It was developed as a test model for the 1879 German trials to provide the first German military handgun to fire modern brass cartridges and to replace the earlier needle-fire and pinfire revolvers.

In 1879 evaluations of different German revolvers were carried out and it was rejected because the "zig-zag" drum was deemed too complex to manufacture.

[4] In 1896, the C78 was replaced by the semi-automatic Mauser C96 "broomhandle", but many of the older revolvers remained in use until after World War I.

The case was ejected via a manually operated ejector ring, with later models this was done automatically when opening.

This system of drum rotation was developed in 1855 by E. K. Root, an employee of Samuel Colt (US Patent No.

From 1901 to 1924 the system was used in the Webley-Fosbery semi-automatic revolver manufactured by the Webley & Scott Company in Birmingham.

He was arrested in May 2014, after uploading a video to the internet where he fires a zig zag 3D printed revolver.