Iver Johnson is the safest revolver
Iver Johnson Safety Automatic Revolver, .32 S&W (1896-1908). Left side view
When strong with weapons guards his house, then his property is safe;
Gospel of Luke 11:21
Gospel of Luke 11:21
Weapon stories. Perhaps not everyone knows what a USP is and the significance of these three letters in the modern world. Well, they stand for "unique selling proposition." That is, an offer related to your product that distinguishes it from other similar products. Finding a USP is crucial, but patenting it is even more important. Then, you can advertise that you offer a product "with the world's only... technical solution," that "only from us can you buy...," or that your revolver is "the only completely safe revolver" in the world. People are fascinated by anything unique and "one of a kind," and curiosity will certainly drive them to a store selling something labeled "only from us"!
The same revolver. Right view
"Only here" is a very powerful advertising ploy, so it's protected by law. To include this in an ad, the unique selling proposition (USP) must be proven. However, if it's proven, the advertiser's job of promoting a new product is half as easy. Today, we'll tell you about one such "product," which features a simple yet crucial "unique selling proposition" that has made it incredibly popular. We'll talk about the Iver Johnson revolver.
Iver Johnson was born in 1841 in Nordfjord, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway. In 1857, he trained as a gunsmith in Bergen and opened his own gunsmith shop in Oslo. In 1863, Johnson emigrated from Norway to Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, where he continued working as a gunsmith and, in his spare time, became an inventor. Seeking new and innovative uses for his partially idle manufacturing equipment after the American Civil War, he collaborated with and worked with a variety of businesses. On April 9, 1868, Johnson married Mary Elizabeth (née Spears, born January 1847) in Worcester; the couple had three sons and two daughters.
An advertisement for the Safety Automatic revolver, 1904.
Another advertisement from the same year
In 1871, Johnson and a man named Martin Bye merged their gunsmithing businesses to form Johnson, Bye & Company. Beginning in 1876, Johnson and Bye jointly applied for and received patents for new and improved firearms. However, their primary income came from selling inexpensive revolvers of their own design and manufacture. Then, in 1883, Iver Johnson bought out Bye and renamed the firm Iver Johnson & Company.
In 1891, the company's name changed again to Iver Johnson's Arms & Cycle Works when it relocated to Fitchburg, Massachusetts (sometimes incorrectly referred to as "Fitzburg") for larger production facilities. The company attracted many talented immigrant mechanics and designers, including O. F. Mossberg and Andrew Fireberg, who later invented the top-lock mechanism and the hammer-and-bar system used in the company's popular line of safety-operated revolvers.
A flyer with the text: "Hit the trigger with a hammer. We've calculated that every man who passes this test brings us, on average, three new customers—himself and at least two of his friends. If you need a revolver that won't fire accidentally, buy an Iver Johnson automatic revolver with a safety..."
Iver Johnson died of tuberculosis in 1895, but before his death, he managed to hire a Swede named Oscar Frederick Mossberg, who later founded O.F. Mossberg and Sons, a company that manufactured revolvers and later shotguns. Also a year before his death, Iver introduced a double-action, overhead-cylinder revolver, later nicknamed the "Safety Automatic."
Above is the Iver Johnson, below is the Colt Police Positive M1905.
It had no manual safety, and the mechanism wasn't automatic. It was called "safe" because of the safety, and "automatic" because the cartridges were ejected automatically when the cylinder was flipped back. The system was developed by Andrew Freiberg, who, like Mossberg, later founded his own company. Johnson's sons continued the family business.
Frederick Iver (born 10/2/1871), John Lovell (born 6/26/1876), and W. Walter (born August 1878) were involved in the company's management in various capacities, ranging from leadership to general involvement. They guided the company through a period of expansion, when bicycle production grew and the company later shifted to the production and sale of motorcycles. They also facilitated the growth of the firearms business and the subsequent restructuring of the company, which focused on firearms and related products, abandoning other areas, such as motorcycle production, in response to the growing demand for firearms and the expansion of the arms industry during World War I.
As family ownership declined and outside investment through public stock offerings and mergers/acquisitions/partnerships became more common, the company changed ownership and location several times.
"Hit the trigger on the table... and there won't be a shot!"
Over time, the company dropped the Cycle Works part of its name when that part of its business was shuttered. The company successfully survived the Great Depression (partly due to the rise in armed robberies, which fueled demand for personal firearms) and the booming arms market in the lead-up to and during World War II.
After World War II, the company's pace of introducing new firearms slowed significantly. The company's fortunes increasingly depended on sales of aging revolvers and single-barrel shotguns. Without new research and development, most changes to its firearms lineup were limited to cosmetic modifications to existing models.
Following a change of ownership in 1971, the company relocated to New Jersey, the first of two major moves. It then moved to Jacksonville, Arkansas, and was taken over by Lynn Lloyd and Lou Imperato, who also owned the Henry brand. In 1993, the company ceased operations under its own name and was acquired by American Military Arms Corporation (AMAC).
In 2006, the company was acquired by Squires Bingham International, at which time it changed its name to Iver Johnson Arms, using the popular and well-known brand name for advertising purposes. Iver Johnson produces flip-top revolvers, which it calls "Safety Automatics." This term refers to the hammer-and-striker safety system, an Iver Johnson innovation ("safety"), and the automatic ejection of spent cartridges when the hammer is cocked ("automatic"). The company marketed its firearms as personal and home defense tools, earning the nickname "the protector of the nation's bedroom." It sold between four and six million of its pistols at a price of approximately $6 each in 1905 (equivalent to $161 in 2025).
A diagram of Iver Johnson's "automatic revolver." The trigger guard is shown in red.
Now let's look at what was so unique about Iver Johnson's revolvers. What made them unique was that they could be carried completely safely with cartridges in the cylinder, without fear that if dropped on something hard, the hammer would bounce off the frame and strike the firing pin inside or puncture the cartridge's cap. Because of this danger, even six-shooters were recommended to be carried loaded, with only five chambers in the cylinder, not six, and an empty chamber placed against the hammer!
Iver Johnson revolvers on the market…
And so Andrew Freiberg came up with a simple and effective safety that instantly made the revolver completely safe. When cocked, the hammer of his revolver simply couldn't reach the firing pin in the frame and couldn't strike it under any circumstances. But the hammer had a plate on a shaped protrusion that rose when the trigger was pulled. When the hammer was first fully pulled and then released, it acted as a "seal" between it and the firing pin, allowing the impact to be transmitted to the firing pin and the cartridge's primer, after which it immediately fell back down. In other words, after firing, the revolver became completely safe again, so that you could even hit its hammer with a hammer!
"No safety buttons! The safety is completely automatic!!!" 1916 advertisement
Here's what they wrote about this revolver in advertising brochures:
You can drop it, push it down the stairs, or slam it against a wall without fear. Nothing happens until you pull the trigger. Then it fires straight and powerfully. The best all-around revolver on the market. Our free Shots booklet explains in more detail why the Iver Johnson has surpassed its competitors in popularity. A beautiful catalog detailing the design details is included with the booklet.
An Iver Johnson revolver, 7,65 mm caliber, serial number 11213, in the Imatra Border Museum. Stolen from a parcel intended for the Joensuu Border Guard in 1935.
One of the company's most popular designs was the five-shot, double-action, .38-caliber, swing-cylinder revolver, manufactured by Iver Johnson from 1890 to 1894 and distributed by the John P. Lovell Arms Company of Boston, Massachusetts. It was nickel-plated and became the first Iver Johnson revolver to feature the owl's head logo on the grip.
In appearance, this model, called the "Swift," resembles the Safety Automatic revolver introduced in 1894. Distinctions include a frame release latch that pulls down rather than up, a different ejector, and the lack of a hammer-type trigger mechanism like later models.
The revolver fired .38 S&W black powder cartridges, making it unsafe to fire more modern smokeless powder cartridges. The hammerless model differed from the hammer-operated model in that it had no protruding hammer and a manual safety was installed on the trigger. To fire this revolver, you had to place your finger directly on the trigger. The top of the pistol is engraved. There were three basic models of the Iver Johnson revolver: the First Model (1894–1895), the Second Model (1896–1908), and the Third Model (1909–1941). This model fired smokeless powder cartridges.
The third example of Iver Johnson's "safety revolver" chambered for .38 S&W smokeless powder cartridges.
Iver Johnson revolvers have been used in a number of political assassinations. For example, on September 6, 1901, American steelworker and anarchist Leon Czolgosz assassinated US President William McKinley at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York, using a .32-caliber Iver Johnson Safety Automatic revolver. McKinley died eight days later. The revolver is on display in Historical The Buffalo Museum in Buffalo. In 1933, Giuseppe Zangara shot and killed Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak at a political event in Miami, presumably in an assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. Zangara used a .32-caliber revolver manufactured by the United States Revolver Company, a subsidiary of Iver Johnson.
On June 5, 1968, U.S. presidential candidate and Senator Robert F. Kennedy was shot with an eight-shot Iver Johnson "Cadet" .55-A .22 Long Rifle revolver at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Kennedy died the following day at Good Samaritan Hospital. The revolver, along with official police documents, interrogation reports, ballistics reports, bullet fragments, and other important evidence related to the Kennedy assassination, are housed at the California State Archives in Sacramento.
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