Allen & Wheelock .36 Lipfire Revolver

About the Allen & Wheelock .36 Lipfire Revolver

The Allen & Wheelock .36 Lipfire Revolver is a six-shot, single-action, center-hammer revolver chambered for the proprietary .36 Allen Lipfire self-contained metallic cartridge. Often called the Center Hammer Lipfire Navy or Third Model, it was made in Worcester, Massachusetts around 1860-1861 with a solid frame, an octagon barrel offered in roughly 4- to 8-inch lengths, an unfluted six-shot bored-through cylinder loaded through a right-side gate, walnut grips, and a color-casehardened hammer and trigger guard. Only about 500 were produced before the design ran afoul of Smith & Wesson's Rollin White bored-through cylinder patent, making it one of the scarcer American cartridge revolvers of the Civil War era.

To dodge Smith & Wesson's grip on the rimfire patent, Ethan Allen tucked the priming compound into a tiny lip on the cartridge head, striking it with a notched hammer. The clever workaround still leaned on a bored-through cylinder, and a patent suit shut the line down after only a few hundred were built, leaving the .36 Lipfire Navy a prized Civil War-era rarity.

Allen & Wheelock .36 Lipfire Revolver specifications

The lipfire cartridge carried its priming compound in a small lip protruding from the case rim, struck by a notched hammer; this sidestepped Smith & Wesson's rimfire patent but still relied on a bored-through cylinder that infringed the Rollin White patent, which halted production. Barrel length varied between examples (commonly cited at 4, 5, 6, and 8 inches).