Norm Flayderman’s Guide says that Williamson Derringers have serial numbers running into the 20,000 range but speculates that the Moore Patent Firearms Company / National Arms Company produced fewer than 10,000 of these pistols from 1866 – 1870. The subject of this post has serial number 10621. Perhaps unique to this Williamson are the decorative rhinestones, the heart inlays, and an Ace of Hearts playing card engraved on the backstrap. Further, there is a treaded-plug in the butt of the grip; I have not seen this on any other Williamson Derringer. I would be interested to hear any ideas on what its purpose may be. Someone suggested that it might be for mounting the derringer as a “burglar trap” with the trigger wired to a doorknob.

David Williamson’s design adhered to the aesthetic lines of the original Henry Deringer pistols but he decided to fill a niche market created during the period of transition from ball and percussion cap pistols to those designed to fire metallic cartridges; his derringer would be able to function with both. If .41 rimfire cartridges were not readily available, a reusable metal cartridge adapter allowed the use of loose black powder with a lead ball and a percussion cap.

The pistol requires no adjustments to switch between the ball-and-cap adapter and the .41 rimfire cartridge. During rimfire cartridge ignition, as you would expect, the extended blade firing pin on the hammer strikes the rim of a chambered .41 cartridge. When using the cap-and-ball adapter, the flat of the hammer whacks the percussion cap that is on the nipple of the adapter. The cap nipple, which extends into a hole in the breach when the barrel is closed, keeps the hammer from going forward far enough to damage the extended blade firing pin which otherwise would slam against the adapter’s rim.

To load the Williamson Derringer, first pull the hammer back about one quarter of the way until it clicks into its safety position, then push up on the barrel release lever that is on the underside of the pistol (just in front of the trigger guard) and slide the barrel forward. Insert either a .41 rimfire cartridge or the cap-and-ball adapter (after first charging it with ball and powder; it is probably best not to cap the nipple until after the load is in the barrel chamber). Slide the barrel back to the closed position and you are then ready for an 1866 night out on the town.

Uberti's 1847 Walker Colt

A volunteer in the U.S. Army at the begining of the War in Mexico, another tall hero emerges from the Legendary Texas Rangers, Captain Samuel Walker. Experienced with the advantages of a repeating arm in combat, Walker teamed up with Samuel Colt in 1846 to develop what was to become the most sought after of the Hartford Model Colt percusion revolvers. As a Texas Ranger and Dragoon officer, Walker knew first hand that the early designs that Colt had produced were the key to an even more awesome light cavalry sidearm. The combined knowledge and experience of Walker and Colt brought out the first six-shot .44 caliber revolver, successfully arming a growing nation with a firearm it desprately needed and sealing the Army contracts that would pull Colt out of bankruptcy and secure his future. Captain Walker died in October of 1847 at the Battle of Juamantha, Mexico, but his legacy lives on in all Single Action revolvers and is honored with the Uberti Walker revolver, an exact and faithful reproduction of the original. ~from the Uberti Website

I fell for this hog-leg, when I first picked one up from a display at the Wairarapa Pistol & Sports Shooting Club- Trail's End 2004. The New Zealand Uberti agent, Neil Hayes, promises that every customer will go away smiling after firing one of these!

Certainly that has been my personal experience and that of every one I have loaned my Walker for a try.

There is always the appeal of the biggest, loudest and most powerful hand-howitzer that makes the red-blooded shooter just HAVE to fire that piece. The beauty of the Walker is that it won't leave you with torn thumb webbing, sprains or strains and medical bills! It WILL get folks peering into your bay to see what on earth you are shooting!

True to the original, The Walker has its faults- fortunatly the metallurgy is not one of them. The loading leaver does sometimes drop when firing, a problem corrected in the Dragons. I found that this can be fixed by dropping the charge back from 60 to 55 grains, but a simple fix for those who have to fire full house loads (and why would you buy a Walker if you weren't going to) is to tie it up with a short piece of leather thonging- no doubt as the Texas Rangers did.

The sights are basic,but that doesn't stop this shooting iron from delivering some grat groups- I have shot 2' groups at 25 yards, which is about as good as I can do with any non-target pistol. I evem manage to hit out 1/2 sized buffalo sillouette at 200 yards three times out of five- on a good day!

Wayne's Walker Colt

The Colt degign is a breeze to strip and clean. My method is to tap out the wedge, remove the nipples and place cylinder and nipples in a tin can with a little household detergent.

I then pour boiling water through the barrel and IMMEDIATELY spray liberally with WD-40- though the barrel and everywher else. Helps to have a rag to hold the hot steel!

The cylinders are scrubbed with a small bottle brush, then the water is drained and cylinder and nipples get the WD-40 treatment. Speed is the trick- rust sets in FAST.

From there it is wipe well and lubricate with a good quality oil, with a good quality grease on the arbor pin. Don't spare the cleaning cloth- it's cheap enough!

Four years later, My Walker still looks like new and it gets PLENTY of use.

This piece of history is available here in New Zealand for $595 NZ.

It is just too depressing for me to look up a US list price, so I will leave that to you!

Wayne Watson New Zealand

More about it at Snowflakes in Hell.

Surely this is very dangerous? Apparently the sport is more fun than sex.

Many thanks to Sven for the link.

Just a joke. The EOTech sight is not attached

SayUncle was given a 1873 Trapdoor Springfield which belonged to his great grandfather.

Read about it here and the follow up post here.

This matched set was recently up for auction at GunBroker. The reserve price of $1525 was not met.

Photos by "zocalo"

Many thanks to Fred for the info.

I love the clean lines on this gun.

For those of you who are interested, its markings are "Bacon & Co. Norwich C-T" and "Cast Steel".

Thanks to Heath for the photos.

I was afraid to use it, but now and then as it was absolutely necessary, it was cleaned after months of staying loaded. On such occasions my men had the gratification of firing it, and the explosion was always accompanied by two men falling on their backs (one having propped up the shooter) and the "Baby" flying some yards behind them. This rifle was made by Holland and Holland, of Bond Street, and I could highly recommend it for the Goliath of Gath, but not for the men of A.D. 1866."

- Sir Samuel Baker -The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin Of The Nile, 1866 pp.138

Colin, of Stolzer & Son's Gunsmithing, apprenticed under Master Gunsmith Steve Zihn. I have previously covered the amazing 2 Bore that Steve built. Colin assisted Steve with some of the parts for that 2 Bore and recently has been building a 2 Bore himself and chronicling the build in detail on his website.

8 bore ball (middle), approx. 3500 grain 2 Bore ball (right)

He had two main design goals. The first was to slim down the profile of the pistol grip so it was easy hold. This was achieved by building a solid steel boxlock action with dimensions similar to that of an 8 Bore (.835″ in caliber vs. the 1.326″ of a 2 bore¹ ), but which could support the massive 2 bore barrel.

Note the beautiful animal's head hammer.

The second goal was to reduce the recoil as much as possible. In pursuit of lower felt recoil, Colin tried to make the weight of the rifle as close to 30 lbs as possible. By the time it was finished it weighed 24 lbs. For comparison that is more than a loaded M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW)! A recoil pad was added, something purists of these guns avoid (for reasons I cannot fathom).

Adding lead to the stock for weight and balance.

The finished rifle is a beautiful work of art and engineering.

The stock was made from a piece of American Black Walnut cut on Collin's own property.

Colin made matching accessories.

This blog post has only scratched the surface of the detailed documentation, photos and videos that Colin made while building the rifle. I highly recommend reading Colin's account of the process.

Colin told me that he plans on selling his creation. I do not know how much these custom rifles are worth, but I am sure he will discuss it with you if you are interested. His contact details can be found at Stolzer & Son's Gunsmithing.

A big thank you to Colin for providing me with information and letting me use his photos.

The barrel on the pistol is a 20mm cartridge case! I think the general idea was to pack a very small charge of blackpowder at the back of the “barrel” by the touch hole and jam some sort of projectile in the front, sort of like a blackpowder cannon. As the text in the above photo says, it would have need to be held right up to the victims head.

I do wonder if it was ever fired because a cartridge case is not designed to hold up against pressure, it is designed to expand. I suspect this would do as much, if not more, damage to the operator than it would to the intended target.

Hat Tip: weissent @ MP.net

Look at the trigger blade. Beautiful.

It has a 44″ swamped barrel.

The rifle along with a matching custom made knife is being raffled off to raise money for the Cowboy Church in Riverton, Wyoming. Tickets for the raffle cost $10 each or 3 for $25 and can be purchased from CJ Vandermuehlen. He can be contacted at 1-307-851 8829 or at the below email address.

Click to expand the photos (the small thumbnails do not do it justice):

8 Bore (.835″) 1:104 twist Octagon to wedding band transition then straight tapered round to the muzzle.
Jeff Tanner Ball Mould (.805″).

The finished rifle weighs right at 11 pounds.

The Action is a Pete Allan Boxlock Casting, it is representative of the 1860’s Edwin Wesson Boxlocks. The metal finish is rust blued.

The Ramrod is Rosewood w/ a steel button on one end and a threaded steel tip on the other for accessories.

It has a full length underrib to add a little weight.

The Stock is rock maple, stained with a dark walnut stain and then oil finished and then waxed to a sheen.

The forearms has an ebony tip, all the pipes, underrib, front sight and sight base were custom made in my shop.

The action was also reshaped, and the original triggerguard was removed and replace with the more elegant and classic one in the finished pictures.

The butt plate is a wide English style plate. The checkering is flattop.

I asked Colin to email me some photos to give a sense of scale to large bore size.

8 bore balls. These would weight 875 grains is they were pure lead.

A nickel on the barrel.

Many thanks to Colin for emailing me this photos. If you are wanting a custom muzzleloader designed I am sure Colin could make you one. His contact info is on his website.

The rifle utilizes a break open action and has the proprietary Accelerator Breech Plug installed, which allows the user to quickly dump an unfired load. The barrel is ported 360 degrees to reduce muzzle rise and has Williams fiber optic sights installed.

MSRP ranges from $390 for the blued, standard stock model, to $470 for the soft touch camo stainless model.

1885 High Wall Sporter


Creedmoor Black Powder .50-90 Sharps

Short Hunter


High Wall Trapper

Not pictured is the Traditional Hunter model.

They are available chambered in:

* 45-70
* 50-90 Sharps
* 38-55
* 405 Win.
* 30-40 Krag
* 32-40
* 45-90

I really like the short barreled trapper model. It is available chambered in 38-55, 30-40 Krag and 45-70. Weights only 6 lbs and has a 16.5″ barrel.

MSRP is $1514.99 to $2226.56 depending on model and caliber.

Billls blackpowder pepperbox replica.

Mark Twain wrote about a pepperbox:

“If she didn’t get what she went after, she would fetch something else.” And so she did. She went after a deuce of spades nailed against a tree, once, and fetched a mule standing about thirty yards to the left of it. Bemis did not want the mule; but the owner came out with a double-barreled shotgun and persuaded him to buy it, anyhow. It was a cheerful weapon–the “Allen.” Sometimes all its six barrels would go off at once, and then there was no safe place in all the region round about, but behind it.”

Billl’s is not much more accurate! Seems more like a gun to scare off your enemies than to do them damage.

Read his review here.

Over the standard Triumph model it features:
* Wethershield coated receiver and barrel.
* 28″ fluted barrel with QLA muzzle system
* Fiber optic sights
* Reversible hammer extension.
* Power Rob Ramrod

Click to expand the image

I assume the bigger balls are for the 2-bore
and the smaller for another gun

The guy in the photo is apparently a big guy (so you get the sense of scale)

The rest in the above photo came with the gun.

A big thanks to Bill for the photos.

More 2 bore goodness:

- S&H 2 Bore Blackpowder Express
- Cost of big bore ammunition
- 2 bore rifle photos

This would definitely make Dogmatix cry.

1″ long and 0.710″ high.

More photos here.

It looks great!

Here are four pics of the derringer I built in 1978 at age 19. I colored the wood by staining with a Minwax walnut and then handrubbing linseed oil over it. I did not cold blue the barrel. For some reason I inlaid the side brass pieces where the pin comes through the barrel and stock.

Thanks Joe.

If anyone else has unique, custom, interesting or a firearm with a good story. Please send pictures through!

CU_Cannon built the “Nano-mortar”. It fires .177″ BBs. The bed it sits on is 1″ long.

Click to expand the images.

The Nano-mortar

Here is a video of it in action

Blueprints

Cal.45 built a 3mm mortar called the “Pico “Mortar”

The “Pico Mortar”

The pico mortar was build solely with a drill-press, some files and emery paper. It fires 3mm shot pellets (0.118 inch diameter) and has a maximum load of 0.2 grains of blackpowder. It has a barrel length of 8mm (0.315″) and can fire 6 meters (20 feet)

Anyways. I started with a load of about 0.2gr Swiss #2 but this did just a sizzling sound, so from the next shots on I used Swiss #1 (which is even finer in granulation: about 0.011 to 0.015 inch) which produced a nice snapping. Cheesy.

The touch hole is 0.5 millimeters = close to 0.02 inch (that makes it about 16% of the bore diameter (if one may still call it so).

Priming was done by filling the touch hole granule by granule; sweaty hands help maneuvering these tiny particlesin place.

First I wanted to enlarge the touch hole to fuse diameter and keep the rest at the smaller diameter (to keep some pressure) but the wall thickness is that small, that this wasnot possible.

Ignition with a lighter proofed to be better than trying to do it with a match: the flame produces soot but therefore does not function (kept them as size reference on the photo though).

Whatever. At first I thought that the shot would barely leve the muzzle: wrong!

Firing from the kitchen table I shot dimples into the door! This was 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) away! By the trajectory (angle of the mortar and height of impact) this means an estimated firing distance of 6 meters (about 20 feet): I would never have guessed this to be possible with a piece that has a barrel length of just 8 millimeters (0.315 inch).

The “Pico Mortar” being fired

“Pico Mortar” blueprints

Rickk built the “Nano Cannon”

The “Nano Cannon”

Now I know what only the others who have made one know… what the tremendous roar they make sounds like Grin

Bore is 3/16 (.186), so it will take a BB. Fuse is 5/64, so it will takes 1/16 fuse.

Trunions, as well as cascable, are 3/16 inch steel rod pressed into shallow 3/16 holes and then brazed in place.

All the work was done on my drill press, with some help from an angle grinder and a file for shaping.

It needs a pit more polishing, but I just couldn’t wait to fire it ! Total time into is so far is about 2 hours.

The “Nano Cannon” with carriage

I found the smoldering paper towel pieces about 15 feet away, and the gun recoils back about 6 inches!

BTW, for BB caliber, Q-tips make excellent cleaning rods.

Terry C. built the the very first micro-gonne. A hand gonne is a hand held cannon. It fires #4 buckshot.

the micro-gonne

The micro hand gonne being fired. Note the wooden rod attached.

Victor build a bigger scale hand gonne:

The Building

The Shooting

These photos are amazing

.700 nitro express next to 2 bore and 3500 grain bronze solid

.500 S&W, .45-70, .700 Nitro Express, 2 bore

The caliber equivalent of 2 bore (’bore’ is generally interchangeable with ‘gauge’ in regard to caliber) is 1.326″ or 33.68mm! The bronze solid bullet weights 3500 grain / 1/2 pound / 226.80 grams!

While technically fired from a rifle these are more like massive shotgun slugs: a heavy projectile at a low velocity. The 2500 grain bronze solid leaves the barrel at 1500 ft/s and with 17487 ft·lb of energy.

Apart from the nerve destroying recoil, heavy rifle, heavy ammo and expense these big bullets slow down dramatically after entering the game and hitting bone. A problem when hunting elephant.

They even come bigger than this. The 1 bore has a caliber of 1.67″. The A Guage/Bore, about 2″, was used for punt guns.

More info at Schroeder & Hetzendorfer.

ACE has an interesting article on the 4 bore.

UPDATE

Jay Schroeder emailed me the pricing for for the brass and bullets:

Cartridge Cases are $495.00 per 10 pack shipped.

Copper FN Solids are $295.00 per 10 pack shipped.

All components are USA made by Americans from American material.

Although it may seem expensive, you are probably not going to purchase more than one set of brass.

To fire, the powder charge and bullet are loaded via a ramrod. Using a standard magazine with a single shot follower, an unloaded 5.56 case is loaded into the mag, inserted in magazine well and loaded just like a standard rifle.

Once the rifle is fired, the empty brass is ejected manually and then reloaded.

…

It is a modified .223 case that uses a 209 primer. Currently .50 cal. Should have pricing and other specs tomorrow.

Interesting! As one commenter said

Can you imagine the face of an unsuspecting
game warden the first time he runs across these..

They have yet to announce pricing.

UPDATE

This isn’t a loaded case, it is a 209 primer in a piece of .223 brass. There is no way a live round or a blank will load into the “chamber”.

UPDATE

A video of it in action. Actually, it looks pretty good.

More at AR15.com

Hat Tip: Freedom Sight

The question of whether a static electric spark can set of black powder has been debated for a while, and I recall hearing of some previous experiments showing that it could not. Since I am involved in the design of a BP breechloader which is to be electrically fired, I resolved to put the matter to test in two experiments.

Apparently sparks do not ignite blackpowder!

Read the article here.

Hat Tip: The Real Gun Guys