Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson formed their partnership in 1852 in Norwich, Connecticut, with the aim of marketing a lever action repeating pistol that could use a fully self-contained cartridge. They went bankrupt and began again in 1856, when Smith & Wesson produced a small revolver designed to fire the Rimfire cartridge they patented in August of 1854. This revolver was the first successful fully self-contained cartridge revolver available in the world. Smith & Wesson secured patents for the revolver to prevent other manufacturers from producing a cartridge revolver – giving the young company a very lucrative business and established Smith & Wesson as a world leader in handgun manufacturing.
Smith & Wesson Holding Corporation, a global
