Dear Colleagues,
I've been a passive reader of this forum, now I would like to ask for some information. Even though my questions regard a European pistol, I hope that somebody has run across something similar here. I have just acquired this:
(you can click the pictures to see bigger size)
It looks like a typical travelling boxlock of the mid-XIX century, until you compare them side by side:
OK, the smaller one is a pocket pistol, but still, the big one is much bigger than typical percussion boxlocks:
Bore size is equivalent to 12 GA:
It bears St. Etienne (French) post-1869 proofmarks:
The design is simple, workmanship rough. It should have been rather cheap at its time.
My questions are:
- who was this kind of pistols designed for and against what/whom?
- how common they were? I haven't seen anything that big with a boxlock in books or on the Internet, but I was told they were not so rare at all. So it seems it's only me who hasn't seen them
- is it possible to estimate the manufacturing date more accurately? I suppose that it must have been obsolete shortly after it was made?
- how did the front sight look like, and was there any front sight at all? It seems that the barrels have been shortened recently.
I would appreciate any piece of information, particularly pictures of this kind of handguns. It fascinates mi with its shape and size and because the barrels seem to be in a very healthy condition (except ridiculous attempts of "restoration" on the outside), I would like to bring it to a shootable condition (at the moment springs are broken and nipples must be replaced). Then it might be an original French equivalent to the Brittish "Howdah hunter".
I've been a passive reader of this forum, now I would like to ask for some information. Even though my questions regard a European pistol, I hope that somebody has run across something similar here. I have just acquired this:
(you can click the pictures to see bigger size)
It looks like a typical travelling boxlock of the mid-XIX century, until you compare them side by side:
OK, the smaller one is a pocket pistol, but still, the big one is much bigger than typical percussion boxlocks:
Bore size is equivalent to 12 GA:
It bears St. Etienne (French) post-1869 proofmarks:
The design is simple, workmanship rough. It should have been rather cheap at its time.
My questions are:
- who was this kind of pistols designed for and against what/whom?
- how common they were? I haven't seen anything that big with a boxlock in books or on the Internet, but I was told they were not so rare at all. So it seems it's only me who hasn't seen them
- is it possible to estimate the manufacturing date more accurately? I suppose that it must have been obsolete shortly after it was made?
- how did the front sight look like, and was there any front sight at all? It seems that the barrels have been shortened recently.
I would appreciate any piece of information, particularly pictures of this kind of handguns. It fascinates mi with its shape and size
and because the barrels seem to be in a very healthy condition (except ridiculous attempts of "restoration" on the outside), I would like to bring it to a shootable condition (at the moment springs are broken and nipples must be replaced). Then it might be an original French equivalent to the Brittish "Howdah hunter".
