This is the Percival & Smith Repeating Magazine Pistol, patented in 1850. If I understand the description correctly, the cylinder in the front holds 24 bullets and the cylinder in the back holds powder and primer. To chamber a round, the user twists them up, then back down:
After cocking hammer, both chambers swivel upward 180 degrees allowing lead ball to fall into breech from front magazine and loose powder into chamber behind ball from rear magazine; primer pellet also seats itself.
It looks like an advanced version of the Lorenzoni, an amazing gravity-fed seven-shot repeating flintlock pistol designed in the 1680s.
Link -via Gun & Game | Photo via Guns & Knives
Comments (2)
How is this different from the way the American economic system works in general? Well, you can remove the word "smart" a lot of the time and substitute something along the lines of "grandpa did the actual work several generations ago, and the dumb kids are living off the inheritance and the family name." That much is true. But OTOH, there are still certain similarities. Only those privileged enough to have received the best educations of an incredibly specific type and-- even more importantly-- to be taken into the secret, exclusive, private groups and clubs are eligible. Everyone else need not apply. People are not going it alone-- if you read the article carefully, you can see that this is all about private, exclusive little groups that few will ever have the opportunity to join no matter how smart they are.
Personally, I don't see why they don't increase the dollar amounts of the smaller prizes, and have more winners. That would seem to generate interest in the game and fuel more sales.
If it is: every single "risk" you take would be a "tax on the stupid".
You take risks all the time. Life is basically one big succession of one risk after another.
Of course there are bad risks and good risks to take. Buying a lottery ticket for the price of one million dollars hoping to win one and a half would be a bad risk (keeping the same odds in mind of regular lotteries). Paying ten buck to have a chance of winning several millions is worth the risk. Maybe not for everybody, but it's definitely not a stupid bet to take considering the possible winnings.