Moccasin Medicine

[Supercracker]

A couple/three months ago I had a scary close encounter with a giant moccasin in the swamps. Right then I made up my mind to put together a simple, utilitarian smoothbore pistol specifically to load with shot and keep just for run ins like that.

Just finished this up day before yesterday. It's the L&R Small Pistol (IE: Derringer) lock/trigger/breech set mated with a ~4" .50 smooth barrel set in plain maple wood. Pounded a small belt clip out of some Home Depot round rod.

All in all the parts from L&R was....decent. The tolerances could have been a lot tighter IMO. If I were trying to make a really nice gun they'd be a good starting point. As it goes together out of the bag the trigger pull is crazy heavy, like it took two fingers and was painful heavy. It took a good bit of time to get it from OMG WTH??? to just "wow, that's really heavy".

I love the color I got on the barrel and lock plate but the TG was made from some kind of weird alloy that would not brown no matter what I did. No matter how much messing around I did I always got a bright copper color that would not darken. The Hammer was weird in a different way in that it would only blue and never turned brown at all. For what I was making it was ok, but it was still annoying as all get out. I also messed up the checkering pretty good, but it was the first time I'd done it across such a small radius compound curve.

I haven't shot it yet but I expect it will deliver a fair wallop on both ends though. Should be good medicine for overly curious or aggressive water moccasins though. Some time in the future I'd really like to make a super fancy little pocket/belt pistol using these parts.

 

[Don]

That is a real sweet lookin little pistol. I'd be real confident in snake country with that on my hip. Nice work. :thumbsup:

Don

 

[DOUBLEDEUCE 1]

I think it looks pretty dang good! Interesting colors on the parts you mentioned too. I like it. :thumbsup:

And at first I thought the post was going to be about some sort of therapeutic footwear... :slap:

 

[wattlebuster]

Well I got to give it 2 :thumbsup: :thumbsup: I like it

 

[Many Klatch]

With 15 or 20 grains of powder it should bark pretty good. Looks like a fun little gun. Will you be loading it with #4 shot?

Many Klatch

 

[BillinOregon]

Supercracker, that really is a handsome little dude. I'd probably load it with No. 8 or No. 9 for the slitherbellies, wanting pattern density more than pellet energy. I've killed rattlesnakes absolutely dead with that tiny No. 12 in the CCI .22 LR shot capsules.

 

[61henry]

I likey :hatsoff:

 

[nkbj]

Wow, that oughta knock some scales off the dragon. Nice looking lil' barker.
Gonna post some (short) range results?

 

[F.G. Ford]

Great job, nice pistol!
Would like to see a 8" version.
Did the whole piece come from L&R?
As a derringer it is great!
All the best
Old Ford

 

[nkbj]

Aren't the colors nice! With understanding that you must have been asking yourself WHAT'S THIS?, those colors really are pretty spiffy. People are probably going to be asking you how you produced those finishes.

 

[matt denison]

That looks like a perfect little snake gun. Just the right size to carry with a belt hook. Nice lookin' too. :bow: :thumbsup: :hatsoff:

 

[BFJ]

Sharp looking pistol. Good job.
BFJ

 

[rodwha]

Nice!
Considering a bead sight?

 

[Supercracker]

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I was really trying to just throw something together with this pistol. It turned out nicer than I expected. However, I do think that I'll pick up a nice pistol blank at Dixons and in the off season next year and redo it spending a lot more time making it right and nice. It really needs a trigger assembly made from scratch to not have wayyy too hard of trigger pull. Even in this worked over and improved condition it's so hard my girlfriend can't fire the gun at all. Also, I think the hammer is a little too big for the geometry the lock dictates. I really want to see this set up in nice walnut with some silver inlay and engraving by someone that doesn't suck so bad at it. The parts set from LR is the breech, trigger and guard. I got this barrel from MBS. I think it's drop from a trimmed .45 barrel that he drilled and reamed to get this. The breech adds a smidge over 1" to the length. I skipped the sight because it's intended to shoot 4' away. If I can't hit a snake at that range, with a handheld 410 then I deserve to get bit. lol

I used Mark Lees Express Brown for the metal treatment. I found if I polished it up a bit more than they said (I think I went all the way to 1000 on this) and got it a little hotter than they said I was able to go in small increments, polished out with degreased 0000 wool and really manipulate the color. Then I warmed it and massaged beeswax into all the metal parts to help with water resistance. Seeing as how it's probably going to get dunked in swamp water on a regular basis.

Turns out the trigger guard is Silver. When I got it it was marked as Iron and had the same blasted finish and I didn't notice the difference. Now that I've looked at it it looks like I made a TG from copper. So I'm going to leave it. When I redo the gun I'll likely fabricate one from steel.

 

[RubbleMaker]

:thumbsup:

Can you get a video of this angry little puppy barking Supercracker? Would love to see it in action.

 

[swathdiver]

All the colors add to its charm. Just wait some years when its got a nice patina on it, it'll look even better!

 

[ronnie_kennedy]

Beautiful colors on that deringer. There is just somethig about those little guns i like. Great job on the build. :thumbsup:

 

[onepaw]

nice job, nother project to put in my book

 

[George T.]

It looks pretty darned good to me! Geo. T.