Big Muzzle Pistol!

M

Model12Win

Moderator
Hey guys! Check this out:

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Guess what that is? It's the .54 caliber muzzle of my beautiful Harper's Ferry M1805 percussion conversion horse pistol!

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This is now my favorite black powder gun to shoot. Modeled after what could be found in the militia arsenals in the South at the start of the U.S. Civil War, this is a Pedersoli made replica. Smoothbore, .54 caliber. Surprisingly accurate with the right load. Pistols of this type would have been carried by Confederate cavalry early on in the war between the states. This gun was made for the demand of N-SSA shooters for the newly introduced smoothbore pistol event they now host. While I'm not an N-SSA member, I've experienced a lot of joy shooting this horse pistol. These can be found for sale at Dixie Gun Works, and are a very good quality representation of an under appreciated class of Civil War era weapons. It wasn't just Colt and Remington revolvers that fought the war, but these old single shot pistols as well.

Thanks for reading all, Take care!

M12
 
Here are some better pictures guys:

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She is a little dirty and tarnished from firing, but I think it looks better that way. So far I've fired this gun at least 250 times. Zero misfires of any kind whatsoever with Remington #10 caps. No hang fires, no cap jams, nothing. About every ten shots, I swab the bore with a spit patch or two followed by a dry patch, then wipe off the nipple and use a nipple pick to make sure the flash hole is clear. Works like a charm. With paper cartridges I clean about twice as often, every five shots, because the greased patch keeps the fouling soft while the paper cartridge doesn't. Anyone on the fence about these guns need get off it now. I can assure you this is perhaps the most fun black powder pistol I've ever shot. While the cap and ball revolvers are very cool and fun, the steady rate of fire and reliability of a single shot pistol is hard to beat. Just an amazingly relaxing and fun experience shooting one of these. :)
 
Very nice! Like to have one. For all I know, my great-grandfather may have carried one just like it when he joined a western Virginia Confederate Cavalry unit in 1861.
 
The nice thing about smoothbores is that they can also be used as shotguns. If you can't find .54" card wads, 28 gauge is close enough at .549. Better a tight fit in the bore than a loose fit.
3/4 ounce of shot and the same volume of powder separated by a couple of .28 gauge over powder wads with a thin overshot card on top of the shot should be a good snake load.

Or you can just make your own wads out of newspapers wadded up. Wool felt wads work too.
 
That repro looks good, but I wonder why they didn't copy the Model 1842, which is a lot more rugged and business-like looking gun. (And more likely to have still been in limited use at the beginning of the Civil War.)

Jim
 
Jim, the reason Pedersoli decided to make this gun was on request by the N-SSA for competition in the new smoothbore pistol event.

The reason that they were able to make the gun is because Pedersoli has been making flintlock Harpers Ferry pistols for many years, incorrectly in .58 caliber and doubly incorrect in having a rifled bore.

A "percussion conversion" redesign was easy and cheap for them to do, vs tooling up for an entirely new design. This model is actually cheaper for them to produce in fact, since it doesn't require the extra parts for the flintlock mechanism and doesn't require rifling the bore.

I really do wish one of the replica makers would take on the M1842 Aston/Johnson pistol, but it probably will never be. I think this gun is as close as we are going to get on the repro market for a .54 caliber smoothbore U.S. military pistol. Keep in mind that there are a number of actual percussion converted specimens of Harpers Ferry pistols in private collections and museums, so this isn't a fantasy piece. Whether or not any were actually used in the Civil War is debatable, but I don't think it too unlikely given the circumstances early on in the war, especially in the southern states.
 
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