peashooter85:The Cofer Cartridge Revolver,T.W. Cofer was a small time revolver maker based out of Po
peashooter85:The Cofer Cartridge Revolver,T.W. Cofer was a small time revolver maker based out of Portsmouth, Virginia during the American Civil War. Cofer revolvers were simple single action .36 caliber percussion muzzleoading revolvers typical of Confederate manufacture. When I say typical I mean that they were very crude compared to Union counterparts, featured as brass frame as the Confederacy was chronically short of iron, and did little in the way of production. During the war, T.W. Cofer only produced 100 revolvers for the general market and 86 for the Confederate Army.Among Cofer’s revolver models, a rare cartridge revolver was produced in limited numbers. The Cofer cartridge revolver featured bored through cylinders, infringing on the Rollin White patent held by Smith & Wesson, but of course a Confederate gun maker could care less about U.S. Patents. What was interesting about the Cofer cartridge revolver was the metallic self contained cartridge that it fired. Again it was a .36 caliber cartridge, featuring a simple brass casing which held the gunpowder. However the cartridge was not a rimfire typical of Civil War era metallic cartridges, but featured a nipple at the rear of the cartridge upon which a separate percussion cap was placed. Again Smith & Wesson held patents on rimfire ammunition, but it’s doubtful T. W. Cofer gave a damn about patents. More likely the reason for using such odd ammunition was that the Confederacy lacked the ability to manufacture rimfire ammunition.Very few Cofer cartridge revolvers were produced, and only a handful survive today. -- source link