Civilian Pistol

[MrKSB]

Hello all-

Hopefully this is the correct section....

I portray a simple farmer on a small farm in the rural areas roughly 40 miles outside of Louisville, Ky.

My main gun (which I actually hunt) is a period 20ga/62 cal shotgun.

Been thinking that I would like to add a pistol to carry.

Can someone point me to pics of period, single shot pistol that a civilian in 1850 would have carried?

I would like it to be a 62 caliber as well...I can build it...so maybe a conversion piece?

Having a handy, quick follow up shot is comforting for me...

 

[UCVRelics]

I will indeed have to be a single shot pistol and at 62 cal that's going to be a HAND CANNON. I would look at the early dragoon flintlocks that were converted to percussion

https://www.muzzleloaderbuilderssupply.com/europeanpistolsets.html.

 

[Story]

I portray a simple farmer on a small farm in the rural areas roughly 40 miles outside of Louisville, Ky.
I would like it to be a 62 caliber as well...I can build it...so maybe a conversion piece?

A simple Kentucky farmer would be poor. A pistol would be an expensive luxury.

As I understand it, the price break then was the same as now for a purpose built single shot (the pistol being 1/2 the cost of a rifle of the same style).

I could see where a former Kentucky Volunteer might have lugged a captured Mexican flintlock pistol home after the war (see http://www.jstor.org/stable/23383895?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents).

As in all armies of the day, the Mexican infantry's primary weapon was a smoothbore musket. In the 1830s, Mexico purchased surplus British India Pattern "Brown Bess" muskets. First manufactured in 1797 to meet Great Britain's needs during the wars with France, these muskets acquired a reputation for unreliability. ...The Mexican army's 140 pieces of artillery, also vintage European imports, were in a similarly dilapidated condition, having suffered from years of neglect.
http://library.uta.edu/usmexicowar/item.php?content_id=177

However, veteran status might not work with your civilian portrayal.

If you're open to suggestions, consider a hatchet as a backup weapon - it's a useful tool for farm, camp and field trek. It doesn't require ammunition and it won't fail in rain. This is written by a former SF type -> https://www.amazon.com/dp/1581604416/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

Same guy offers a training manual for the Bowie knife, which could also be a logical (secondary) option.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1581603894/?tag=civilwartalkc-20


Illustrative Hollywood, but you get the jist with the righteous anger and the chopping and the blood and the screaming.

 

[Jobe Holiday]

What you need to do is have a pistol custom built, either by yourself or someone else. Why? Because .62 caliber is not a common pistol caliber of the time period you are nterested in.
J.

 

[Story]

Looks like the Mexicans purchased condemned British surplus flintlock pistols along with those Brown Bess'.

In 1838, they had 389 pistol (48 new, 104 used & 237 unserviceable) and they were issued in pairs. Specifically mentioned was the land pattern with 9" barrel in carbine bore (that'd be .62 caliber, y'all).

Reference p.65-66, On the Prairie of Palo Alto: Historical Archaeology of the U.S.–Mexican War Battlefield
https://books.google.com/books?id=W18lJtJS7hsC&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=mexican+flintlock+pistol&source=bl&ots=fTjAn-J7Z7&sig=s6w5xy7Uj9uFnAWQLGPPizanBf4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjA6c-gkrfTAhWGyyYKHdyVBJwQ6AEIVTAL#v=onepage&q=mexican flintlock pistol&f=false

Loyalist Arms peddles Indian-made muzzleloaders (stand by for safety-gasps) and they have three pages of orphans-needing-work (but no pistols). If you're into the Mexican Army surplus angle, something like this would work
http://www.loyalistarms.freeservers.com/light_dragoon.html

Call 'em, see if they have any orphans. If you got a 'second', then you could consider it a quasi-kit and finish it so that it looked like a 40-50 year old refurbished relic (which it would be be, 1800 to just shy of the Civil War).

There's also an American peddler of similar items
http://www.middlesexvillagetrading.com/PELD.shtml

 

[MrKSB]

This would definitely be made from an old family gun that has been converted to percussion.

 

[Story]

This would definitely be made from an old family gun that has been converted to percussion.

I picked up a .62 Land Service 9" barrel from Loyalist Arms for wholesale that had a flint lock with *issues*. That's what I'd suggest for a percussion conversion.

 

[JOHN42768]

Welcome, enjoy