Brief History of the Massachusetts Arms (Adams Patent) Navy Revolver

The Adams revolver got its start in Britain in 1851, when Robert Adams patented his “self-cocking” double-action design. Unlike the open-top Colts that dominated the market, the Adams used a solid one-piece frame that gave it extra strength. Its trigger both cocked and fired the hammer while rotating the cylinder, which made it fast to shoot in a close fight, though the long, heavy pull made it a bit harder to aim with precision.

Before long, demand for the pattern reached the United States. The Massachusetts Arms Company in Chicopee Falls secured the rights to produce it and began turning out American-made Adams revolvers in the late 1850s. They built both pocket versions and the larger .36 caliber “Navy” models, which collectors today usually call the Massachusetts Arms Adams Patent revolvers. Production carried on into the early 1860s.

These pistols found their way into two main channels. Some were bought directly by the U.S. government, inspected, and marked with ordnance stamps. Surviving records suggest several hundred of the Navy model were taken into federal stores, with known examples in the serial range of roughly the mid-500s to the mid-700s. Others, however, went out the factory door as plain commercial sales with no martial markings.

It’s those unmarked, non-contract pieces that tell an especially interesting story. In 1860, the state of Virginia bought a substantial number of them, stocking its militia just as the storm clouds of secession were gathering. When the war broke out, Virginia cavalry and home guard units already had a supply of these double-action revolvers in hand. Some surviving examples show Virginia markings or state inventory stamps, while many others remain plain but can be traced to that pre-war purchase.

The Adams design offered advantages that appealed to officers and cavalrymen: the ability to fire quickly without thumbing back a hammer, which could be a real edge in the chaos of close combat. Its drawbacks in accuracy mattered less at short range. After the war, the Adams line continued to evolve in Britain with improvements like the Beaumont patent and eventually cartridge conversions. But for collectors today, those percussion Navy models from Massachusetts Arms stand out because they embody a fascinating split history—part federal contract arm, part state-purchased sidearm for Virginia on the eve of the Civil War.