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Old 2nd January 2021, 02:53 PM   #17
rickystl
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: St. Louis, MO area.
Posts: 1,621
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Some great photos of these ball butt pistols. And Kubur, you are probably right about it's Turkish origins.

The beautiful example posted by Corado is also the first pistol of this type I've seen with a trigger guard. Looks like it was possibly added later (?) If so, it appears to have been done sometime during the period. Notice the rear of the guard being attached with screws versus the more typical nail on attachment.

Jim's pistol is very interesting. Obviously of Caucasian manufacture. Simply made, but with a back-action style percussion lock. As with other guns from this Region and time, guns made with percussion locks are less commonly encountered. It's the belief of many that this was due to the small supply of percussion caps available in the Region and their high cost.

The back-action percussion lock seems to have appeared sometime around the mid-1840's. Some gunsmiths felt that this action was stronger than the traditional front-action locks as used on most percussion and flintlock guns with the mainspring being positioned to the rear of the breech area versus the front. Other gunsmiths thought that it just transferred the weak area of the wood stock from the front lock bolt to the rear of the pistol grip. In fact, this is still being debated today by gun enthusiasts. Never the less, both front action and back action locks were used during the 1840-1870 period.
One advantage of the back-action lock for pistols was that it allowed the use of larger caliber barrels without the need for the extra wood around the lock area. And Jim's pistol is an excellent example of this. This is also why almost every example of double barrel shotguns that became popular during this time frame have (smaller) rear-action locks.

Hopefully, one day, I'll find one of these Turkish styled ball but pistols. Still looking.

Meantime, my only ball butt Caucasian pistol with the interesting feature that the stock was made from a single horn.

Rick
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