The 1st Model Pocket .38 Merwin Hulbert Revolver.

The Merwin Hulbert revolvers were a unique firearm in the Old West. They were manufactured by Hopkins and Allen in their factory, bit marketed by the firm Merwin Hulbert. You could think of MH as the “Sears Catalog” of their time, or even the old school Cabelas. This large company provided an array of firearms and sporting goods in their day.

The Merwin Hulbert revolvers especially were the fourth most common handguns of their day, right behind Colt, Smith and Wesson, and Remington. Unfortunately the company went defunct after the Tsar of Russian put in a weapons order for these revolvers in 1876. Three ship loads of the pistols went to Russia but unfortunately they were never paid for. The Tsar reneged on the deal and kept the guns without payment. The same applied to the Evan’s Rifle Company of Maine who were also partially owned and mostly funded by Merwin and Hulbert. The same thing happened when the Russians also bought a number of the Evan’s repeaters and never paid for them.

M&H tried to collect the debt unsuccessfully for 3 years before the company went bankrupt. Today I’m test firing some ammunition I made for this old revolver. As with any of the MH pistols I recommend you use ONLY black powder in these guns. As thin as the metal is I don’t feel it’s safe to run any modern smokeless loads in them.