Lincoln assassination Derringer caliber?

R

Rampant_Colt

New member
I've been reading conflicting reports about the caliber of the Derringer used by Booth. Some report it as a .44 and some claim it's a .41 cal.. All of the cap-lock Derringers i've seen have been .41 caliber; including the one i built from a CVA kit.

So which caliber is it? Can anyone verify it?
 
.44 caliber derringer

from what I have heard, this actual(exact) firearm that killed Lincoln was a very primitive weapon but obviously enough to cause a mortal wound. Experts have said that the up-close distance was the deciding factor in his death.
 
The Deringer that killed President Lincoln was state of the art at the time and was not a cheap handgun. It was a authentic Henry Deringer ( one R ). It was not considered a primitive weapon at the time but rather a high class and very effective defensive or close range handgun.:o
 
The Deringer that killed President Lincoln was state of the art at the time and was not a cheap handgun. It was a authentic Henry Deringer ( one R ). It was not considered a primitive weapon at the time but rather a high class and very effective defensive or close range handgun
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state of the art?
primitive?
I am not sure I can agree with either of those terms. It was 1865.

He could have taken any of the civil war revolvers Patterson, Dragoon, 1851, 1858, 1860, 1861. This would have been modern and IMHO a better option.

He could have gone with a 22short pistol ( I think S&W was making a revolver.) This would have been close to state of the art.

I want to say that someone was making a derringer in 44rimfire, but I can not remember who. This would have been state of the art.

Then again, he was successful.
 
Just found this from a report on the web:

"Though determined to be consistent in size and weight to the caliber .41 lead balls that were used in caliber .44 pocket pistols of the type owned by Booth, however, the bullet had suffered corrosion with the passage of time and was in too advanced a stage of oxidation to allow accurate comparison to specimen K1."

Duh.

The GUN was .44 caliber, but as with muzzle loaders of the time, the ball was smaller in diameter to accommodate the patch that was used, so it's very likely that the ball was roughly .41 caliber.
 
The GUN was .44 caliber, but as with muzzle loaders of the time, the ball was smaller in diameter to accommodate the patch that was used, so it's very likely that the ball was roughly .41 caliber.
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And we still enjoy the leftovers from that system to this day:
* 32 caliber firearms with a .312" bullet
* 38 caliber firearms with a .357" bullet
* 44 caliber firearms with a .429" bullet

As Mike stated, if the Deringer was appromaxitely 44-caliber, the bullet was probably around .41" to .43", depending on actual groove diameter, bore diameter, and patch thickness.
 
He could not have carried a larger pistol such as a Army Colt, He was an actor in public view and had to have something to fit into his pocket. For the time and date, the Henry Deringer was still still state of the art. It was not a primitive weapon in 1865 any more than any percussion weapon was. Come on now, if you were going to assassinate someone, even in 1865, would you use a .22 short pistol or a single shot ( to the head ) 44 caliber gun. It would soon be outdated, but at the time it was a viable pocket pistol. Read up on the actual facts of the matter and also on the trial afterwards. He choose the .44 Deringer only after long and deliberate thought. He wanted something that was small and concealable, but powerful enough to do the job. He had planed this for quite a while. He didn't go down to the local pawn shop and buy a Saturday night special. He choose a current, popular and powerfull handgun to do the job.
 
rjay, I'll take your word for it. I obviously heard that one on the history channel wrong. the word 'primitive' was used as I paraphrased, but the historian must've said the deringer was primitive by today's standards(or something like that). The way you stated it, you seemed to infer the .44 derringer was pretty new. I remember they said it was a .44
 
Scorch said:
Mike Irwin said:
The GUN was .44 caliber, but as with muzzle loaders of the time, the ball was smaller in diameter to accommodate the patch that was used, so it's very likely that the ball was roughly .41 caliber.
Click to expand...

And we still enjoy the leftovers from that system to this day:
* 32 caliber firearms with a .312" bullet
* 38 caliber firearms with a .357" bullet
* 44 caliber firearms with a .429" bullet

As Mike stated, if the Deringer was appromaxitely 44-caliber, the bullet was probably around .41" to .43", depending on actual groove diameter, bore diameter, and patch thickness.
Click to expand...
Sounds like the correct answer to me
 
"Patches were not normally used in pistols, and I doubt Booth used one."

The derringer Booth used was a rifled muzzleloader and was designed to be used with a patch.

I truly suspect that given what Booth wanted to do that he wouldn't have risked the ball moving off the powder because it was undersized and wouldn't have risked losing the power that would have come with firing an undersized ball out of a rifled barrel.
 
Note that the usual pocket size Deringer does not have a ramrod, in aid of keeping the size down. You would have to have a loading rod along with powder, ball, patch and cap. Or, you could have them load it for you at the store.
 
Deringer-made guns (Booth's gun was an actual Henry Deringer-made gun) included a ramrod as part of the set. They were designed to be loaded at home and carried.

You had to get the bullet down the barrel somehow. If the ball was so loose that it would simply drop down the barrel on loading, there would be nothing to prevent it from simply dropping back out of the barrel while it was being carried.
 
Most single-shot handguns of the time were smoothbore.

Henry Deringer's guns were not, they were rifled. That much can plainly be seen from the multitude of pictures available on the web of the Deringer recovered from the stage immediately after Booth shot Lincoln.

The most other commonly available type of rifled, single shot, muzzleloading handguns of the time were dueling pistols, and they were commonly loaded with patched balls.

The Model 1842 was a smoothbore - it's not analogous. It was also generally loaded from arsenal prepared cartridges in which the cartridge container was used as wadding to retain the ball in the barrel.

"The guns were normally sold with a bullet mould made to match the caliber of the gun"

Check the FBI write up available on the web.

The gun that was recovered from Ford's theater was .44 caliber.

The ball that was recovered from Lincoln's skull during the subsequent autopsy was of a diameter and weight consistent with a ball of .41 caliber.


And, saying that the bullet mold was made to "match" the caliber is a tricky thing, because in that time frame "match" was a highly variable quantity.

I've had the pleasure of examining two cased sets of Henry Deringer handguns over the years, both in the collections of the Pa. State Museum and Historical Commission. In both cases, the molds dropped a ball that undersized for the bore of the guns, undersized to the point where I suspect that the bullet simply would, as I described, have dropped out had it been loaded without a patch.


BUT....

It is possible that some sort of overwad was used to keep the ball on the powder.

But... given the distance at which Booth reportedly fired, a foot or less, one would think that any overwad would have been driven into the skull by the bullet and then recovered during autopsy.
 
A modern forensic analysis of the assassination seems to point to the attending physician who examined Lincoln in the rooming house where he was taken after the attack as a major cause of the president's demise. The physician probed into the bullet cavity with metal tool in his examination precipitating extensive hemoraging and death. It is believed that the heat shot would not have caused Lincoln's death. There would have been paralysis and perhaps loss of brain function, but the doctor's efforts were decidedly counter-productive.
 
I guess its possible the overwad was pulled out while the attending physician probed into the head wound, but probably doubtful that never came up I guess. I believe this was a mortal wound. I know the physician did some probing&this can cause issues, but booth was just too close for lincoln to survive. He definately had that firearm ready beforehand- its interesting booth was so efficient while his accomplices didn't get the job done. Seward surviving the stabs was miraculous in itself. Accounts of the time state that the Dr and others of importance thought this was a mortal wound from the get-go, but I am going to keep a lookout for the forensic evidence you speak of. As I eluded to in my above post, the historical evidence I learned growing up(and later saw on recent history channel specials) stated that the deringer was primitive by our standards but just too deadly for a direct shot that close. I don't think it would've been a good idea to leave the round in the President's head. To add even more speculation(if you can stand it), Mary and the others knew he was going to pass. They just tried to make him as comfortable as possible and do 'whatever they could do'. They had seen this type of thing before. I mean arm shots were killing people during the war unless an amputation was done. The people of the time thought it was ok to reuse blood-soaked, dirty bandages on people.

President Garfield died by assasination 16yrs later&it is said the extra, exhaustive searching for the round probably helped lead to his demise.

so when mckinley was shot in 1901, what did they do? they extraced the bullet that could be very easily removed and decided to leave the other one since they didn't want to do more harm. That ended up killing him, so they couldn't win. I have the President's book(not trying to be funny); it is Very good and goes into extreme detail of every president(maybe 50times better than a google search which shows a bunch of history). I can't remember the author(maybe adams); I'll try and look tomorrow and post
 
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