Papabyrd
Corporal
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2021
- Location
- Anniston Alabama
I bought an Allen & Wheelock center hammer lip fire 44 caliber army revolver, and it came today. It is in great working condition, but all the bluing is gone.
They only made a few hundred of these fine revolvers because Smith & Wesson was going to sue then for making revolvers with drill through cylinders.
Smith has the patent on that and shot several gunmakers out of business because of it. So, Allen started making this same gun in percussion models.
This pistol is serial # 157 and some time in its life it was converted to 44 Henry rim fire by shaving off the back of the cylinder just a little bit.
I have a habit of pulling the grips off of every old gun I buy to see if anyone has written anything on the inside of the grip. This one has a name on the back of the right grip. C.W. Whitney. I looked up C.W. Whitney in the CW muster rolls, and 120 C. Whitney's popped up of the 120, 93 were Charles. but only 10 were C.W. Whitney. Out of these 10 I dismissed 5 because they were infantry privates. Don't think they would be hauling around a revolver of this size.
So, That leaves Charles W. Whitney co I 1st Ohio Cavalry. Chester W. Whitney co G & C 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry. Charles W. Whitney 6th Independent Battery Massachusetts light Artillery. Sergeant Cyrus W. Whitney co I 7th Michigan Infantry. Charles W. Whitney co A 2nd Maine Cavalry. Assuming This guy was in the military it could be any of them or none of them. Neet thing about this gun is the way you eject the hulls out of the cylinder. You pull the little latch on the back of the trigger guard and pull the trigger guard forward and it works a rod that pushes the hull out. When they started making then in percussion fire this same action was used to load the cylinder like the leaver under the barrel of a Colt. last picture is of the other Allen & Wheelocks i have in my collection.
They only made a few hundred of these fine revolvers because Smith & Wesson was going to sue then for making revolvers with drill through cylinders.
Smith has the patent on that and shot several gunmakers out of business because of it. So, Allen started making this same gun in percussion models.
This pistol is serial # 157 and some time in its life it was converted to 44 Henry rim fire by shaving off the back of the cylinder just a little bit.
I have a habit of pulling the grips off of every old gun I buy to see if anyone has written anything on the inside of the grip. This one has a name on the back of the right grip. C.W. Whitney. I looked up C.W. Whitney in the CW muster rolls, and 120 C. Whitney's popped up of the 120, 93 were Charles. but only 10 were C.W. Whitney. Out of these 10 I dismissed 5 because they were infantry privates. Don't think they would be hauling around a revolver of this size.
So, That leaves Charles W. Whitney co I 1st Ohio Cavalry. Chester W. Whitney co G & C 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry. Charles W. Whitney 6th Independent Battery Massachusetts light Artillery. Sergeant Cyrus W. Whitney co I 7th Michigan Infantry. Charles W. Whitney co A 2nd Maine Cavalry. Assuming This guy was in the military it could be any of them or none of them. Neet thing about this gun is the way you eject the hulls out of the cylinder. You pull the little latch on the back of the trigger guard and pull the trigger guard forward and it works a rod that pushes the hull out. When they started making then in percussion fire this same action was used to load the cylinder like the leaver under the barrel of a Colt. last picture is of the other Allen & Wheelocks i have in my collection.
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