Take dryer lint, roll it into a ball of the appropriate caliber, and carry it in your pocket for a while. Then load it into the derringer. Voila!...a high velocity, PURE pocket lint projectile with devastating terminal effects!
how do ya load
- Thread starter Praridog
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Russ T Frizzen
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I believe the ball entered President Lincoln's head slightly to the LEFT of the mid-line of the skull...
Russ T Frizzen
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I think that the point being missed here is that the idea that an experienced gunman or most any westerner would be more afraid of these little pop guns than a full size six shot .44 caliber revolver is as hard to swallow as the pocket lint thing. Unless he was a real girly man. Definitely worth a jest or two. IMHO.
What was usually carried into the victim's wound was bits of his own clothing and this certainly did cause infections and death--but not always. People did survive gunshot wounds back then and from much more powerful weapons than a Deringer. Civil War rifle-muskets and Trapdoor Springfields for example.
As for an ancestor dying in less than a day from an infected gunshot wound, I guess it could have happened. Must been one helluva infection though or he must have had the immune system of a gnat. Most folks in this situation in those days lingered for at least a few days in agony. Of course, if he was shot through the heart or brain then I withdraw the above statements and concede that hanging on for nearly a whole day was an incredible feat and I wish we had more men like him around today! Only not fatally wounded and dying in agony of course. Maybe they would be highly knowledgeable lawyers... :v
What was usually carried into the victim's wound was bits of his own clothing and this certainly did cause infections and death--but not always. People did survive gunshot wounds back then and from much more powerful weapons than a Deringer. Civil War rifle-muskets and Trapdoor Springfields for example.
As for an ancestor dying in less than a day from an infected gunshot wound, I guess it could have happened. Must been one helluva infection though or he must have had the immune system of a gnat. Most folks in this situation in those days lingered for at least a few days in agony. Of course, if he was shot through the heart or brain then I withdraw the above statements and concede that hanging on for nearly a whole day was an incredible feat and I wish we had more men like him around today! Only not fatally wounded and dying in agony of course. Maybe they would be highly knowledgeable lawyers... :v
Seems to me that a simple little question about how to load a Deringer or Derringer pistol has turned into a discussion of darn near everything except the answer.
Apparently you folks liked my answer because I haven't heard anyone add to it.
That being the case, I'm sorely tempted to close this topic and offer Praridog an apology.
Apparently you folks liked my answer because I haven't heard anyone add to it.
That being the case, I'm sorely tempted to close this topic and offer Praridog an apology.
Russ T Frizzen
70 Cal.
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Your answer pretty much covered the original poster's question in my opinion. 'Twas after that when the fun began and the digressions piled one upon the other and the responses thereto added to the heap. It was mostly coherent and IMHO quite amusing--far more so than I would have expected pocket lint and dying in terrible agony from instantaneous infection could ever be. We have probably exhausted the topic(s) by now as you suggest and we managed to do so without bloodshed or toe jam. I lost a distant relative to a wound infected with toe jam in 1872. He died in agony in less than an hour. Shot himself in the foot, he did! But that's a story for another time.... :v
My apologies to all! :redface:
My apologies to all! :redface:
