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At the end of January of this year, the US Army selected a new pistol to replace the Beretta M9, ​​which has served the Armed Forces for 30 years. But like all weapons in the US arsenal, the Army pistol underwent a slow evolution from slow-loading flintlocks to the polymer-framed semi-automatic pistols used in conflicts around the world today.

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America's first gun was a copy of a British gun. Based on the British Model 1760, the Model 1775 was a .62 caliber smoothbore flintlock pistol. American pistols were manufactured by Rappahannock Forge in Virginia, the main manufacturing and arsenal base for Continental forces during the American Revolution (pictured above), which produced 80,000 rifles. Copies of the Model 1775 pistol were later made at Harper's Ferry. This weapon was called the Model 1805 and was the weapon of choice during the War of 1812.

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North and Cheney based this pistol on the French M1777 pistol. This particular flint hung in President Kennedy's oval office.

After the Revolution, Simeon North, a Connecticut gunsmith, won a contract to make a new pistol. Based on French pistols of the day, North's new cannon was smaller than the 1775 model. In 1813, North received another contract for 20,000 pistols from the United States Army. These had to be fully stocked, fire a .69 caliber cannon and, most importantly, use interchangeable parts, one of the first contracts to require such a feature.

Colonel Richard Johnson fires his flintlock pistol and kills the Shawnee warrior Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames.

Owning these weapons can sometimes mean the difference between life and death. During the War of 1812 Colonel Richard Johnson was wounded in the arm while fighting Tecumseh's Shawnee warriors. While the veracity of this account is still debated, one story says that Johnson barely had time to cock his flintlock and shoot the "undoubtedly brave" native leader, Tecumseh. Johnson would take advantage of this episode to launch his career as a politician and become the ninth Vice President of the United States.

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North continued to produce pistols, producing the Model 1826 for the Navy. America's last flintlock pistol arrived in 1836, the same year that Samuel Colt patented his revolutionary new revolver. Gunsmith Asa Waters produced the Model 1836, a weapon widely used during the Mexican-American War until the early 1840s.

For nearly a century, flintlocks were the preferred ignition system for firearms, but they were notoriously unreliable due to their vulnerability to the elements, and by the 1840s many major European nations such as England and France were moving away from the obsolete flintlock pistols. for new percussion lock guns. These new weapons used mercury fulminate percussion caps to ignite gunpowder instead of flint. The US used the old flintlock system in the 1830s and 1840s before slowly transitioning to newer percussion revolvers.

Officially adopted in 1848, percussion revolvers represented a major advance in firearms technology. The most basic improvement was simple math - now a soldier had six shots before reloading instead of just one. But the firepower of these new pistols was also highly sought after, and revolvers became one of the most iconic weapons in America's bloodiest conflict.

The first American revolver was the Colt Dragoon, originally designed for the Army's Mounted Rifle Regiment. The Dragoon improved on the previous Colt Walker weapon that was widely used during the Mexican-American War. The Dragoon would be the first in a series of Colt pistols used throughout the United States in the 19th century.

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Then came the Civil War, and many percussion revolvers were soon in the hands of Union and Confederate soldiers. The Union mainly issued Colt and Remington revolvers. About 130,000 Colt Army Model 1860 .44 calibers were purchased, along with a significant number of Colt 1851 and 1861 Navy revolvers.

After a Colt Connecticut factory fire in 1864, the military placed significant orders for Remington Model 1858 pistols to fill the void. The solid-framed Remington was a better and sturdier pistol than the open-framed Colt revolvers. Remington continually improved the Model 1858 based on input from the US Army Ordnance Department.

For both sides, pistols were often a soldier's last line of defense. A Confederate newspaper reported that a badly wounded captain in command of an artillery battery at the Battle of Valverde "revolted in hand, refusing to fly or abandon his post ... and fought to the last and died honorably as a hero".

"I fired my pistol at the gray figure with outstretched arm, and he landed on his horse's neck before disappearing in a swirl of dust and galloping horses. . . . I found my two pistols unloaded . . . ."

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It was not uncommon for knights to carry several revolvers, as another Union knight wrote, "we were all armed with revolvers. I carried four Colts, two in my belt and two in my saddle holsters, but not many. Some of my countrymen carried six, for we were determined to fight not to be found wanting!"

"I carried four Colts, two in my belt and two in my saddle holster, but that was no more."

The industrial might of the North ensured the Union advantage during the war, and the Confederacy was forced to use pistols imported from Europe and replicas produced domestically. This included Adams, LeMat and Kerr pistols and copies of Colts and other revolvers made by Spiller & Burr and Griswold & Gunnison.

By the end of the Civil War, self-contained metal cartridges were becoming increasingly popular. The late 1860s and early 1870s saw another small arms revolution, with percussion pistols giving way to cartridge revolvers like the Smith & Wesson Model 3 and the legendary Colt Single Action Army.

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In 1870, the military received its first metal cartridge revolvers from Smith & Wesson. The Model 3 was a top-break revolver, meaning the barrel and cylinder could be lowered to open the action and allow the user to quickly reload the weapon. The new metal cartridges eliminated the need for loose powder and percussion fuzes and greatly increased the revolver's rate of fire, with the skilled shooter firing all six shots in less than five seconds. However, Colt, Smith & Wesson's main competitor, was not far behind.

In 1871, Colt introduced its first cartridge revolver, a year after Smith & Wesson's patent expired. Colt turned to William Mason, an experienced engineer who had previously worked on Colt pistols. Mason produced a pistol that was externally similar to many of Colt's earlier revolvers, but the new design included a rear loading port and Mason's patented extractor bar bent into the side of the barrel, a feature later used in the Single Action Army.

The Colt 1871 "Open Top" was placed in the popular .44 Henry rimfire cartridge. When the Army tested Colt's new pistol, they complained that the .44 cartridge was too weak and the open design was not as strong as competing pistols from Remington and Smith & Wesson. The army required a more powerful cartridge and a stronger solid frame.

Colt was quickly forced to produce three sample pistols for testing and examination. This new revolver was the prototype for the now legendary Colt Single Action Army. Designed by William Mason and Charles Brinckerhoff Richards, the new pistol had a solid frame and fired Colt's new .45 caliber cartridge. this is a gun

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After successful trials, the Army adopted the Colt revolver as the Model 1873. The new Colt Single Action Army had a 7.5-inch barrel and weighed 2.5 pounds, and an initial order of 8,000 M1873s replaced the aging Colt revolver. 1860 Army Army.

The Army also ordered several thousand Smith & Wesson Model 3s. These revolvers had a more advanced top-break design and could be loaded faster than the Colt. For several years, the two revolvers served side by side, but used different ammunition. Eventually, the military preferred the more rugged, accurate, and easy-to-maintain Colt and purchased over 30,000 of them over the next 20 years.

The Colt M1873 Single Action Army would see action in every US military campaign between 1873 and 1905. They were even crushed by General Custer and his men at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Despite its hallowed status, the Single Action Army was not yet the pinnacle of pistol technology. Although the Single Action Army had excellent stopping power, reliability and a simple action, it had a slow reload and slow rate of fire. To solve some of these problems, the Army requested a new double-action revolver. The Colt Model 1892 was the first double-action revolver issued to the US military.

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