-
Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.
We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.
Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103
Turn-out pistols
- Thread starter John92
- Start date
Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:
Do you mean "screw barrels" where you un-screw the barrel, pour powder in the chamber, put a ball in the barrel (at breech end) then screw the barrel back in place?
Old Ford
Old Ford
I know a little about "turn off," or "twist off" pistols, so what do you want to know? "Screw barrel" pistols were so designated because the bore was rifled, and not because the barrels unscrewed or "turned off" for loading.
These guns were also known as "Queen Anne" pistols and were somewhat common among the gentry between the mid 17th century to the late 18th century.
John W. Burgoyne wrote a very interesting little book entitled, "The Queen Anne Pistol 1660-1780".
My copy is only a coupla years old, so it should still be in print. It may be listed in Track's book section.
J.D.
These guns were also known as "Queen Anne" pistols and were somewhat common among the gentry between the mid 17th century to the late 18th century.
John W. Burgoyne wrote a very interesting little book entitled, "The Queen Anne Pistol 1660-1780".
My copy is only a coupla years old, so it should still be in print. It may be listed in Track's book section.
J.D.
Russ T Frizzen
70 Cal.
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2004
- Messages
- 5,007
- Reaction score
- 423
That's not the same "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne that once had a very bad day while visiting Saratoga, is it?
Russ T Frizzen
70 Cal.
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2004
- Messages
- 5,007
- Reaction score
- 423
Probably one of his grand-kids then--several generations removed. Unless he came from a family that tended to be extremely long lived...
Claude Blair in his book Pistols of the World 1968, THE VIKING PRESS, NEW YORK, says on page 17,
"The Turn-off Pistol This form first appeared in the 1640's and appears to have been used in England more than anywhere else. The barrel was made to unscrew just in front of the chamber so that the latter could be loaded directly. The advantage of the system was that the ball could be made to fit the bore more tightly than was possible with a true muzzle-loader so reducing the escape of gasses round it and increasing both power and accuracy. The system also made the use of rifling a more practical proposition, and many seventeenth-century turn-off pistols are rifled. They were known as screwed turn-off pistols , the modern practice of calling any pistol with a barrel that unscrews a screw-barreled one being incorrect.
Turn-off pistols of the second half of the seventeenth century are usually stocked only to the breech. Many pistols of this type have a running ring round the barrel linked to a small rod projecting from the fore-end. This facilitated the process of loading by keeping the barrel permanently attached to the pistol. Another aid to loading that seems to have appeared first at the end of the seventeenth century was a small wrench for unscrewing the barrel: it normally engaged with a lug on the latter.
Sometimes an internal wrench shaped to fit into what at first sight looks like muzzle-rifling was used...
The turn-off horseman's pistol had gone out of general use by the end of the seventeenth century and the system was henceforth used almost exclusively on belt- and pocket-pistols...
Throughout the period when turn-off pistols were in use, ordinary muzzle-loading pistols of exactly similar design but with fixed barrels were also made. Both forms in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries frequently had a raised molding at the muzzle, like that on some cannon, whence modern collectors sometimes refer to them as cannon-barreled pistols ..."
I find this latter comment interesting because Pedersoli's "Queen Anne" pistol fits this very nicely. At least according to Claude Blair it is a PC firearm.
"The Turn-off Pistol This form first appeared in the 1640's and appears to have been used in England more than anywhere else. The barrel was made to unscrew just in front of the chamber so that the latter could be loaded directly. The advantage of the system was that the ball could be made to fit the bore more tightly than was possible with a true muzzle-loader so reducing the escape of gasses round it and increasing both power and accuracy. The system also made the use of rifling a more practical proposition, and many seventeenth-century turn-off pistols are rifled. They were known as screwed turn-off pistols , the modern practice of calling any pistol with a barrel that unscrews a screw-barreled one being incorrect.
Turn-off pistols of the second half of the seventeenth century are usually stocked only to the breech. Many pistols of this type have a running ring round the barrel linked to a small rod projecting from the fore-end. This facilitated the process of loading by keeping the barrel permanently attached to the pistol. Another aid to loading that seems to have appeared first at the end of the seventeenth century was a small wrench for unscrewing the barrel: it normally engaged with a lug on the latter.
Sometimes an internal wrench shaped to fit into what at first sight looks like muzzle-rifling was used...
The turn-off horseman's pistol had gone out of general use by the end of the seventeenth century and the system was henceforth used almost exclusively on belt- and pocket-pistols...
Throughout the period when turn-off pistols were in use, ordinary muzzle-loading pistols of exactly similar design but with fixed barrels were also made. Both forms in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries frequently had a raised molding at the muzzle, like that on some cannon, whence modern collectors sometimes refer to them as cannon-barreled pistols ..."
I find this latter comment interesting because Pedersoli's "Queen Anne" pistol fits this very nicely. At least according to Claude Blair it is a PC firearm.
Russ T Frizzen
70 Cal.
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2004
- Messages
- 5,007
- Reaction score
- 423
There's a pretty one for sale on Track's site.
Similar threads
