Guns of the Week: October 13 – 17, 2014
Unloading the Myth – Bringing a Gun to a Knife Fight
During the American Civil War, the Union Knife Co. of Naugatuck, CT made pocket and folding knives. But believe it or not, they also produced a series of firearms primarily for a man named J.P. Lindsay.
They made a series of revolvers and martial pistols based off Lindsay’s inventions, including this .41 caliber pistol: the Lindsay Two-Shot Young American Pocket Pistol. This particular model only had one trigger (although some had double) and operated with two complete charges one on top of the other to fire successively through a single barrel.
The Union Knife Co. also produced revolvers and supplied the blade for the patent prototype of what would become Morrill, Mossman and Blair’s Elgin Cutlass Pistol.
Unloading the Myth – Taking a Stab at Revolving Problems
It has been mentioned before that the patent process encourages a host of new and often unique inventions. To avoid infringing on another, inventors had to get creative. When Samuel Colt took out his revolving patent, one such innovation that emerged was the turret revolving mechanism, first attempted by Cochran in 1837 and then by Porter in 1851. Many others tried to create their version of a turret gun. A turret is a multi-shot gun, where the chambers typically rotate horizontally on a vertical axis.
One of the biggest issues in many turret designs was that the chambers were exposed. Therefore, there was potential for row ignition (where all shots fire sequentially) killing anyone around the firearm. This .44 caliber French Turret Gun added another line of defense by including a folding knife blade.
Unloading the Myth – A Self-Defense Three-In-One
Not much is known about this particular firearm, but we do know the style on which it is based. It is a French Style Combination Cartridge Pistol with a dagger and brass knuckles. The gun is believed to be chambered for 5.5 mm. However, most were chambered for 5 mm.
This style of gun was known as an Apache Revolver and was made famous by the French underground. It is believed to have been invented in the 1870s by Louis Dolne from Liege, Belgium. The firearm has a folding dagger and also a folding knuckle-duster grip. The gun has no barrel, so it functions much like a pepperbox with little range.
