Why do revolvers have their barrels at the top?

[HandgunShooter]

All the revolvers I've ever seen has their barrel at the top, lined up with the cylinder hole at the 12 o'clock position. It occurred to me that a revolver would shoot better if the barrel was lined up with the bottom hole of the cylinder. This would bring the barrel axis much lower, thus greatly reduce muzzle flip and ease recoil control

Does anyone know why that hasn't been done?

 

[NBergeron]

Actually, I think that the Mateba revolvers have barrels placed at the 6 o'clock position.

 

[Brasso]

I would imagine that the set of sights needed for a bottom mounted barrel would be a bit "difficult".

 

[lonegunman]

how would u sight it?

 

[C.R.Sam]

Been a few over the years.
Mateba is one under barreled revolver in current production.

Some shooting sports rules preclude having the bore axis lower than the hand. And some don't.
.

Need a lot of rib or a tall sight too.

Sam

 

[V-fib]

Those Mateba's are a new one to me.

http://members.tripod.com/~Slippery_Jim/Revolvers/Mateba_Model_6.htm

Made in Italy thought they might have been made in Australia. (you know ...down under)

 

[SixGunner]

There are a few reasons that the top cylinder is the one that fires on most modern revolvers:

Tradition: The original Colt and Remington revolvers fired this way. Looking at their design it would be difficult (although not impossible) to do it the other way.

Sights: The barrel on the top puts the bore axis closest to the sight plane. The closer these two are, the better for aimed fire.

Ignition Reliability: IMHO the big one. When you move the barrel down to the bottom cylinder, you have to move the firing pin as well. This reduces the distance between the firing pin and the hammer pivot. To then get reilable ignition a heavier mainspring is needed, resulting in a very heavy DA trigger pull.

The Manateba may have found a way around these issues (I think it is a semi-auto revolver similar to an old Webley). With the lack of innovation in revolvers these days I doubt you'll ever see a Ruger or S&W with a low-mount barrel.

6G

 

[Guy B. Meredith]

Looking at the Metaba it would seem that the major reason is tradition. Now that we are finding so many heavily underlugged barrels, turning them upside down like the Metaba to use the now overlug for the sight plane makes good enough sense.

 

[HandgunShooter]

Is the Mateba revolver available in the US? How much do they cost?

 

[SixGunner]

Another reason for the barrel on top is that the revolver followed the single-shot pistol, in which the shooter aimed along the barrel. The original Colt SA revolvers were aimed in a similar fashion, since the rear sight was no more than a notch cut into the hammer.

I still believe that, with the distance between the sight plane and the bore axis increased by the amount it would be in an underbarrel design, you would run into significant parallax problems at longer ranges. Also the trigger pull problems would probably necessitate an automatic-revolver design (i.e. the Manateba and Webley-Fosbury).

There was an article many years ago (I forget by whom or even which publication it was in) where a guy made an underbarrel revolver using a S&W M28. He had the ignition problems I spoke of earlier, but I think in the end the gun turned out to be a pretty good shooter once he worked out the bugs. It had a very heavy DA trigger pull though.