Would you pull the trigger on a 10 Ga Derringer

10 gauge?

I don't want to sound like a 'rainer on parades' but I have never encountered a 10 ga Derringer, especially in Cabelas.
Could what you saw have been their "Howdah" pistol? It is a side x side double barrel in .20 gauge and blackpowder. It replicates the Howdahs used for large cat hunting from Elephant back. The little rattan/wicker cage you sat in on Br'er Tembo's back was called a Howdah. There was use of one in the film "Ghost and the Darkness" about a couple of people eating kitty cats in Africa.
 
If the price was reeeeal good and it was well made I might buy it. I definitely would shoot one given the opportunity.
 
I think Aryfrosty is correct on this one.
Cabela's " Howdah" pistol is a double barreled SxS 20 gauge muzzle loader.
I have seen an awful lot of guns in my time, and I have never seen a 10 ga. derringer. The very size of the shells would proclude a derringer being made in this size. The gun would be much larger than an "N" frame S&W.
 
It may not have been exactly a derringer , it was a derringer style and it was a definitively 10 GA, it appeared to be heavy brass or brass colored, it was beat up.
 
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Did it say 10 Ga. Brass Dbl barrel large bore pistol, I'm thinking flare gun!!! Being brass, and old it could have been antique enough for Cabela's library.
 
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My late father in law had a 10 guage double barrel shotgun that had been handed down to him.One New Years I fired it at midnight, took a week or longer for the bruise to fade.On D-day I fired a 12 ga.,dislocated my shoulder, I was seven at the time.In 1953 before there were clothes dryers,we had a starling problem, making hanging up clothes to dry a roll of the dice.Management paid for the ammo and my best friend , his father and myself fired several hundred rounds. We killed about 500 and the remaining found a new location to roost.After graduation we moved to northern Kentucky, and my new best friend lived at the top of a hill in log cabin his father had built. We had a routine, I would drive up there, we would shoot a box of slugs at a quarter wedged into the bark.Drive downtown and get a shoeshine then pickup our dates, at the end the date we would drop off the girls then go eat at the Crystal chili parlor.To answer the question, not no but hell no! My cardiologist told me to sell my high powered pistols as the recoil might interfere with the stents installed in two of my arteries.
 
Okey

I accept your description as a 10 gauge. If you can get a chance I'd really enjoy seeing a photo of this monster.

My answer is that I would never fire anything like that. Some years ago I went through an Officer survival class that had us shooting a 12 gauge 18" barrel riot gun one handed. (Scenario being with the Officer wounded and fighting to survive with only a riot gun.)
I did OK at that but once was all it took.
 
If it is a very pistol (flare gun,) it won't accept commercial 10 ga. ammunition.
The flares have a very light payload, so recoil wouldn't be bad.
 
If the snow ever stops I will run to Owatonna and see if it was still there.

I do not believe it was a flaregun although I am not an expert on flareguns.

If its still there I will get a pic if at all possible... Wednesday is the earliest Im going to be able to make it down there. I have about 16 new inches of snow in the last 24 hours.
 
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Sounds interesting. So far I've found no handgun that "bothered" me to shoot. I'm still looking for the one that does. LOL
 
I owned an American Derringer in .357 mag. I hated every shot I fired through that SOB. It's one of the few I don't miss.
That's all I need to know about derringers. Thanks for your interest.
 
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