45 Colt rounds in the supply line caused the Army to drop most of the Schofields and continue with the Colt. Despite the change, old stocks of the longer. 45 Schofield cartridge as the standard cartridge. When it became obvious in the field that the two cartridges would not work interchangeably in the Schofield (although they both worked in the Colt), the U.S. S&W instead developed their own, slightly shorter. 45 Long Colt") ammunition already in use by the US military. Schofield (the so-called "Schofield revolvers"), providing that they could make the revolvers fire the. In 1875, the US Ordnance Board granted S&W a contract to outfit the military with Model 3 revolvers incorporating the design improvements of Major George W. Most military pistols until that point were black powder cap-and-ball revolvers, which were (by comparison) slow, complicated, and susceptible to the effects of wet weather. 44 S&W American caliber Model 3 revolver in 1870, making it the first standard-issue, cartridge-firing revolver in US service.
This led to the imperial government cancelling the order for significant quantities of S&W–made revolvers (which had already been produced), and delaying (or refusing) payment for the handguns that had already been delivered. The Russian and European copies of the Model 3 revolver were generally of very high quality, but considerably cheaper than the S&W-produced revolvers. Webley & Scott's British Bulldog revolver was widely copied, too, by European and American gunsmiths). Smith & Wesson nearly went bankrupt as a result of their Russian contract production, as the imperial government assigned a number of engineers and gunsmiths to reverse-engineer the S&W design, and then began to produce copies of the revolver, both in their own arsenal at Tula and by contracting other manufacturers in Germany and elsewhere in Europe to manufacture copies of the revolver (a common practice at the time. The first was the 1st Model Russian (the original order design), with the Russian Ordnance Inspector mandating a number of improvements to the design, resulting in the 2nd Model Russian, with a final revision to the Russian design being known as the 3rd Model Russian. Smith & Wesson produced large numbers of the Model 3, in three distinct models, for the Russian Empire by special order. 38 Single Action that is retroactively referred to as the Model 2. Model 3 revolvers were later produced in an assortment of calibers, including. 44 Russian cartridges, and typically did not have the cartridge information stamped on the gun (as is standard practice for most commercial firearms). The Model 3 was originally chambered for the. S&W incorporated these modifications into an 1875 design they named after the major, planning to obtain significant military contracts for the new revolver.
Schofield, who made his own modifications to the Model 3 to meet his perceptions of the cavalry's needs. 44 caliber by the Imperial Russian Army in 1871), and the "Schofield" model, named after Major George W. It was produced in several variations and subvariations, including both the "Russian" model, so named because it was supplied to the military of the Russian Empire (41,000 No. The Smith & Wesson Model 3 is a single-action, cartridge-firing, top-break revolver produced by Smith & Wesson (S&W) from around 1870 to 1915, and was recently again offered as a reproduction by Smith & Wesson and Uberti.