<P> The earliest examples of what today is called a revolver were made in Germany in the late 16th century . These weapons featured a single barrel with a revolving cylinder holding the powder and ball . They would soon be made by many European gun - makers, in numerous designs and configurations . However, these weapons were difficult to use, complicated and prohibitively expensive to make, and as such they were not widely distributed . </P> <P> In 1836, an American, Samuel Colt patented the mechanism that led to the widespread use of the revolver, the mechanically indexing cylinder . According to Samuel Colt, he came up with the idea for the revolver while at sea, inspired by the capstan, which had a ratchet and pawl mechanism on it, a version of which was used in his guns to rotate the cylinder by cocking the hammer . This provided a reliable and repeatable way to index each round and did away with the need to manually rotate the cylinder . Revolvers proliferated largely due to Colt's ability as a salesman . But his influence spread in other ways as well; the build quality of his company's guns became famous, and its armories in America and England trained several seminal generations of toolmakers and other machinists, who had great influence in other manufacturing efforts of the next half century . </P> <P> Early revolvers were caplocks and loaded as a muzzle - loader: the user poured black powder into each chamber, rammed down a bullet on top of it, then placed percussion caps on the nipple at the rear of each chamber, where the hammer would fall on it . This was similar to loading a traditional single - shot muzzle - loading pistol, except that the powder and shot could be loaded directly into the front of the cylinder rather than having to be loaded down the whole length of the barrel . Importantly, this allowed the barrel itself to be rifled, since the user wasn't required to force the tight fitting bullet down the barrel in order to load it (a traditional muzzle - loading pistol had a smoothbore and relatively loose fitting shot, which allowed easy loading, but gave much less accuracy). When firing the next shot, the user would raise his pistol vertically as he cocked the hammer back so as to let the fragments of the burst percussion cap fall out so as to not jam the mechanism . Some of the most popular cap - and - ball revolvers were the Colt Model 1851 "Navy" Model, 1860 "Army" Model, and Colt Pocket Percussion revolvers, all of which saw extensive use in the American Civil War . Although American revolvers were the most common, European arms makers were making numerous revolvers by that time as well, many of which found their way into the hands of the American forces, including the single action Lefaucheux and LeMat revolver and the Beaumont--Adams and Tranter revolvers, which were early double - action weapons, in spite of being muzzle - loaders . </P> <P> In 1854, Eugene Lefaucheux introduced the Lefaucheux Model 1854, the first revolver to use self - contained metallic cartridges rather than loose powder, pistol ball, and percussion caps . It is a single - action, pinfire revolver holding six rounds . </P>

Where do the bullets go in a revolver
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