page_title: Rollin White
section_title: Rollin White patent
hierarchical_section_title: Rollin White / Rollin White patent
caption_attribution_description: English: Rollin White barrel
context_page_description: Rollin White was an American gunsmith who invented a single shot bored-through revolver cylinder that allowed paper cartridges to be loaded from the rear of a revolver's cylinder. Because the open breeches were unprotected from lateral fire, all charges would instantly explode in a chain fire. Only one gun would be built to White's specifications, and that for use in a trial to show the impracticality of the gun. The gun could not fire metallic cartridges.
context_section_description: Up until that time, revolvers were black-powder percussion arms. The shooter had to pour powder into each of the six cylinder mouths, push a bullet into the chamber, and affix a percussion cap on the rear of the cylinder, making the reloading process cumbersome.
  While the cartridge revolver was known in Europe, Rollin White's famous patent combined a cylinder and a box magazine. It was a completely unworkable design which never went into production (only one sample was built which malfunctioned dramatically), yet it was the first US patent to include a cylinder bored through so that a revolver could be loaded from the breech. White's original solution for the misfires that plagued early revolvers was to plug the rear of the chambers with pieces of leather, but to admit cap fire the plugs were pierced, making them useless. The patent drawings imply that a percussion cap would have had to be applied to the single nipple for each shot, so it would have been far slower than the existing cap-&-ball revolvers.
  White left Colt's in December 1854. Within three months he had five patents, including Patent 12648 which was for an "Improvement in Repeating Fire-arms". The next year, White signed an agreement granting Smith & Wesson the exclusive use of his patent for boring through the chambers, but not the rest of the patent. White retained a royalty rate of 25 cents for every revolver.
  Smith & Wesson parlayed the bored-through claim into a monopoly on the breech-loading revolver. After the Smith & Wesson Model 1 revolver came on the market, White began production of a revolver of his own in 1861 in a factory in Lowell, Massachusetts called "Rollin White Arms Company". Approximately 4300 revolvers were made under Rollin White Arms, most of which were sold to Smith & Wesson to keep up with demand. White liquidated the company in 1864 and the assets were bought by Lowell Arms Company, which began manufacturing revolvers directly infringing on White's patent. White sued them, but not until after they had made 7500 revolvers.
  White and S&W brought infringement cases against Manhattan Firearms Company, Allen & Wheelock, Merwin & Bray, National Arms Company and others. The courts mostly sided with White, but allowed these manufacturers to continue production runs, with a royalty paid to White. In some cases, Smith & Wesson bought the guns back to remark and sell; such guns are marked "APRIL 3 1855" as a patent date. Eventually, the matter was litigated as White, et al. v. Allen in the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts; Allen acknowledged his gun infringed on the patent, but challenged the patent itself. The court sided with White, though not without controversy. In addition to White's design not actually being functional, revolvers with bored-through cylinders actually predated his patent. Casimir Lefaucheux and his son Eugène had invented a bored-through cylinder revolver for pinfire cartridges and patented it on April 15, 1854 (almost exactly one year before White's patent was granted), which should have invalidated the applicability of White's patent to the concept of a bored-through cylinder. The vote in the Supreme Court to affirm White's patent was tied with four for it and four against.
  In 1863, White had another of his patents, US Patent 12649, which was for a front-loaded gun, reissued with a breech-loading feature. This gave White two patents of the same date for the same invention. White made life for Smith & Wesson miserable with constant threats of suits, for now with each gun they made under Patent 12648, they infringed Patent 12649. In 1867 White and Smith & Wesson offered to sell the patent to Colt's for $1 million. Colt's, anxious to begin the manufacture of breech-loading guns, dealt with White for some time. That stopped when they learned of the second patent which Colt's declined.
caption: Rollin White Revolver barrel, Lowell Arms Co. inscription
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