Rationalizing a Firefly - Serenity type setting

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

What makes you think the firearms are 19th century designs? Mal's pistol makes a weird whining "power up" kind of noise that certainly doesn't come from a regular revolver. Might just be retro looks, though there's also a large amount of "form follows function" in a pistol.

Point of fact I strongly suspect electrothermal propellant - they still seem to be using some kind of chemical propellant, but the capacitor whine makes me think that there's some kind of electrothermal business going on.