Smith & Wesson

U.S. gun manufacturer. The company has its roots in an 1852 partnership between Horace Smith (1808–93) and Daniel B. Wesson (1825–1906), who designed and marketed a lever-action, repeating magazine handgun that held a self-contained cartridge. Their venture ran into financial difficulties and they were forced to sell it, but a second partnership in 1856, manufacturing their new revolving-cylinder handgun (now known as the .22 rimfire) proved more successful. The Civil War made Smith & Wesson a leading firearms manufacturer. In 1867 it began selling in Europe. It supplied the British in World War I and the Allies in World War II. In 1965 the Wesson family sold the company, which has since changed hands several times.

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