Allen & Thurber Pepperbox - The "Gun That Won The East" - & Lipfire Cartridges:

Yup - before the Colt 45 Peacemaker was pushing West - The Allen & Thurber Pepperbox was looking after business back East.

Allen & Thurber 'Baby Dragoon' Percussion Six Shot in 32" Calibre

Note: These Are Double Action

This Ethan Allen was a shrewd and very successful arms maker who patented his first arm in 1836 - after making knives and shoe making tools for some years.

Nice Boxed Set In .31" Calibre (cap'n'ball).

The gentleman built large numbers of arms over some forty years in business under various Trade Names - up till 1871 (when he died a wealthy man). The typical muzzle loading percussion pepperbox would be the double action BAR HAMMER type made in calibres ranging from .30 up - and indeed many of these travelled West with miners, gamblers, working girls, and trappers as belly guns for protection. They were affordable and reliable.

This type of repeater is again said to have been popular with both sides armies during the American Civil War .. but I reckon just about anything that went bang was useful for killing folk back then - Not at all like modern America eh..

While on the subject of cutting 'put-down' comments by Mark Twain and others - the fact is that these wee belly guns were economic and well made, reliable and effective at the short (close-contact) ranges they were meant to perform at. - Certainly you'd be "having a laugh" if you tried using one to drop a bison for tonight's barbecued steak.

Mr. Ethan Allen developed plenty of other useful stuff including a selection of revolvers - but have you ever heard of a LIPFIRE revolver or cartridge? .. Rim-fire or Centre-Fire - even Pin-Fire certainly..

LIPFIRE Cartridges

In 1860 Ethan Allen patented his 'improved rim-fire cartridge' and made them in .25", .32", .38" and .44". But he only managed to sell some 1,250 revolvers in this chambering type.

The 'Lip-fire' had only a short arc of rim projecting instead of the familiar fully rimmed-case (- a sort of 'rimmus interruptus' - but you only withdraw after shooting) .. and it was claimed to be stronger than the accepted 'rim-fire'. - A busy bloke eh.

The 'Pepperbox' seems to have faded away following the introduction of metallic cartridges. - Why? .. well the only answer I have found is that the usual common pepperbox designs didn't adapt or convert readily to metallic cartridges -which needed to be loaded at the breech with some form of opening mechanism. - Must have been a lack of demand too.. A short revolver ("snubbie") can operate at both close contact and at moderate ranges that didn't suite a pepperbox.

Breech loading doesn't work very well without a metallic cartridge expanding and sealing any gas leakage - and the metallic cartridge needs to be breech loaded eh.

Ever heard of a recent Leinad / Cobray manual indexed Pepperbox?

.45"LC & .22" R/F

- Looked clunky and oversized to me when checking-out the videos.

- A US shooter might just as well remove the barrel from a small frame .357 (and use 38s?)

7mm Pin-fire Pepper-Pot/Revolver by Arendt (Belgium) 1857-89 Liege.

- There's Nothing New..

An effective rim-fire 'modern' pepper-box' might be built on the lines of a top-break revolver missing the barrel - something like this old Iver Johnson - but with a down sized round butt or 'bird's-eye grip' and a bobbed hammer.

Perhaps legislation generally forbids smooth bore handguns - if so - cut a couple of grooves?

Antique 'Apache' Revolver? / Knife / Knuckle-Duster.

Design attributed to Louis Dolne and built for around forty years from 1860s in France. - There is rumoured to have been a 9x19mm version built for the British WWII Commandos - but unverified.

Marty K.
After researching & writing 1,036 blogs I've got something NEW to try .. I've signed-up to Patreon. - In over five years I've not made one cent from this .. NOW you can send me a wee support $ - starting from $1. to get all this stuff from New Zealand - over a year that's nearly the price of one Shooting magazine. - Am I worth it?

https://www.patreon.com/posts/24075745

Illegal Firearms - Law & Order Committee Confronts TradeMe:

The ongoing Parliamentary Committee investigating how illegal guns are getting to criminals is currently challenging on-line auction site TradeMe to exclude online gun sales.

TradeMe is the New Zealand on-line equivalent of E-Bay - but many locals feel that it is much better than and far easier to use than E-Bay.

Regarding gun sales - TradeMe  New Zealand requires users to pre-register their Firearms Licence details before permitting any transaction on-line - and only 'A-Cat.' (non restricted) firearms ammunition and parts are allowed.

TradeMe are countering the political attack on gun sales by requesting that the Police make available their licence register so that on-line activity can be cross checked for valid and current licences.

You can just about guarantee that the end result of the law and order select committee will be further expensive restrictions on lawful shooters.

Marty K.

Threat Response - Armed Bikers Dress in Grey:

London's Scotland Yard 'UNARMED' Police are publicizing their latest anti-terrorist moves.

Their new "Men-in-Grey" squads are armed with SIGs and have new BMW motorbikes ready to zoom through London's grid-locked roads to deal with the aftermath of any future murderous attacks..

Metropolitan Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe said that more armed patrols would take to the streets of London. According to the UK Daily Mail, there are 600 officers all armed with firearms.
In the article, Sir Bernard made this statement:

‘People aren’t fools – they know that in the event that there is a firearms attack, we are going to have to respond with firearms.

‘They pass through airports where we have armed officers, they pass through railway stations where they see firearms.

‘I think people understand that where you are going to have people as enemies who’ve got guns, we’ve got to have guns.

Two wheels are faster than four.

Meanwhile - in New Zealand Maverick MP Winston Peters called for Police numbers to be increased and the Govt. seems to be responding:  Winston Peters has said a pre-election bottom line for his party would be a significant increase in police numbers, equalling between 1000 and 2000 over the next five years.

Police Minister Judith Collins said any increase in police numbers would not be made to appease Mr Peters, and it was just a coincidence the move had been announced on the same day he had called for more police.

Mrs Collins said the government's pledge was to have one officer for every 500 New Zealanders, and population increases meant that ratio was now 1 to 526.

Note: The UK Policing Ratio is at a ten year LOW of 1 to 426. (Ireland is 1 to 287?)

The Police Association said the government recognising more officers were needed would be a great relief to hard-pressed staff on the front line.

Marty K.

I did hear on this mornings radio separate reports that our Health Service & Hospitals are in record deficit (Underfunding), Education is being underfunded, - and our Policing numbers are dropping (as above) due to underfunding. - Now - what was it that we expect our elected administrations to use our taxes for?
M.K.

British WWI Revolvers - VCs for Officers:

Greg Ellefritz at Active Response Training provided a link to this interesting Masters Degree Dissertation about British & Allied use of handguns in the WWI era.

http://www.worldwar1.com/tripwire/pdf/davidthomas.pdf

A well composed 38 page dissertation written by David Thomas - focussed mostly on the Webley revolvers in their various 'Marks' and it is complete with photographs and copious references - as you'd expect.

Page 25 tells how as the war progressed many officers bought and carried pocket semi-autos to supplement their large holster packed .455" revolvers;

"The Sporting Goods Review notes: It is quiet usual now for an officer to arm himself not only with the Webley .455 service revolver but also with an automatic pistol of about .32 calibre. the latter weapon, owing to its compactness and comparative lightness, is found to be very handy for carrying in the pocket during night patrolling. With a couple of spare magazines the officer can provide himself with practically all the ammunition he is likely to need during his spell of duty."

- A worthwhile read that illuminates the ongoing need for everyone using a handgun to be properly trained and practiced.

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One section tells of 22 VCs won for promptness and marksmanship in the use of the pistol - including on 5th June 1915:

"Lieutenant Moor VC of the Hampshire Regiment . At Krithia in Gallipoli he stopped a precipitate retreat of elements of 29th Division with his revolver by shooting the leading four soldiers."

Australian George Raymond Dallas Moor VC

(Died in France November 1918)

I looked this up by Googling it and found all the background history. Certainly this event would be very controversial today. - A Victoria Cross awarded to an eighteen year old officer for shooting "deserters" running to save their lives. That Gallipoli invasion was one terrible mess with our Colonial soldiers being controlled and disciplined by 'old school' British trained officers from the 'Ruling Classes'.

Second Lieutenant Moor received his Regular Commission barely two month later on 1 August 1915.

Marty K.

After researching & writing 1,036 blogs I've got something NEW to try .. I've signed-up to Patreon. - In over five years I've not made one cent from this .. NOW you can send me a wee support $ - starting from $1. to get all this stuff from New Zealand - over a year that's nearly the price of one Shooting magazine. - Am I worth it?

https://www.patreon.com/posts/24075745

S&W Model 3 Revolvers:

Smith & Wesson introduced the Model 3 'Top-Break' Single-Action revolver in 1869.

Now this is the model that includes the Russian Model, the Schofield Models, and The Australian Model among its seven? iterations and various calibres.

The Russian Model dates from 1871 & was a version with 131,000 supplied to Imperial Russia in the improved .44" Russian cartridge - rather than the original .45" S&W (a heeled bullet) chambering.

.44" Russian Cartridge (photo from Avinacco)

The Russian Model almost caused S&W to become bankrupt ..(SNAFU?). The masters of the Imperial Russian Empire lost faith with S&W and had their revolver "reverse-engineered" - then contracted some German and European makers - and their own plant at Tula to make them Russian style (more cheaply).

These 'copies' were of excellent high quality - and this lead to S&W being faced with cancelled orders - dead stock - and short payment. - Only some twenty-four years later the Russians adopted the Nagant 7.62 revolvers to replace the S&W Model 3s.

Russian Model.

The first model Schofield arrived in 1875 with improvements developed by Major Schofield - but there followed almost immediate confusion resulting from its chambering by S&W in a short .45" Schofield cartridge - known variously as the .45" Schofield, or the .45"S&W - which clashed with the original and incompatible chambering of the .45 Colt (.45" long Colt).

I think that this cartridge 'cock-up' might be claimed as the origin of the military phrase 'SNAFU' .. 'Situation Normal All Fucked Up'.

Wells Fargo and Company famously adopted the Schofield in a shortened five inch barrel version - so popular with modern day collectors that there are many more fakes around than originals.

Wells Fargo Model - Claimed to be Genuine.

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And our "local" Australian Model - that was supplied with a shoulder stock and delivered into the port at Adelaide in 1882.

Aussie Troopers used these 'revolver carbines' while policing vast areas of the outback for some thirty years. - Very wisely, their Police Commissioner Peterswald had specified the purchase of more than 250 guns in 44 Russian calibre with seven inch barrels.

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- Have you ever wondered why S&W Holdings firearms have an identification stamping "MARCA REGISTRADA" alongside their tardy (another SNAFU ) Spanish patent date?  .. this stems from patent 'infringements' (- but it wasn't patented!) by a Spanish company Orbea Hermanos from 1884-1920(ish).. so they make sure that they then patented all subsequent models in Spanish - in between more recent collapses such as 2001 following their 'Clinton Deal NRA Boycott' .. SNAFU.

Bankruptcy again? SNAFU. What's a name worth? - Ahh - a "BRAND" is what 'marketers' sell to the gullible (easily fooled or cheated).

- As explained to me by a professional 'marketer' - "We are not lying to consumers - We are offering them a choice."

Marty K.

Myths DeBunked by Massad Ayoob - and..

I have respected and enjoyed writings and books by 'Mas' for years.  Wow - as many as that?

Here's a link to one of his recent articles for those interested in 'shoot-outs'.

http://www.personaldefenseworld.com/2014/10/5-gunfighting-myths-debunked-massad-ayoob/#armed-and-ready

That's a '1911' - just goes to show how broad minded Massad Ayoob can be - as he usually carries a Glock.

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And while talking about Glocks - I've just come across a post showing "Polymer80" who are an US outfit making after market Glock frames in colours and a different style for around US$160.

or options

No Pink??

.. All you have to do is swap over the fiddly bits. This would actually be great if your original frame got scuffed or damaged eh.

Marty K.

S&W Model 16 K Frame .32" H&R Magnum on Range:

There was plenty of fresh snow to see on 'the tops' last weekend - but I noticed a line of roadside trees showing a flush of green from bud-burst - so milder Spring weather can't be too far away eh.

I am still waiting for my 327 Federal Magnum Ruger SP101 to land here - it will be the first one in the country.. But the importer has only just reported getting the Police Import Permit (While requesting payment of a deposit!).

 - Meanwhile 'Cutters' has found a used S&W .32 H&R Magnum and grabbed it while it's still warm.

- That would be around 30 years old but it looks to be in excellent condition for a blued gun.

S&W .32 H&R Magnum (K Frame)

Blued 6" Model 16.

It shoots brilliantly for me (That is Cutters hand above) - and I have to admit that about S&W revolvers eh..

- they DO have very nice trigger pulls eh. One quick cylinder full of .32 H&R Magnum at 24 feet.

That's Three of 'Cutters' 'K-Frames' In Line With My Ruger SP101 .22"

Anyway I did get to shoot some 'factory' H&R Magnums plus my first effort at reloading in 32 Calibre .. a very light load in .32"S&W Long cases - only 2.7 grains behind a 90 grain lead semi-wad cutter - and they shot like gentle .22" rim-fires..

Too lightly loaded really as they weren't sealing in the chambers - you could see by the smoky blow-back deposit on the brass cases.

The suggested loads published in recent manuals seem to consistently be too light - but I guess that's better than always being too hot eh.

- even the shop-bought H&R Magnums felt very light and soft - perhaps this is an appropriate intro to 32s.

I'm waiting.. waiting.. waiting..

- It's coming, it's coming - I can hear it coming..

Marty K.