Here is the right side of this gun. It's probable that the
big wheel that looks somewhat like a ship's wheel is to advance the caps. They
did have caps on paper in those days as early as the Civil War which used
fulminate of mercury. The Maynard Tape Primer was used on rifles, invented by
Dr. Edward Maynard, a dentist, so you might easily say that he invented the
concept of roll caps! At least he held the patent on it and the early versions
he made used a wheel to advance the caps.
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