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ALLEN & WHEELOCK .44 CALIBER “ARMY MODEL” CENTER
HAMMER LIPFIRE REVOLVER – SCARCE EARLY METALLIC PATENT
CARTRIDGE PISTOL IN EXCELLENT CONDITION:
This is a very nice example
of an Allen & Wheelock “Army Model” Center Hammer .44
Caliber Lipfire Revolver, also known as the “2ND
Model Lipfire” - one of the scarcest of the limited
number of large frame, large caliber patent metallic
cartridge revolvers produced before, or during, the
early years of the Civil War.
Ethan Allen entered the marketplace in 1831 as a cutlery
maker. He soon moved into the field of firearms,
gaining a reputation as a prolific American gun maker
and designer, securing over 20 patents on his firearm
designs. Allen partnered with Thomas Wheelock in
1857.
As was case with a number of other contemporary gun
makers, Allen & Wheelock were very aware that the
patents held by Colt would expire in 1857, and it is
quite possible this new partnership was specifically
formed to take advantage of this opportunity. It is
believed that a number of gun makers, including Allen &
Wheelock, had viable designs for mechanically rotated
revolvers prepared in anticipation of the expiration of
Colt’s patents and were ready to begin immediate
production. Developing a series of revolvers between
1857 and 1861, the company’s .44 caliber Army Model
Center Hammer Revolvers were in production as the Civil
War ignited.
In September of 1860 Allen obtained a patent for his
Lipfire Cartridge – a metallic cartridge featuring a
copper case containing the bullet, propellant, and
primer which was contained in a small single tab, or
“lip”, projecting from the base of the cartridge. The
primer lip mated with a small slot at the rear of each
chamber in the revolver’s cylinder which in turn indexed
under the point of the hammer strike when the cylinder
was rotated. An additional benefit of the cartridge
design was that it was no longer necessary to prime the
entire base of the cartridge as with other rimfire
cartridges of the period, but rather only under the case
lip, resulting in an economic savings in production.
Not only did Allen & Wheelock accomplish a breakthrough
in their cartridge design, they also provided their
revolvers in .38 and .44 calibers – a considerable
improvement over the relatively anemic .22 and .32
caliber revolvers offered by Smith & Wesson.
Particularly with the nation in a state of war, these
larger calibers coupled with the robust design of the
revolvers, Allen & Wheelock stood to capture a
significant slice of the market. The observation has
been made that the proprietary nature of the lipfire
cartridge, and that Allen held the patent on it, served
to cool the interest of the U.S. Army in purchasing the
revolvers. The last thing the army needed during
the war was another proprietary cartridge to
introduce into an already challenged ordnance supply
system dealing with other similar situations such as the
myriad of metallic cartridge carbines and their special
cartridges. This issue soon became a moot point.
Allen and Wheelock presumably began production of the
revolvers shortly after the cartridge patent was awarded
in September of 1860. Due to the successful efforts to
protect their rights to the Rollin & White Patent, Smith
& Wesson obtained an injunction against Allen & Wheelock
in November of 1863 ordering the cessation of production
of the lipfire revolvers. According to Flayderman, the
total production of these .44 lipfire revolvers was
limited to approximately 250.
In spite of the injunction which interrupted the
production of Allen & Wheelock’s lipfire revolvers, they
remained an active presence in the market, continuing to
produce their line of percussion revolvers and long
arms, and as history would soon record, their revolver
design was durable enough to survive with some
relatively easy conversions.
From all appearances, Allen & Wheelock developed their
large frame lipfire revolvers from the same design
concepts which produced their percussion revolvers, as
they share all the same features, save for those
specifically related to the type of ammunition they were
intended to fire. Both designs employed the single
action mechanism, the same overall frame configuration
and size, the same barrel profile, the same size and
profile of the cylinder and cylinder pin, and the
company’s signature trigger guard rack and pinon system
– as a loading lever on the percussion revolvers and as
an extractor on the lipfire models.
While showing evidence of having seen use, this Allen &
Wheelock .44 Caliber Army Center Hammer Lipfire Revolver
is in very good to excellent condition, having survived
in the original Lipfire chambering and in full form.
The revolver is in excellent mechanical condition,
properly indexing at full cock and at half cock allowing
the cylinder to rotate. The trigger to hammer mechanics
function properly as well, as tight as the day the
pistol was manufactured.
The barrel is full length and retains the original high
profile brass front sight. The bore is in excellent
condition, retaining sharp rifling throughout, with a
bright, shiny finish with only the most minor of
scattered frosting. All the corners and edges of the
barrel, frame, cylinder, hammer and trigger
guard/extractor lever are distinct and the contours are
not worn or altered.
This revolver presents with two features which should be
highlighted at this point in the description, as both
suggest this pistol was used long after the Civil War.
It has been noted that the blued finish applied to
Allen & Wheelock firearms was not particularly
durable, often prone to flaking and commonly missing
altogether, so it is not unusual to find an otherwise
gently used Allen & Wheelock with no finish whatsoever.
This revolver was nickel plated during the period of
use, probably to replace the factory applied blued
finish which had worn or flaked away. The plating shows
evidence of wear - especially on the grip frame and the
area between the top of the grip panels and the hammer,
where the pistol would have been exposed above the mouth
of the holster. Obviously, after being plated, the
pistol was then carried often enough, and for enough
years, for the plating to have been subjected to such
wear. The balance of the nickel plating has survived
with very good coverage exhibiting only minor wear on
the high points, and the result is a very attractive
revolver with a unique finish which was not offered by
the company at the time of manufacture.
The other feature involves the cylinder pin release
catch. As originally designed, the removable cylinder
arbor, enclosed in a channel below and parallel to the
barrel, was held in place by a spring loaded latch.
When the latch lever was depressed, the arbor could be
withdrawn and in turn, the cylinder could then be
removed from the frame. This latch was held in
place by a small pin through the left side, and close to
the leading edge, of the frame. Between the slot milled
for the latch proper and the hole drilled for the
retention pin, enough metal was removed from this small
area to create a weakness. In the case of this pistol,
and that of at least one other Allen & Wheelock revolver
with the same frame design that I’ve seen, the latch and
pin broke out of their milled slot and were lost. A
gunsmith executed a very simple and effective repair by
drilling and tapping a small hole in the left side of
the frame just forward of the cylinder opening (see
photo below), and threaded a small set screw which when
tightened, applied sufficient pressure against the
cylinder arbor to keep it in place. All that was
required to disassemble this pistol for cleaning or
maintenance was to loosen the screw and withdraw the
cylinder arbor. This proved to be a much simpler fix
than attempting to fashion a new latch assembly and
repair the missing piece of the frame. The set screw is
obviously contemporary to the use of the pistol, it
blends in well with the surrounding surfaces, and it
holds the arbor very securely with no play.
The pistol has survived intact with all of the matching
numbered components – frame, grip panels, cylinder and
cylinder pin, loading gate, trigger guard/extractor
lever, and extractor rod – bearing the number “16”. The
company’s maker stamp and patent information is present
and very legible on the left flat of the full length
octagon to round 7 ½” barrel: “ALLEN & WHEELOCK,
WORCESTER, MS. US ALLEN’s PAT’s SEPT. 7, NOV 9, 1858”.
The overall finish of the metal is clean and smooth with
no signs of heavy use or abuse and only some very minor
pin prick sized pitting at the barrel’s end where it
rested in a holster.
One of the unique design features of these pistols is
the combination trigger guard/extractor lever assembly
that hinges at the front-bottom of the frame. Described
as a “creeping” or rack and pinion design, the lever arm
is contoured to form the trigger guard, latching to the
static rear bow of the guard. When the trigger
guard/lever is released and rotated away from the frame,
studs on the forward swell of the lever engage
corresponding holes in the extractor rod and move the
rod to the rear and into the chamber aligned with the
rod, pushing the expended cartridge case out through the
loading ramp. This assembly is complete and intact with
all the original parts and it functions as it should.
The original six chamber cylinder is full form with no
damage. The chambers of the cylinder are likewise
bright and smooth with no pitting or signs of wear. The
exterior of the cylinder is in excellent condition with
all the cylinder stop notches retaining crisp edges,
both faces of the cylinder are bright and clean, the
advancing notches on the rear of the cylinder are still
sharp, and the serial/assembly numbers are legibly
stamped on the rear face. The second pattern loading
gate with the hinge point at the bottom of the gate is
full form and it retains catch which functions
properly.
Due to discontinuation of production of the lipfire
revolvers, it stands to reason that the production of
the special lipfire cartridges was drastically reduced.
Without a ready supply of the proprietary cartridges,
the revolvers became worthless; however the quality of
the revolvers and the robust design was still
recognized. After the expiration of the Rollin White
Patent, a significant number of these Allen & Wheelock
Lip Fire revolvers were converted to fire rimfire
cartridges which were considerably more common,
especially in the far reaches of the expanding American
West.
The conversion of these lipfire revolvers to fire
rimfire cartridge was infinitely simpler than the
conversions of the percussion revolvers. As the
cylinder was already bored through, and the dimensions
of the lipfire and rimfire cartridges were basically
identical, all that was required was to mill a mortise
around the mouth of each cylinder in which the rimfire
cartridge rim would seat, and make a minor alteration to
the profile of the hammer face. As a result, a
significant number of these Allen & Wheelock Center
Hammer .44 Caliber Lipfire Revolvers were converted to
fire rimfire (and ultimately centerfire) cartridges,
resulting in even fewer of the original 250 .44 caliber
lipfire revolvers surviving in the original lipfire
cartridge configuration, and making these .44 caliber
lipfire revolvers such as this specimen quite scarce.
The two original, matching walnut grip panels are in
very good to excellent condition with no heavy dents or
handling marks, nor any cracks or splits, and they
retain their original sharp, clean edges.
Due to the original low production of these revolvers as
discussed above, and then the subsequent conversions of
a large percentage of the original production to
rimfire, these Allen & Wheelock “Army Model” Center
Hammer .44 Caliber Lipfire Revolvers are seldom
encountered on the market, often missing from even the
most advanced collections. This is an excellent
specimen which will be not only a key addition to any
collection of relative rare Civil War cavalry revolvers,
but also is one that obviously spans the transition onto
the western frontier after the war. Gently used and
well care for, this Lipfire Revolver presents very well,
and would be very difficult to upgrade. (0804) $3250
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