What's with the little guns?

There's something about a dinky little small caliber pistol that amuses me greatly. Maybe it's the thought of loading that tiny little ammunition into that tiny little breech with my big ham hands. Maybe its the idea that these low powered rounds are utterly useless for anything other than punching holes in paper or (maybe) killing a wild mouse. Whatever...


Here's another parlor pistol, German makers mark on the right side of the barrel. Like a few others, it's got a funny little breech block mechanism and extractor. The half octagon barrel's about 10" long, and the piece has wooden grips.

Parlor pistol redux

Yet another German made parlor on the same frame as the one I blogged about last week, but with a longer 10" barrel. The action's a little sticky on this one, but it does work. By the way, that's a US quarter down below of scale, but the flash made it hard to see because of reflection.

Another little parlor pistol

Like this post, this little fella is a parlor pistol, designed for indoor and/or gallery shooting. It's got German proof marks on the right side of the barrel, and has an elaborate little breech loading system to keep the itty bitty 6 mm (.22 caliber) CB or BB caps in the chamber. As soon as I get some Flobert cartridges, I'm going to give it a shot. This little guy will also probably be the piece I use to introduce the kid to shooting - low noise, single shot, no recoil, "safe" muzzlle velocities, little cartridges for little hands, and a little frame. This he will appreciate more than a shot with my S&W 625.

Honey, go play with that outside...

Actually, don't.


This funny guy is a late 19th century "parlor pistol", chambered in .22 caliber "caps". These cartridges were even shorter than the diminutive .22 short, and were basically the bullet propelled by the fulminate primer in the rimfire cartridge.

Believe it or not, pistols like this were very popular in Victorian times and were used indoors as part of "parlor games", knocking over tiny metal targets or making holes in paper. This activity was probably less dangerous than darts, although chronic lead and mercury poisoning may have resulted in long term health issues.

Imagine: it's the late 1800's - you and your closest friends get together in the living room after supper and drink brandy, play charades, smoke cigars, play cards, have a seance, and then bust out the parlor pistols for a friendly target competition with the fireplace as your backstop. Of course, this was long before "Twister", or even "Naked Baby Oil Twister" was invented...

And to think, nowadays you yobs sit around watching "American Idol" and eating "Hot Pockets".

So much for modern conveniences...