Rebuild of an antique American Side hammer pistol

After a long time of absence, I'd like to show You ( if there were any interest ) my progress in rebuilding an old American Pistol im my small collection of target pistols , which is in REALLY bad condition , but which is still ( even if only for me ) very interesting .

If anyone of You could determine , what I have/had here , any information would be welcome !




Should there be an interest to see , how I new interpreted and rebuilt this entire pistol , I'd be glad to show You my progress .

Looks like a good job of bringing her back to life.
Those saw- grip pistols may not look like what we usually consider a muzzleloading pistol, but I've handled a few at a competitors house and they lock on target like Radar!
I know little about them, other than they were and are popular amongst Target Shooters.
I'd take it to the Antique Firearm Section here and see what they say.
I'll be happy to move it there if you wish. Just reply here.
Et

Btw, I'm glad to see you back.

My fault :

I didn't restaure her , ( what , as I believe , would have been a crime ) but completely new interpreted and completely tinkered a completely new target pistol following this entire sample !

Therefore : Any information about this entire pistol would l be welcome !
I'd be more than glad to learn , what I have here , before I show You my progress !

The grip is very close to the so called Anderson Underhammer pistol, which was supposed to be made in Anderson TX, but through more research was determined to be manufactured in New York State by a small factory. Maybe it was a product with a regular side hammer for those who didn’t like Underhammers?

enfield said:

My fault :

I didn't restaure her , ( what , as I believe , would have been a crime ) but completely new interpreted and completely tinkered a completely new target pistol following this entire sample !

Therefore : Any information about this entire pistol would l be welcome !
I'd be more than glad to learn , what I have here , before I show You my progress !

Click to expand...

The wood and finish look appropriate for its age. I was guessing you worked the internals.
Upon closer examination, two things that give me pause are the belt hook and sights. I feel sure the hook was not part of a target pistol; they were typically cased. Maybe it was added at a later date?
Also, every target pistol I've seen had much larger sights, which is essential for a target pistol.
Perhaps it was Not a target gun but a CCW from the 19th century.
I'm looking forward to others chiming in.
@dave_person
@TFoley
@No second place

Eterry said:

Looks like a good job of bringing her back to life.
Those saw- grip pistols may not look like what we usually consider a muzzleloading pistol, but I've handled a few at a competitors house and they lock on target like Radar!
I know little about them, other than they were and are popular amongst Target Shooters.
I'd take it to the Antique Firearm Section here and see what they say.
I'll be happy to move it there if you wish. Just reply here.
Et

Btw, I'm glad to see you back.

Click to expand...

I'd be glad , if You would do so , since , by now , I know close to nothing about this pistol !




One of the most interesting things of this pistol might be , that the sear of the side lock also acts as trigger .

As You can see : I've already built a model for casting the case/frame

Eterry said:

The wood and finish look appropriate for its age. I was guessing you worked the internals.
Upon closer examination, two things that give me pause are the belt hook and sights. I feel sure the hook was not part of a target pistol; they were typically cased. Maybe it was added at a later date?
Also, every target pistol I've seen had much larger sights, which is essential for a target pistol.
Perhaps it was Not a target gun but a CCW from the 19th century.
I'm looking forward to others chiming in.
@dave_person
@TFoley
@No second place

Click to expand...

You're absolutely right :
The belt hook seems to be a replacement part of very later years .
Odd to note , that the threads and stud hole for such a device seem to me to be original ...

Saw handles were quite popular among duelling pistols. Uberti used to make a replica of such a pistol.

Thank You for this information , which I was , as a collector /searcher/student of target pistols of the 19th century for nearly 50 years , already aware .
Unfortunately , it doesn't help identifying my antique sample .

TFoley said:

Saw handles were quite popular among duelling pistols.

Click to expand...

But I didn't know , that Uberti is/was offering some similar pistol !
If You know more about it , I'd be glad to learn more about it !

enfield said:

You're absolutely right :
The belt hook seems to be a replacement part of very later years .
Odd to note , that the threads and stud hole for such a device seem to me to be original ...

Click to expand...

What size is the bore?

The ( remains of the ) bore is a solid .56 caliber with 6 groove rifling , at the muzzle , it nearly looks like a perfect , but rusted and worn out hexagon .

My rebuild will be a much smaller caliber , since in training , I really shoot a lot !
and 50 RB in .36 are definitely lighter to carry , than 50 RB in .56 ...

Yeah , I become older , too ...

enfield said:

The ( remains of the ) bore is a solid .56 caliber with 6 groove rifling , at the muzzle , it nearly looks like a perfect , but rusted and worn out hexagon .

My rebuild will be a much smaller caliber , since in training , I really schoot a lot !
and 50 RB in .36 are definitely lighter to carry , than 50 RB in .56 ...

Yeah , I become older , too ...

Click to expand...

I think 56 is too big for a target pistol, plus the lack of quality sights and the belt hook.
I'm guessing it was for defense, just on those facts alone.

I think absolutely the same .
But the shape , handling and technique of this gun led me to the decision to interprete it in my rebuild as a target pistol .
I hope , You can forgive me this sacrileg ...

enfield said:

I think absolutely the same .
But the shape , handling and technique of this gun led me to the decision to interprete it in my rebuild as a target pistol .
I hope , You can forgive me this sacrileg ...

Click to expand...

Your 100% forgiven... lol. Seriously, no problem whatsoever. I think a target barrel and sights would be wonderful. After all, we don't typically carry these for self defense anymore, at least not in Texas.

I could see this configuration as a basis of anything from a target pistol to a defensive piece and in any size from a pocket pistol to the .56 caliber that it is. It's ingenious and I like it. Wishing you luck in reproducing it.

Well
For showing You my progress :

After a long research for someone , who would and could cast my frame , I finally found a young guy , who has specialized in casting sculptures for artists in bronce .
The original frame is cast or drop forged steel , but in the past , LOTS of gun frames were cast in bronce , therefore I decided to give this a chance .

The artist was glad , that my tinkered model was good enough for this job ...



And this is the result of the first attempt for casting :

After cutting off all the in/outgots and sandblasting , this is , how my frames finally came out






Not too bad ...

Well

Such a gun needs a barrel , and for installation , there is some need for a breech plug ...
which I turned from silver steel , fitted it to a cutoff barrel of a rifle , which was made by Ueli Eichelberger , Switzerland ( one ( if not the best ) barrel maker here in the old world ) , and turned it conical on my over 120 year old ( pretty worn out ) lathe .
My idea was , that this plug not only should fit tightly to the bore end , but also the screwed-on barrel fits also tightly to the frame ( which I finally reached after lots of filing with needle files ) .

I drilled out the plug for a charge of ca 12 grs BP , the very tip rounded out with a .36" radius , also self built , tool .



Therefore , after fitting the plug to the barrel , I drilled the frame in exactly the depth of the plug end ( with a small drill through to the cavern of the frame for allowing captured gasses to escape ) and silver soldered the tang of the plug with low temperature silver solder ( AG-55 )
( Yeah - soldering bronce to steel with such a solder works like a charm )





Then I drilled the touch hole ( 2,5mm ) , added an inspection/cleaning screw , drilled and threatened a piston thread , tinkered the piston and next step is to tinker the complete lock .

Now : Since I don't know , if there is any interest for any progress , please let me know .

I don't want to waste Your time ...

Your's sencerely , enfield

Not a waste of time at all. But, I again moved the thread to the Gun Builders Bench, as we're discussing a gun build.

Thank You for Your patience for my tinkering !

I hope , there also is some interest for my tinkerings !