Derringer

used by John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. A derringer or deringer is a small handgun that is neither a revolver, semi-automatic pistol, nor machine pistol. The modern derringer is often multi-barreled, and is generally the smallest usable handgun of any given caliber and barrel length due to the lack of a moving action, which takes up more space behind the barrel. It is frequently associated with discreet use by women because it is easily concealable in a purse or a stocking. The original Philadelphia Deringer was a muzzleloading caplock single-shot pistol introduced in 1825 by Henry Deringer. In total, approximately 15,000 Deringer pistols were manufactured. All were single-barrel pistols with back-action percussion locks, typically .41 caliber with rifled bores and walnut stocks. Barrel length varied from , and the hardware was commonly a copper-nickel alloy known as "German silver".

used by John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. A derringer or deringer is a small handgun that is neither a revolver, semi-automatic pistol, nor machine pistol. The modern derringer is often multi-barreled, and is generally the smallest usable handgun of any given caliber and barrel length due to the lack of a moving action, which takes up more space behind the barrel. It is frequently associated with discreet use by women because it is easily concealable in a purse or a stocking. The original Philadelphia Deringer was a muzzleloading caplock single-shot pistol introduced in 1825 by Henry Deringer. In total, approximately 15,000 Deringer pistols were manufactured. All were single-barrel pistols with back-action percussion locks, typically .41 caliber with rifled bores and walnut stocks. Barrel length varied from , and the hardware was commonly a copper-nickel alloy known as "German silver".

Spelling

The term "derringer" ( ) became a genericized misspelling during the reporting of the Lincoln assassination, which was committed with a concealed Philadelphia Deringer. Many copies of the original Philadelphia Deringer pistol were made by other gunmakers worldwide, and the name remained often misspelled; this misspelling soon became an alternative generic term for any pocket pistol, along with the generic phrase "palm pistol", which Deringer's competitors invented and used in their advertising. With the advent of metallic cartridges, pistols produced in the modern form are still commonly called "derringers".

Precursors

deringer The ancestor to the deringer of the Old West was the boxlock overcoat pistol used by travelers from the late 18th century onward as protection from highwaymen. These were also known as boot pistols, Toby pistols, manstopper pistols, vest pocket pistols, and muff pistols, the latter because they could be concealed in a woman’s hand-warmer muff. Originally made as flintlocks, later versions used cap and ball ignition and sometimes featured turn-off barrels for faster reloading. Double-barreled caplock pocket pistols, commonly known as twister pistols, became popular in England during the Regency era and also saw use among Union Army officers during the American Civil War. These served as the forerunner to the Old West gambler's over-and-under deringer and also to the pepperbox revolver with the addition of a ratchet to mechanically rotate the barrels.

Philadelphia Deringer

The Philadelphia Deringer was a small percussion handgun designed by Henry Deringer (1786–1868) and produced from 1825 through 1868. A popular concealed carry handgun of the era, this pocket pistol design was widely copied by competitors, sometimes down to the markings. For loading a Philadelphia Deringer, one would typically fire a couple of percussion caps on the handgun, to dry out any residual moisture contained in the tube or at the base of the barrel, to prevent a subsequent misfire. One would then remove the remains of the last fired percussion cap and place the handgun on its half-cock notch, pour of black powder down the barrel, followed by ramming a patched lead ball down onto the powder, being very careful to leave no air gap between the patched ball and the powder, to prevent the handgun from exploding when used. (The purpose of the patch on the ball was to keep the ball firmly lodged against the powder, to avoid creating what was called a "short start" when the ball was dislodged from being firmly against the powder.) A new percussion cap would then be placed on the tube (nipple), and the gun was then loaded and ready to fire. (The half-cock notch prevented the hammer from falling if the trigger was bumped accidentally.) Then, to fire the handgun, the user would fully cock the hammer, aim, and squeeze the trigger. Upon a misfire, the user could fully re-cock the hammer, and attempt to fire the handgun once more, or switch to a second Deringer. Accuracy was highly variable; although front sights were common, rear sights were less common, and some Philadelphia Deringers had no sights at all, being intended for point-and-shoot use instead of aim and shoot, across poker-table distances. Professional gamblers, and others who carried one regularly, would often fire and reload daily, to decrease the chance of a misfire. Deringer's production records, and contemporaneous records of his imitators, indicate that these pistols were almost always sold in matching pairs. A typical price was $15 to $25 for a pair, with silver-inlaid and engraved models selling at higher prices. The choice of buying a pair, in part, was to compensate for the limited power of a single-shot, short-barreled pistol, and to compensate for a design considerably less reliable than subsequent cartridge derringer designs. Original Deringers are almost never found still in their matched pairs today. Initially popular with military officers, the Deringer became widely popular among civilians who wished to own a small and easily concealable pistol for self-defense. In the Old West, derringers were commonly known as vest-pocket pistols, sleeve guns, and boot pistols. In total, approximately 15,000 Deringer pistols were manufactured. All were single-barrel pistols with back action percussion locks, typically rifled bores, and walnut stocks. Barrel length varied from , and the hardware was commonly a copper-nickel alloy known as "German silver". The back action lock was a later, improved design among locks, which had its spring and mechanism located behind the hammer, where it was thereby protected from dirt, fired cap residue, and gunpowder residue, unlike earlier front action locks that had their springs and mechanism located directly in the path of such residue in front of the hammer, under the tube. Because of their small size and easy availability, Deringers sometimes had the dubious reputation of being a favored tool of assassins. The most famous Deringer used for this purpose was fired by John Wilkes Booth who assassinated United States President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth's Deringer was unusual in that the rifling twisted counterclockwise (left-handed twist), rather than the typical clockwise twist.

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1365612583 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.