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French Pistol

French Pistol

I recently received a reproduction French pistol on a trade.  It was made by Marvis Chance of Louisianna and has a 9″ .62 caliber barrel, and is made of dark walnut with iron furniture.  It weighs about 2 3/4 pounds and has a nice fit to the hand.  I took it out twice this past weekend and found that it shoots quite well with about 45 grains of 3Fg powder, wadded with tow, and shooting the same .595 round ball (chewed up) that I use in my long guns.  With my shooting this weekend, I was consistantly shooting within a 5 in. group at 20 yds.  This pistol does not have sights and like most of its historic counterparts, was meant to be pointed and fired.  I have a bit of work to do with my pointing and “sight picture.”  Although my groups were tight and dead on center, I was hitting about a foot above the bull.  With this load, I did not find it to be too horrible to shoot (rather pleasant actually) and the balls had plenty of penetration on the old dead tree that was my backstop.  I also loaded the pistol up for a couple of shots with #4 shot (the barrel is smoothbored), using 30 grains of powder.  At 15 yards, it has a rather nice pattern.

And a historic image just for fun… this was a French pistol dug up at Rock Island, WI off the tip of door county (and off of Washington Island).

rock island pistol

2 Responses to “French Pistol”

  1. Thanks for another informative web site. Where else could I get that type of information written in such a perfect way? I have a project that I’m just now working on, and I have been on the look out for such info.

  2. paul says:

    Color me jealous, that is a fine piece.

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