Philadelphia Derringer

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The U.S. Historical Society recreations I have found to be excellent values as shooters at todays prices. They had to be made to a very high standard to extract their original prices from the wealthy but ignorant. I have owned the Washington pistols, H&B Duelers (3sets), Derringers (3sets) Hege-Siber and have shot all of them except the Hege-Siber. The one set of Deringers that I shoot may appear delicate but they shoot great. The quality they exhibit would make you throw rocks at the Pedersoli.
 
have a "liege" Pedersoli screw Barrel .44 derringer

I'd love to see pictures of your turnoff.

What I can't report on is where any of the balls ended up.

The shortest target I set today was at 25 yards.

So i started aiming at the ground at the 100 yard berm. And guess what? I missed!

Today I shot the Derringer at a more reasonable distance of 11 yatds. Still twice the intended distance but it is the shortest distance allowed at my range. I was able to hit the target all 4 shots. They were all WAY high. As in 3 feet high with 15 grains of 3F. So last week my shots were all going over the 100 yard berm explaining why I couldn't see the impact. The shots on target hit lower as the charge increased. I progress to 20 and then 25 grains.

I'm still not convinced I want to revise this thing to more closely resemble the original. I kinda think it is just too big. But I think adding sights is something I'd be up for.
 
Yeah, just about anything Pedersoli makes these days is pricy. They are maybe the last Italian company left making fine flintlock pistols and long guns. They do import American black walnut and curly maple for their American replicas so I guess that's part of the cost.

I have yet to shoot one of the duelers. I bought the correct size balls from Track of the Wolf and got some new flints but I haven't been to the range since before the pandemic started.

The cased pairs of the reproduction Jefferson screw barrel flint box lock pistols show up from time to time at auction and on Gunbroker. I've seen them go as low as $1200 and as high as $2k.

I don't own the set but here are some pictures of one that sold at Rock Island last year. These were never offered singly to the best of my knowledge--just in way overpriced commemoratives set that never retained their original value in that they sell for less now than they did 35 to 45 years ago.
https://www.rockislandauction.com/d...s-historical-society-thomas-jefferson-pistols


Still, most of the initial issues that the US Historical Society initially produced were one-of-a-kind unique historical issues and never mass-produced so their prices today sometimes represent a decent value. Unfortunately, toward the end, the USHS started making generic commemoratives by simply taking standard production items like a Uberti 3rd model percussion Dragoon and pimping it up with gaudy gold plating. The company got bought out by "America Remembers" which sort of specializes in gaudy stuff like a .45 automatic dedicated to the late country singer Conway Twitty. You can already see the gold plate wearing off on the front end of the slide and that's an actual promo picture.:barf:

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Cheers
While they're definitely gaudy and appealing to low information types, at least there's some skill involved and actual value being added to those 1911's. Something this reminds me of is years ago there were these ads that were airing on Fox News about special $2 bills that had images of National Parks on them and they were trying to make people believe these were some rare bills being made by the US Treasury. They weren't, they were just fresh $2 bills that this company was buying by the sheet and they slapped the sheets in a printer and added some ink to them and were reselling them for $10 each.

Fools and their money are easily parted.
 
Use black powder residue to antique the brass. The action plate - if you don't like the way it looks you can lightly sand it to remove any colors and then dab with your finger with some browning and some bluing solutions on it. Maybe handle it a bit first to leave some oils from your skin. Also dilute some of the bluing and have some non diluted for different shades so you get something that looks like case coloring. Have a rag or paper towel handy to stop any coloring. The above I learned from a friend who was a gunsmith and would make older guns still look old after he worked on them.
I use to make Damascus knives and hand forged high carbon steel knives for cowboys and muzzleloaders. The steel knives I would dab on mustard. Leave em sit all day then rub off the mustard under running water with a rag. If it wasn't what I wanted, just do it again until it did look old the way I wanted. At a gunshow where I was selling my knives, a guy was looking at them for about ten minutes. Normally I don't say anything, but this time I ask him if I could answer any questions. He ask me where I found so many nice old knives. I said I had made all of them in the last year or so. He said no, he could see they were old. I said thank you, they're suppose to look old. That mustard must have put a protective film on the steel. Well, at least they didn't rust quite so easily. And if they did, just take some 4 O steel wool and bingo, it would look good again with a little more color. Just a couple of ideas that may be helpful.
 
One of the reasons to keep mouth shut and ears open. I had never heard of using mustard to age.
Definitely something to try. Guldens,Frenchs or Grey poupon?
 
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