecessary (though pepperboxes with such a system do exist).

Some of the pepperboxes require the barrels to be rotated by hand (like the Swedish Engholm or the American threebarrel Manhattan). A few are single action; Most pepperboxes have a mechanism that rotates the barrel group as the hammer is cocked (single- or double action) for each shot. The vast majority use the double action system. "Double action" refers to a triggersystem whereby pulling the trigger rotates the barrel block, cocking the hammer and finally firing the weapon.The main producer of double action top-hammer pepperboxes in the USA was Ethan Allen but this type of weapon (mostly referred to as "bar-hammer pepperbox") was also produced in very large quantities in England.

Some fired the lower barrel instead of the upper, such as the Belgian Marriette (in configurations with between 4 and 24 barrels), the American Blunt and Syms or the English Cooper. Usually these employed an "underhammer" action, with the hammer mounted under the barrels, forward of the trigger (often a ringtrigger). Several other types of firing mechanisms exist, like rotating internal firing pins (Robbins and Lawrence, Comblain), rotating firing pins on a hammer (Sharps, Grunbaum) or multiple firing pins (Martin).

The pepperbox experienced a kind of "revival" in the late 1800's as a short, easily concealable pocketweapon that used pinfire cartridges. A special variation of this kind of weapon, in which the shortness of the barrelcluster was fully utilized, is the French "Apache" or knuckleduster revolver. The pepperboxes from this period disappeared with the demise of the pinfire cartridge.In fact, pepperboxes exist in all ammunition systems: Matchlock, Wheellock, Flintlock, percussion, pinfire, rimfire and centerfire.

Nowadays pepperboxes are only produced for special purposes, particularly for use under water. The German Heckler und Koch P11 is definitely a pepperbox. Also some gunmakers insist on re-inventing the wheel and come up with new pepperbox-type weapons like the .357 magnum COP. Arguably even weapons like the Gatling gun, Vulcan M62 and GAU 30 could be considered pepperboxes.

Accurate aiming with a pepperbox is often difficult and on most types (in particular the ones with a rotating barrelcluster) almost impossible because the hammer is in the line of sight (some pepperboxes have a slot in the hammer through which one is suppposed to aim) en there is no place to put the frontsight. However, the primary market was as a self defense weapon for civilians, meaning most use was at close range. Common practice at the time was in fact not to aim pistols but to "shoot from the hip", holding the gun low and simply pointing at the target's center of mass. Gunfights often happened at point blank range.With this use in mind many pepperboxes are in fact smoothbore, even though rifling had been commonly used for decades by the time of their manufacture. Pepperboxes with rifled barrels do exist, however, particularly the ones from the pinfire era.

There is only one pepperbox that was ever accepted by an army. This is the Swedish five-barrel made by Feilitzen.

A development from the pepperbox is the so-called "transitional" revolver. This weapon uses the same action but with one single barrel attached to the front of a cut-down pepperbox cylinder. A transitional revolver is defined as a revolver (with barrel and cylinder) that does not have a cylinder-stop.

Multi-shot percussion firearms were often considered dangerous because firing one powder charge could ignite the others (a "chainfire"), all at the same time, when proper care was not taken. In a pepperbox this would be less dangerous than when the same thing happened in a single-barreled revolver because in the pepperbox at least all the bullets could freely exit the muzzle. This was perhaps a reason for the pepperbox's survival after more modern revolvers came along, though the cost of the weapon was probably a more important factor. Pepperboxes are much cheaper to produce than revolvers with their relatively complex mechanisms.

The pepperbox should not be confused with a volleygun (like the seven-barrel longgun made by Nock), a firearm that fires multiple rounds by use of multiple barrels. The difference is that a volleygun fires all the barrels simultaneously while the pepperbox is a repeater. Also a firearm with multiple barrels next to each other (like the Jarre) is not a pepperbox: It is called a "harmonica gun".

External links

* [http://www.antiquestopic.com/sharps-pepper-box-pistol-1859-1874/ Sharps pepper-box pistol 1859-1874]
* [http://members.chello.nl/j.vandriel4/farecollection.htm Examples of pepperboxes]