Dardick tround

Dardick (an associate of Melvin M. Johnson) began development of his open-chamber gun in the late 1940s.

Dardick's patent 2,847,784, issued in August 1958, is for a pre-stressed open-chamber gun with rotatable cylinder.

This patent defined the open-chamber gun concept, however, and quickly led to the development of the tround.

[1] Dardick's patent 2,865,126, issued in late 1958, is for a new and improved cartridge for the open-chamber gun.

This reduced the complexity and cost of the open-chamber firearm design, making it feasible for commercial production.

[3] This allowed readily available ammunition to be loaded into the trounds and fired from Dardick's guns.

The Dardick firearms were essentially revolvers whose unique open chambers could be reloaded from a magazine.

The operating principle used was the same as a double-action revolver, with a long trigger pull serving to rotate the cylinder, cock, and release the hammer.

[7] The Dardick revolvers proved to be a commercial failure, despite being, in the words of one reviewer, "as versatile as a six-armed monkey".