The Smith & Wesson Schofield Revolver History

People know about the Smith & Wesson Schofield revolver, even if it’s only from watching Unforgiven. Officially known as the S&W Model 3, it’s one of the important revolvers of the Old West. When we look back at that era of firearms — the time when cartridges became king and old cap-and-ball revolvers were being converted to fire brass — we think of the Colt Single Action Army, the legendary Peacemaker, and next to it, a little blurry in the background, are the Schofield and the Remington 1875. 

All three revolvers from a trio of iconic American gunmakers endeavored to be the most reliable and efficient cartridge revolvers in the age of industrialization, mass production, and lucrative military contracts for a country expanding ever westward. 

In the end, the Colt Peacemaker reigned supreme. It dominated the market and was widely adopted by the U.S. military. Compared to the Model 3, it wasn’t even close. Smith & Wesson produced its top-break revolver from 1868 to 1898, with 54,000 guns rolling off the line before production ceased. 

Between 1873 and 1940, Colt produced 357,859 Single Action Army revolvers. But why did the Colt win so handily? If you look at it by the numbers, the Colt wasn’t that great of a military sidearm, compared to the competition. 

It came down to timing, politics, supply lines, and, ultimately, a play for a military ammo contract that sort of worked out for S&W, and sort of didn’t. In a roundabout way, Smith & Wesson was responsible for one of Colt’s greatest successes and one of the most iconic American handgun rounds — 40 years down the road.

The Model 3 and Major Schofield

The Schofield was designed as a top-break revolver: The frame was hinged just in front of the trigger guard, beneath the cylinder, with a latch above the hammer. When the latch was released, the action opened like a break-action shotgun, exposing all six chambers at the same time. 

It also featured a star ejector, meaning all six spent cases were ejected at once when the action was opened. Fresh cartridges could be loaded much more quickly with this design. If they’d existed, the Schofield could have readily accommodated speedloaders; people often use them with reproduction Schofields today, moon clips, too. And that makes sense, since these are the same attributes carried into more modern revolver designs that use a swing-out cylinder.

Reloading was simpler in the heat of combat, and it was far easier to accomplish on horseback. 

But the S&W revolver wasn’t perfect. The early Model 3s had latch problems and they were chambered in the .44 S&W American, which was a bit underpowered. 

The gun got its new name thanks to suggestions offered by Maj. George W. Schofield who requested tweaks to make the gun more suited to calvary use. He had S&W move the latch — instead of mounting it on the barrel, the Schofield model had it mounted on the frame, which made it easier to use with one hand. He also added a spring to the barrel catch for the same reason. 

Schofield also requested heat treated, replaceable latch components, as they experienced the most wear of anything on the gun. 

Why the Colt Peacemaker Was Great, and Not So Great

The Single Action Army is a robust revolver, and it’s fairly simple. But it certainly isn’t flawless. 

If you spend any time on the internet investigating it, you’re going to read all about how people who carried revolvers in the Old West only loaded them with five rounds, leaving the hammer resting on an empty chamber. 

Yes, this absolutely makes sense as a safety precaution. With the hammer down, the firing pin was resting right on a primer as the gun was jostled all over the place, in a holster or otherwise — this was long before the transfer-bar safety feature was invented. If the revolver was dropped or if something hit the hammer spur, there was a real chance of a round going off. 

This was also a problem for the earlier generations of cap-and-ball revolvers, which is why many models used in the 1860s had a safety notch between the chambers where the hammer could rest when the gun was being carried. For some reason, this feature didn’t carry over to the Colt SAA and S&W didn’t feature it on the Schofield, but Remington did include the feature on the Model 1875. 

But how much did it matter? The precaution wasn’t in military manuals of the day. Yeah, safety conscious folks or people who had rough professions, like cowboys, might have taken the precaution of resting the hammer on an empty chamber, but it’s highly likely that many people who carried a revolver, especially an SAA, opted for the extra round over safety. 

That can be said specifically for the SAA, because it was slow to reload. 

When all rounds have been fired from a Peacemaker, the user must do the following to re-charge the cylinder with fresh cartridges: 

• Bring the hammer to half-cock

• Push out each spent case with the ejector rod while rotating the cylinder so each chamber shows through the loading gate.They never have to do this in the movies, but you almost always have to do this in real life, and when using brass loaded with black powder, it was even more necessary and more difficult. 

• Rotate the cylinder again while loading a new cartridge into each chamber. 

• Bring the hammer to full cock 

The revolver is now ready to fire. That’s a full six steps requiring fine motor skills. This isn’t a lot to remember on the firing line at the range, but crouched behind cover or on horseback while getting shot at was a different story.  

It’s far better than a cap-and-ball wheelgun, but it’s still complicated, especially compared to any modern combat pistol. 

While the Remington Model 1875 could hold six shells more safely, the loading process was nearly identical to the SAA. 

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Ammo Questions and Politics

The U.S. Army officially adopted the S&W Model 3 revolver in 1870, in its original chambering, .44 S&W American. It was the first standard-issue, cartridge revolver in U.S. history, and it was a progressive step forward while most militaries in the world were still using cap-and-ball guns. Shortly after, the Army also began to use the Colt SAA around 1873.

In 1875, S&W got a contract to outfit the U.S. military with new and improved Model 3 Schofield revolvers, with the caveat that the guns be chambered in .45 Colt, which was deemed more effective than the .44 S&W American. Plus, the .45 Colt was already in military supply lines for the Colt SAA revolvers.  

Instead of doing that — S&W delivered guns chambered for a new proprietary cartridge, the .45 Schofield, which was very similar to the .45 Colt, just a bit shorter and a bit of a lighter load. Remember that. It’s important. 

The company basically tried to muscle the military into adopting the new revolver and a new cartridge, both made by S&W. And they were successful, for a while. 

Why? Well, remember Maj. George Schofield? His older brother was John M. Schofield, who happened to be the head of the Army Ordnance Board at the time. Many believe that the adoption of the revolver and ammo bearing the family name was due to John’s position, and possibly why the Army moved away from the gun later. 

In a sad twist, Lt. Col. John Schofield later committed suicide with an S&W Schofield revolver during a period of depression and isolation in 1882. 

Supply Line Problems

Now, thanks to military logistics, there was a serious issue. Soldiers found themselves carrying a mix of Schofields and Colts — which was a problem because there were also a lot of old .45 Colt cartridges sitting in armories that were still being sent to soldiers in the field. 

The newer Schofields wouldn’t chamber the longer .45 Colt rounds at all, and while the Colts could fire the shorter .45 Schofield rounds, it wasn’t that simple. Those early .45 Schofield cartridges had a larger rim than the .45 Colt. In a SAA revolver, the brass would overlap and bind behind the cylinder if it was fully loaded. 

So, if a soldier found himself with a Colt SAA and a pouch of .45 Schofield ammo, his six-shooter, which may have really been a five-shooter, became a three-shooter so it could function at all. 

But even worse, a soldier could end up carrying a Schofield and have nothing available but unusable .45 Colt ammo. 

How the S&W Schofield Led to Colt’s .45 ACP 

How did the Army solve this problem? Slowly. First the .45 Schofield was tweaked to have the same rim diameter as the .45 Colt. This new ammo, the M1887 Military Ball Cartridge, still chambered just fine in the S&W revolvers and could also be used in Colts. 

Eventually, the Army phased out the Schofield revolvers and went with the SAA across the board. Then, it also went back to the .45 Colt ammo until it was replaced by the underpowered .38 Long Colt in 1892.

But here’s the thing — soldiers liked the lighter .45 Schofield load better, even in their Colt revolvers. The recoil wasn’t as sharp and they found it was easier to shoot accurately — remember, troops didn’t get a whole lot of training or ammo for target practice at the time. 

The original black powder .45 Colt was topped with a 255-grain lead bullet and had a muzzle velocity of about 1,050 fps. But the 40 grains of black powder produced intense recoil. The military later switched to a 28-grain charge for a muzzle velocity of about 855 fps. 

The original .45 Schofield pushed a 230-grain bullet at about 730 fps from a Model 3 revolver, which had a shorter barrel than the standard SAA. The modified M1887 ammo held 26 grains of black powder and generated velocities around 760 fps with a 250-grain bullet out of the Schofield. 

A .45-Caliber Model

When the 20th Century came calling and it was time for the Army to upgrade to a semi-auto, it needed to establish parameters for the ammo it wanted. The .45 Colt was a powerful and respected round known as a “man-stopper,” especially compared to the .38 Long Colt that had proved inadequate during the Phillipine-American War from 1899 to 1902. 

But the .45 Colt of the smokeless powder era, produced even heftier felt recoil and it required more training to recover for accurate, fast follow-up shots. The lighter .45 Schofield cartridge and 28-grain .45 Colt loads had been more manageable. 

The Army told Colt and John M. Browning they wanted their new pistol cartridge to be more like the lighter-kicking Schofield cartridge than the full-power .45 Colt. They were delivered the .45 ACP that Browning developed along with the gun that would become the Colt M1911. The classic .45 ACP load is a 230-grain bullet moving around 830 fps. Sound familiar? 

If all that nonsense hadn’t happened in the 1870s with the Colt SAA and the Schofield and the drama over the .45 Colt and the .45 Schofield, we may have never gotten the .45 ACP that we know today. 

After all, Browning wasn’t particularly fond of the .45 caliber. After the 1911, he never built another gun chambered in .45 ACP. Looking at his other famous handguns: the Colt 1903 Hammerless was in .380 ACP, the Colt Woodsman was a .22 LR, and the posthumously completed Hi-Power was, of course, in 9mm. The handguns he created that were made under the FN brand, the FN M1900, Model 1903, and Model 1910 were all .32 or .38 caliber. 

The Guns That Won the West

While the Colt Peacemaker won out in the icon status department, the Schofield certainly has a firm place in gun history. 

The Model 3 was used in the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War, and the Philippine-American War. And while the military couldn’t get its act together, civilian lawmen and outlaws took to the Smith & Wesson — including some famous ones. 

Jesse James reportedly used a Schofield at times, and later, Robert Ford used one to shoot James in the back, killing him in 1882. Schofields were carried in holsters worn by Teddy Roosevelt, John Wesley Hardin, Pat Garrett, Virgil Earp, Emiliano Zapata, and Billy the Kid. 

Some accounts say Wyatt Earp was carrying an S&W Model 3 Schofield during the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral during which Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan Earp, along with Doc Holliday faced off against the Clanton brothers, the McLaury brothers, and Billy Claiborne in Tombstone, Arizona. 

While S&W was improving the gun and trying to sell it to the U.S. military, it was also producing the Model 3 in large numbers on special order for the Russian Empire — the 1st Model Russian, the 2nd Model Russian, and the final version, the 3rd Model Russian, all featuring improvements requested by the Russian Ordnance Inspector. 

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The American Army eventually liquidated its stock of S&W revolvers after the Spanish-American War of 1898. The guns were reconditioned by wholesalers and gunsmiths and many made it to the commercial market. A good lot of those reconditioned Schofields were bought by the Wells Fargo and Company for use by Wells Fargo agents, who often accompanied wagons hauling valuable cargo through dangerous places. 

If you ever come across an old top-break revolver with  “W.F. & Co” or “Wells Fargo & Co” stamped on it somewhere, it could be a valuable Wells Fargo Schofield. Or, it could be a counterfeit, because the guns got super popular with collectors in the 1970s.
Of course, how could we forget, Clint Eastwood used a Schofield as William Munny in the final shootout of Unforgiven, which he got from his former partner, the Schofield Kid.