Allen & Wheelock Pepperbox

About the Allen & Wheelock Pepperbox

The Allen & Wheelock Pepperbox is a six-barreled, muzzle-loading cap-and-ball percussion revolver produced in Worcester, Massachusetts, between 1856 and 1865 by the partnership of Ethan Allen and Thomas Wheelock. It carries forward Ethan Allen's earlier tube-hammer patents in a compact .31 caliber pocket arm: a cluster of six smoothbore barrels rotates on a central arbor, and pulling the ring trigger indexes the barrels while cocking and dropping the bar hammer in one self-cocking, double-action stroke. Late-production examples typically wear 3 to 3.5 inch barrels and an engraved flash shield, and were among the last commercially significant pepperboxes made before Allen & Wheelock shifted to cartridge and cap-and-ball cylinder revolvers.

Allen pepperboxes were the definitive American self-defense pistol of the mid-19th century, so ubiquitous that Mark Twain lampooned the pattern in 'Roughing It' for being as dangerous to bystanders as to the intended target.

Allen & Wheelock Pepperbox specifications

By the Allen & Wheelock era the pepperbox was a fading design, eclipsed by Colt-style single-cylinder revolvers; production of the type wound down over the firm's lifespan. Barrels are marked 'ALLEN & WHEELOCK' and the bar hammer carries the '1845' patent date. The double-action ring trigger delivered a fast volume of fire at close range at the cost of poor accuracy.