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SMITH & WESSON FACTORY TOUR: BIRTH OF AN AMERICAN WHEEL GUN

Celebrating 170 years in the firearms industry, the company gets its name from the 1852 partnership between Horace Smith and D.B. Wesson. Just two years later, the company debuted the .41 Magazine Pistol, best known as "The Volcanic" -- the first repeating American firearm capable of successfully using a fully self-contained cartridge. By 1857, S&W was producing the Model 1 and Model 3 revolver, guns that soon marched off to war and one that Mark Twain carried in his early travels in the West, writing in his 1872 book, "Roughing It," that, "I thought it was grand."

Fast forward to the present and Smith is still rocking and rolling. While they have made moves to shift black rifle construction and headquarters to a new factory in Tennessee, the company's legacy plant in Springfield is still working around the clock and will continue to house its traditional revolver line.

Smith & Wesson Factory Tour :: Guns.com

On this installment of our Select Fire series, we traveled to Smith & Wesson's historic Springfield, Massachusetts factory to see what goes into making some of the finest revolvers in the world.

www.guns.com