unknown underhammer

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Joined
Feb 12, 2020
Messages
202
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Location
Weil am Rhein , Germany
Sometimes it takes a bit of luck, patience and forists , who drew my attention to this underhammer pistol in an auction .

It was described as a “Belgian underhammer pistol from around 1850” which, with the exception of the type and the date of manufacture, cannot be correct because it would then at least have to bear Belgian proof marks .

According to the overall design I strongly assume that this pistol, which unfortunately has no stamp, let alone signature, has American origin .

As the pictures unfortunately do not show so well , the pistol is in mechanically perfect condition with largely preserved browning of all steel parts , only the ( not rifled ) inside of the barrel is slightly rough .

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Similar to the design patented by the Ruggles brothers in 1827 , this pistol also has only four moving parts :

Trigger , hammer , trigger guard , which is also the hammer spring , and surprisingly a small coil spring behind the trigger for the same .

The pistol is extremely light and slim , is 27 cm long and has the caliber .41 .

The “trigger guard spring” is adjusted so that it has only minimal tension when the hammer rests on the piston and therefore exerts only very little pressure on a set primer, but still cannot “go off” by itself.

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The extremely flat trigger is, I call it “getting used to”, this pistol was certainly not built for precise shooting! (It's funny that it has a rear sight but no front sight and never had one! )

In any case, I have once again been able to add something apparently really rare to my small collection - not even the book by H. Logan mentions this design!

In practical use, however, I would prefer the Ruggles construction simply because of the safety catch - but that doesn't detract from my joy about my new toy!


If anyone here knows more about this pistol, I would be very happy to learn more.



Thanks for reading along and for any comments



Your's , enfield

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
 
Last edited:
These simple pistols could have been made by anyone, if there are no marks on it at all, probably a small town gunsmith made it . Who knows?
 
But even such a highly educated and trained tinkerer or backyard gunsmith of yesteryear seems to me to have not built but one ( this entire ) pistol !
Never before , I've seen such a system , but I think and hope , there should be more survivors of this kind .
Metal- and wood analysis tell , that my pistol was made between 1830 and 1860 .

If anyone of You should know more , please share Your knowledge !
 
The pistol displays a high level of craftsmanship and also a working knowledge of firearms. Far more skill and planning went into this than you would see from a kitchen table gunsmith. Do you own it now?
 

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