Volcanic Lever-Action Navy Pistol

[Henry4440]

Very Rare New Haven Arms Company Volcanic Lever-Action Navy Pistol with Detachable Stock.
Cal.41.The barrel looks a little bit long for a holster

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

I had the pleasure of handling a Volcanic pistol at a big gunshow a couple of years ago. This one was a 38. It was a really nifty little pistol.

[Capt, Woodrow F. Call]

Howdy

I had the pleasure of handling a Volcanic pistol at a big gunshow a couple of years ago. This one was a 38. It was a really nifty little pistol.

Howdy.

I have been looking at this Volcanic thing , how does it work, is the bullet filled with powder??........??

BR
Call

[litl rooster]

sur looks like it would be hard to shoot without the butt stock.   Interesting to say the least

[Flint]

Capt. Woodrow, yes it used a hollow based bullet, filled with powder and a base cap containing the primer.  Very weak performance, as the capacity of the hollow base was pretty small.

Oliver Winchester, who bought Volcanic Arms from Smith & Wesson, had B. Tyler Henry, the plant superintendent, redesign the system, which resulted in the Henry cartridge, and the enlarged receiver to make the Henry rifle.

[Capt, Woodrow F. Call]

Capt. Woodrow, yes it used a hollow based bullet, filled with powder and a base cap containing the primer.  Very weak performance, as the capacity of the hollow base was pretty small.

Oliver Winchester, who bought Volcanic Arms from Smith & Wesson, had B. Tyler Henry, the plant superintendent, redesign the system, which resulted in the Henry cartridge, and the enlarged receiver to make the Henry rifle.

Thank's Flint, i expect this kind of ammo don't have speed or high velocity!!. So volcanic was the first step before cartridge!!
I saw some pictures today of this bullet's, and it looks like a experimental ammo

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

Here is a patent drawing of the Volcanic Rocket Ball ammunition.



The hollow Volcanic 'rocket ball' ammunition was not experimental. The idea of the hollow, powder filled bullet was first patented by Walter Hunt in 1848. The Volcanic company was still producing this type of ammunition nine years later went it went bankrupt in 1857. The Volcanic hollow bullet ammunition was no longer experimental, it had been in production for a long time. It was simply unsuccessful because it did not have the powder capacity to deliver enough power to effectively put a man down.

You have to understand that the middle of the Nineteenth Century was the era of transition from muzzleloading to cartridge firearms. This was a time of great innovation in firearm and ammunition design, and a great many different types of ammunition were being tried. Eventually, the marketplace sorted it out, and the two types of metallic cartridges that still exist today, rimfire and centerfire, emerged from the crowd as the two most practical types. The Volcanic Rocket Ball ammunition fell by the wayside along with many other early types of metallic ammunition, including Needle Fire, Teat Fire, and the Maynard cartridge.

The Volcanic rifle was just one step in the evolutionary chain that had started with the Hunt and Jennings designs and eventually culminated in the Henry design of 1860. Once Henry developed the 44 rimfire Henry cartridge, the company built up the last of the Volcanic rifles from stockpiled parts and moved on to the more powerful Henry design and never looked back. The story of the development of Nineteenth Century repeating firearms is fascinating, and full of unexpected turns. Two men who were at the heart of the development of the Volcanic rifles and pistols, Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson, eventually sold their interest in the company to a group of investors which included Oliver Winchester. Smith and Wesson then took the same rimfire idea, coupled it with the idea of a bored through chamber for revolvers, and started a new company specializing in manufacturing handguns that is still manufacturing handguns today.