A French percussion gun with a 27 mm diameter heavy barrel.

[Roland_M]

Originally Posted by fernando

Sorry my ignorance Roland ...
Is this trigger set you refer the same resource as the so called 'hair trigger' ?. If so, isn't it more a device for (sports) target shooting ? I realized a heavy game gun like that of Jean-Luc is more like for 'crude' shooting; the target to aim at being large enough .
Here is one with similar caliber (4 bore) and similar weight (7,7 Kgs.) made circa 1848 by Harris Holland for Sir Samuel Baker, who used to call it 'my baby'. It was damaged during an elephant charge and was repaired with elephant skin, covering the stock comb and lockwork.

(Courtesy "Oito Séculos de Historia em Portugal").
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Hi Fernando,

yeah, technically "Stecher" and Hair Trigger means the same, a very light pressure on the Trigger is enough to release the hammer.

Western Revolvers had hair triggers with only ~60 gramms or two oz of trigger-weight for example. Nowadays a carry gun pistol got an average trigger weight of 2kg and more.

I think the difference is that American hair triggers are simply adjusted to release the hammer at a very low pressure (Western Revolvers or modern Ruger Colt 45 if one remove the small springs under the handles), while European stechers had an own pre-stressed mechanism.

Such triggers had been preferably used for duelling and for hunting purposes. Many better duell pistols in the 19ct. had a stecher trigger.


best wishes,
Roland

p.s. and Mae again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2GLbXR3-HI

just