Curious History: Peculiar Pistols from the Past
Pepperbox pistols were first used in the 1500s. The
unusual gun features multiple rotating barrels numbering between four
and twenty four. Although they were sometimes made of one continuous
piece, the barrels were often all made of separate pieces and
individually removable for easy maintenance. The earliest models of this
type of gun did not rotate automatically after each shot; the barrel
assembly had to be rotated by hand to move the next pre-loaded barrel
into position. The pepperbox pistol was the predecessor to today’s
revolver, only instead of a moving cylinder these weird pistols used
rotating barrels to shoot one bullet at a time.
Duckfoot pistols are even more bizarre looking,
featuring multiple barrels designed to shoot all at the same time. The
spread-out barrels are meant to strike multiple targets or adversaries
at once. They were often used in situations where one person might be up
against several enemies simultaneously, such as in the case of prison
guards or sailors.
Despite looking totally awesome, the duckfoot pistol and
pepperbox pistol both faded into obscurity around the time more
sophisticated handguns were invented.
No comments:
Post a Comment