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From Bloomberg.com (http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=aUpP.2P0NJ0Q&refer=europe):
Dueling Fires Up Sales of Pistol Powder at Poudrerie d'Aubonne
March 1 (Bloomberg) -- On an icy English meadow, the fiery blasts of dueling pistols pierce the dawn fog, illuminating the crows that peck breakfast beneath the thorn bushes. The birds caw as David Spittles, a retired engineer at ABB Ltd., takes 30 seconds to reload and fire his $3,000 antique muzzle-loader while his opponent fumbles to stuff black powder and lead ball into a similarly cumbersome 19th-century weapon.
``You lose,'' says the 64-year-old European Flintlock Dueling Pistol champion, calculating the non-lethal outcome from paper targets pocked with bullet holes.
``It's probably not wise to go back to live targets to conclude disagreements over women and gambling debts,'' Spittles reckons with a laugh. ``But dueling was a legal means of settling business arguments and could possibly serve as a modern solution for boardroom disputes. It certainly would be cheaper and more effective than using lawyers.''
Indeed, during the 19th century, the Paris newspaper Le Figaro ran a daily column on duels, recording more than 150 ``important'' shoot-outs between bickering businessmen.
At the Swiss headquarters of Poudrerie d'Aubonne SA, the world's largest maker of dueling-pistol powder, company officials say they're prepared for a return to dueling as a form of arbitration. Privately held Poudrerie already serves 150,000 duelists in 60 countries with 45 tons of black powder annually.
Civil Explosives
``Business is booming,'' company President Claude Modoux says, walking past the cows grazing on the company's 80,000-square- meter (861,000-square-foot) site along the western shore of Lake Geneva.
``I'm in the civil-explosives business,'' Modoux explains amid the isolated wood huts and 10-ton iron rollers that since 1853 have been used to grind sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrite into dueling pistol powder. ``I also make dynamite, detonator cord and nitroglycerin pills for people with heart ailments, but my love is black powder.''
Modoux loved the product so much that he bought the factory from the Swiss government in 1996 and immediately filmed a corporate promotional video that features dueling footage. ``The government wanted to close down the powder mill and spend 4 million francs to make the land environmentally friendly,'' Modoux says. ``I paid them 1 franc and kept alive the tradition of Poudrerie d'Aubonne.''
`Dashing Sport'
A handful of other companies in the U.S. and Europe such as Goex Inc. of Doyline, Louisiana, continue to make black powder to fulfill annual global sales of some 300 tons at about $9 million.
Champion shooters say Modoux's powder is the ``grand cru'' of duel fuel, and competitively priced at $15 a pound or 20 euros ($24.80) for a kilogram.
``Modoux's product is quite economical,'' says Spittles, who each year ignites three kilograms of the stuff to fire 6,000 homemade lead balls.
``Dueling is a rather dashing sport,'' muses John Miller, executive vice president of the U.S. National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association, the 70-year-old group that keeps the European sport of dueling alive in the New World. ``Too bad it's such a politically incorrect pastime,'' Miller adds.
Technically, there may be slim reason to believe dueling is on the cusp of a renaissance. According to Judge Robert Sack, who sits on the bench at the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, the genesis of many modern laws grew out of the context of gentlemen preserving their honor with pistols. ``That calls dueling to mind,'' Sack says. ``Originally, some states codified their libel and slander laws as anti-dueling statutes.''
Bullet Duels
``The last of the official real bullet duels were in the 1840s among insulted military officers and men of commercial means,'' said Alan Overton, chairman of the Muzzle Loading Association of Great Britain. ``Gradually, the sport was overtaken by political correctness, but Modoux hasn't let that affect his production methods.''
Modoux employs a 700-year-old recipe to cook up five grades of black powder that can fire anything from Napoleon's cannons to a $35,000 pair of 18th-century flintlocks made by English dueling- pistol master Robert Wogdon.
``Over half of our annual production of 80 tons is either 0- grade or 1-grade and goes to duelists,'' Modoux says. ``The rest is for muzzle-loading rifles, shotguns and artillery.''
Secret Ingredient
Stroking his goatee, Modoux says his powder is so popular that plans are afoot to increase production capacity beyond 100 tons a year. ``You can shoot a gun a dozen times with my powder before having to clean it,'' he says, leaning against one of the wooden water mills that power the grinders. There's little metal about. Just one stray static burst, he says, could blow the factory across the border into France.
Modoux says his secret ingredient is the Serbian and Slovenian buckthorn alderwood his six ``poudreries,'' or powder specialists, transform into charcoal. ``This wood is collected and stripped of bark by the Gypsies who live in Balkan forests,'' the powder purveyor says, slapping two hands against a 150-cubic-meter wall of wood that has been aged for two years and is now ready for the oven.
The formula is precise. Workers tightly wrap 2-cubic-meter fagots and allow them to cook in furnaces heated to 330 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit). The bundles pop out eight hours later and look like enormous servings of burnt roast beef.
Blending
Master blender Michel Fiaux conducts a taste test. ``A good dueling-pistol powder is like a fine cuisine,'' Fiaux says, letting his tongue savor the flavor of a charcoal nugget.
``It's all in the ingredients,'' Modoux adds. ``The relationship between our ingredients is intimate.''
The charcoal is blended with sulfur and potassium nitrite, pulverized into the various grades beneath the creaking iron rollers, and then scattered on wood trays to mature for 24 hours. Inhaling the aroma of the final product, Fiaux wets his finger and takes a final taste. ``There are three important things in life,'' Fiaux declares. ``Wine, women and black powder.''
Modoux says the three tons of muzzle-loading cannon powder he sells each year contain from 470 to 520 grains per gram. ``But achieving 0-grade dueling pistol powder is an art,'' he adds, sifting a hand through a mound of the explosive talc. ``This contains 100,000 grains per gram and has absolutely no dust.''
Dust often spelled death on the field of honor, according to British duelist Ken Hocking, an engineer at Unilever Ltd. in charge of building ice-cream factories.
`Warmer and Fuzzier'
``Antique dueling-pistol collectors go to the auction houses looking for big brand names like Purdey, Wogdon and the Manton brothers,'' Hocking says. ``The cost of a dueling pistol has absolutely nothing to do with the accuracy of the shot. When the rich drop dead on the dirt, the most they can hope for is someone saying they had the good taste to use a Purdey pistol.''
Two-time U.S. dueling-pistol champion Mike Yazel says it's a shame that most collectors are afraid to fire their pistols. ``The old equipment is unique and lends to the mystique,'' says Yazel, proprietor of an orthopedic surgical-instrument workshop in Mentone, Indiana. ``Muzzle-loading duelists are warmer and fuzzier than any other kind of shooters.''
Leaning against the stuffed head of an Azerbaijani goat in the antique-gun department of the London auction house Bonhams, dueling-pistol specialist David Williams says most of his customers prefer to keep their ``gentlemen's weapons'' safely tucked in the original case. In 1996, Williams set a world record by selling a pair of matched dueling pistols made in 1765 by master gunsmith Henry Hadley for 166,500 pounds ($309,598). The 18th-century price tag: 10 pounds a pistol.
Bare-Breasted
``The value of antique dueling pistols is greatly enhanced if there's provenance to prove they were once used in a duel,'' Williams says of a business that approaches $500,000 a year in sales. ``Very few buyers actually fire the weapons. The investment could blow up in their face.''
Even so, the British Code of Duel 1824 is rather specific about how those injured in a ``tradesman's duel'' must act: ``Treat the matter coolly and, if you die, go off with as good grace as possible.''
According to an ad in an early 20th century copy of Olympic Review, the official publication of the International Olympic Committee, duelists were encouraged to sharpen their aim with a blast of Benedictine liqueur before firing at human silhouettes. Between 1896 and 1912, the IOC included dueling pistols as a medal sport: Five points for a thorax shot, three points for a head or groin shot and two points for a knee.
``Olympic duelists wore shirts,'' grouses duelist Roy Ricketts, who's also treasurer of the Muzzle Loading Association of Great Britain. ``In a real duel you kept reloading and shooting until someone went down. You shot bare-breasted because dirty shirts infected wounds and caused gangrene.''
Blunderbusses
According to statistics published in the British Code of Duel, the odds were 6-to-1 against being wounded, 14-to-1 against being killed in a duel. Duelists pulled the trigger at the drop of a handkerchief. Anyone who fired before the signal was prosecuted for murder. In Britain and the U.S., the distance was 12 yards. French duelists paced off at 25 meters.
Hot-air balloon duels were the only exception, according to David Mayrall, a historian for the British muzzle loaders association. ``French businessmen were fond of taking to the air and shooting at each other with blunderbusses,'' Mayrall says, recounting the story of two executives who settled a contract dispute while floating over Paris in 1870.
Back in the gun room at Bonhams, Williams cocks the trigger of a brass-barreled flintlock blunderbuss valued at 900 pounds. ``Dueling from balloons with blunderbusses,'' Williams says. ``That shows style.''
Dueling Fires Up Sales of Pistol Powder at Poudrerie d'Aubonne
March 1 (Bloomberg) -- On an icy English meadow, the fiery blasts of dueling pistols pierce the dawn fog, illuminating the crows that peck breakfast beneath the thorn bushes. The birds caw as David Spittles, a retired engineer at ABB Ltd., takes 30 seconds to reload and fire his $3,000 antique muzzle-loader while his opponent fumbles to stuff black powder and lead ball into a similarly cumbersome 19th-century weapon.
``You lose,'' says the 64-year-old European Flintlock Dueling Pistol champion, calculating the non-lethal outcome from paper targets pocked with bullet holes.
``It's probably not wise to go back to live targets to conclude disagreements over women and gambling debts,'' Spittles reckons with a laugh. ``But dueling was a legal means of settling business arguments and could possibly serve as a modern solution for boardroom disputes. It certainly would be cheaper and more effective than using lawyers.''
Indeed, during the 19th century, the Paris newspaper Le Figaro ran a daily column on duels, recording more than 150 ``important'' shoot-outs between bickering businessmen.
At the Swiss headquarters of Poudrerie d'Aubonne SA, the world's largest maker of dueling-pistol powder, company officials say they're prepared for a return to dueling as a form of arbitration. Privately held Poudrerie already serves 150,000 duelists in 60 countries with 45 tons of black powder annually.
Civil Explosives
``Business is booming,'' company President Claude Modoux says, walking past the cows grazing on the company's 80,000-square- meter (861,000-square-foot) site along the western shore of Lake Geneva.
``I'm in the civil-explosives business,'' Modoux explains amid the isolated wood huts and 10-ton iron rollers that since 1853 have been used to grind sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrite into dueling pistol powder. ``I also make dynamite, detonator cord and nitroglycerin pills for people with heart ailments, but my love is black powder.''
Modoux loved the product so much that he bought the factory from the Swiss government in 1996 and immediately filmed a corporate promotional video that features dueling footage. ``The government wanted to close down the powder mill and spend 4 million francs to make the land environmentally friendly,'' Modoux says. ``I paid them 1 franc and kept alive the tradition of Poudrerie d'Aubonne.''
`Dashing Sport'
A handful of other companies in the U.S. and Europe such as Goex Inc. of Doyline, Louisiana, continue to make black powder to fulfill annual global sales of some 300 tons at about $9 million.
Champion shooters say Modoux's powder is the ``grand cru'' of duel fuel, and competitively priced at $15 a pound or 20 euros ($24.80) for a kilogram.
``Modoux's product is quite economical,'' says Spittles, who each year ignites three kilograms of the stuff to fire 6,000 homemade lead balls.
``Dueling is a rather dashing sport,'' muses John Miller, executive vice president of the U.S. National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association, the 70-year-old group that keeps the European sport of dueling alive in the New World. ``Too bad it's such a politically incorrect pastime,'' Miller adds.
Technically, there may be slim reason to believe dueling is on the cusp of a renaissance. According to Judge Robert Sack, who sits on the bench at the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, the genesis of many modern laws grew out of the context of gentlemen preserving their honor with pistols. ``That calls dueling to mind,'' Sack says. ``Originally, some states codified their libel and slander laws as anti-dueling statutes.''
Bullet Duels
``The last of the official real bullet duels were in the 1840s among insulted military officers and men of commercial means,'' said Alan Overton, chairman of the Muzzle Loading Association of Great Britain. ``Gradually, the sport was overtaken by political correctness, but Modoux hasn't let that affect his production methods.''
Modoux employs a 700-year-old recipe to cook up five grades of black powder that can fire anything from Napoleon's cannons to a $35,000 pair of 18th-century flintlocks made by English dueling- pistol master Robert Wogdon.
``Over half of our annual production of 80 tons is either 0- grade or 1-grade and goes to duelists,'' Modoux says. ``The rest is for muzzle-loading rifles, shotguns and artillery.''
Secret Ingredient
Stroking his goatee, Modoux says his powder is so popular that plans are afoot to increase production capacity beyond 100 tons a year. ``You can shoot a gun a dozen times with my powder before having to clean it,'' he says, leaning against one of the wooden water mills that power the grinders. There's little metal about. Just one stray static burst, he says, could blow the factory across the border into France.
Modoux says his secret ingredient is the Serbian and Slovenian buckthorn alderwood his six ``poudreries,'' or powder specialists, transform into charcoal. ``This wood is collected and stripped of bark by the Gypsies who live in Balkan forests,'' the powder purveyor says, slapping two hands against a 150-cubic-meter wall of wood that has been aged for two years and is now ready for the oven.
The formula is precise. Workers tightly wrap 2-cubic-meter fagots and allow them to cook in furnaces heated to 330 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit). The bundles pop out eight hours later and look like enormous servings of burnt roast beef.
Blending
Master blender Michel Fiaux conducts a taste test. ``A good dueling-pistol powder is like a fine cuisine,'' Fiaux says, letting his tongue savor the flavor of a charcoal nugget.
``It's all in the ingredients,'' Modoux adds. ``The relationship between our ingredients is intimate.''
The charcoal is blended with sulfur and potassium nitrite, pulverized into the various grades beneath the creaking iron rollers, and then scattered on wood trays to mature for 24 hours. Inhaling the aroma of the final product, Fiaux wets his finger and takes a final taste. ``There are three important things in life,'' Fiaux declares. ``Wine, women and black powder.''
Modoux says the three tons of muzzle-loading cannon powder he sells each year contain from 470 to 520 grains per gram. ``But achieving 0-grade dueling pistol powder is an art,'' he adds, sifting a hand through a mound of the explosive talc. ``This contains 100,000 grains per gram and has absolutely no dust.''
Dust often spelled death on the field of honor, according to British duelist Ken Hocking, an engineer at Unilever Ltd. in charge of building ice-cream factories.
`Warmer and Fuzzier'
``Antique dueling-pistol collectors go to the auction houses looking for big brand names like Purdey, Wogdon and the Manton brothers,'' Hocking says. ``The cost of a dueling pistol has absolutely nothing to do with the accuracy of the shot. When the rich drop dead on the dirt, the most they can hope for is someone saying they had the good taste to use a Purdey pistol.''
Two-time U.S. dueling-pistol champion Mike Yazel says it's a shame that most collectors are afraid to fire their pistols. ``The old equipment is unique and lends to the mystique,'' says Yazel, proprietor of an orthopedic surgical-instrument workshop in Mentone, Indiana. ``Muzzle-loading duelists are warmer and fuzzier than any other kind of shooters.''
Leaning against the stuffed head of an Azerbaijani goat in the antique-gun department of the London auction house Bonhams, dueling-pistol specialist David Williams says most of his customers prefer to keep their ``gentlemen's weapons'' safely tucked in the original case. In 1996, Williams set a world record by selling a pair of matched dueling pistols made in 1765 by master gunsmith Henry Hadley for 166,500 pounds ($309,598). The 18th-century price tag: 10 pounds a pistol.
Bare-Breasted
``The value of antique dueling pistols is greatly enhanced if there's provenance to prove they were once used in a duel,'' Williams says of a business that approaches $500,000 a year in sales. ``Very few buyers actually fire the weapons. The investment could blow up in their face.''
Even so, the British Code of Duel 1824 is rather specific about how those injured in a ``tradesman's duel'' must act: ``Treat the matter coolly and, if you die, go off with as good grace as possible.''
According to an ad in an early 20th century copy of Olympic Review, the official publication of the International Olympic Committee, duelists were encouraged to sharpen their aim with a blast of Benedictine liqueur before firing at human silhouettes. Between 1896 and 1912, the IOC included dueling pistols as a medal sport: Five points for a thorax shot, three points for a head or groin shot and two points for a knee.
``Olympic duelists wore shirts,'' grouses duelist Roy Ricketts, who's also treasurer of the Muzzle Loading Association of Great Britain. ``In a real duel you kept reloading and shooting until someone went down. You shot bare-breasted because dirty shirts infected wounds and caused gangrene.''
Blunderbusses
According to statistics published in the British Code of Duel, the odds were 6-to-1 against being wounded, 14-to-1 against being killed in a duel. Duelists pulled the trigger at the drop of a handkerchief. Anyone who fired before the signal was prosecuted for murder. In Britain and the U.S., the distance was 12 yards. French duelists paced off at 25 meters.
Hot-air balloon duels were the only exception, according to David Mayrall, a historian for the British muzzle loaders association. ``French businessmen were fond of taking to the air and shooting at each other with blunderbusses,'' Mayrall says, recounting the story of two executives who settled a contract dispute while floating over Paris in 1870.
Back in the gun room at Bonhams, Williams cocks the trigger of a brass-barreled flintlock blunderbuss valued at 900 pounds. ``Dueling from balloons with blunderbusses,'' Williams says. ``That shows style.''
