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Originally Posted by Norman McCormick
Hi,
With regard to the fragility or otherwise of these pistols. The Liege one I have has obviously had the hammer repaired and also many years ago I dry fired one of these with flint in situ of course and the hammer broke in two. Maybe the quality of metalwork varies as I suspect there were many smaller manufactories turning these out by the barrel load.
Regards,
Norman.
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Interesting you mention this, Norman, going back to this gun's primary function. Private purchase weapons were always made on the cheap, often to be used only in a pinch and often at the cheapest price a merchant captain (or board of directors) could get by with. Thus, on private purchase swords we see surplus m1803's, mismatched blades, blacksmith quality sheet metal guards, etc. It seems likely the guns would also be treated similarly. The swords were rolled out
literally in barrels to arm the crew and the pistols taken down from racks to do likewise. These were not 'tenderly handled' gentlemen's pistols. They were practically never used unless attacking an enemy or defending their ship, unlike a military pistol in the field which would see much more action. Mine is extremely sturdy and apart from one time when I pulled the trigger and the hammer fell off(having 'fired' it many times without the flint like a dummy), it has been fine and I just tightened the screw holding the hammer in place.
