peashooter85:Deceit and the Smith and Wesson Russian,The Smith and Wesson Model 3 was one of the mos
peashooter85:Deceit and the Smith and Wesson Russian,The Smith and Wesson Model 3 was one of the most innovative American revolvers of the 1870’s. It was a double action revolver whereas most revolvers of the time were single action. It was also a break open revolver, meaning the pistol broke open on a hinge, ejecting the spent casings and allowing for easy reloading. The Model 3’s main competitor was the Colt Single Action Army “Peacemaker”, which required the user to load it one cartridge at a time through a loading port. Because of these designs the S&W Model 3 became very popular with lawmen, criminals, and the military. The US Army ordered a number of models of a variant called the “Schofield”, and the legendary lawman Wyatt Earp as well as the outlaw Jesse James carried one as well.Another interested client was the Russian Army. The Russian government purchased an order of 20,000 S&W Model 3’s chambered in a cartridge called .44 Russian. However, the Russian government was not very big on ethical business practices. When the first orders of S&W Model 3 revolvers reached Russia, the Russian government hired a team of designers and mechanics to reverse engineer the pistol. Rather than purchasing more pistols from Smith and Wesson, Russia infringed upon the patent and produced their own at the Tula Arsenal. In addition they contracted a number of European firms to produce cheaper copies of the pistol. To add insult to injury, Russia refused to pay for the revolvers that they had received.In an age when international courts had little power or were non-existent, there was little Smith and Wesson could do legally to correct the patent infringements by the Russian government. Due to the fiasco Smith and Wesson almost went bankrupt and out of business.THAT IRON MAKES FOLKS THINK BEFORE DOING SOMETHING STUPID -- source link