I own a Pedersoli Carleton, exactly the same model as in Cooldill's picture. I bought it for the MLAIC "Kuchenreuter" discipline.
Initially the pistol had problems. It would not always ignite a cap, particularly CCI caps absolutely refused to pop. And even if the cap ignited, powder charge often refused to. Found the reasons being that the striker spring (aka trigger guard) was too weak, caps did not seat properly and the nipple's fire channel was too narrow. The original striker spring was crudely shaped soft steel, an obvious manufacturing and QC flaw. Got a new spring that is almost too strong, now cocking requires considerable force. I also reshaped the nipple by reducing the diameter of the cone to make caps sit deeper, and drilled the fire hole to 0.5 mm. After these alterations the pistol now ignites reliably, provided that the angled fire channel from the nipple to the powder chamber is free from oil and excessive powder residue. Before a shooting session I blow the channel clear with compressed air and pop 1-2 caps.
On the positive side I really like how the pistol shoots. Ergonomics is quite good, much better than with my other caplock pistol (Pedersoli Le Page), bore line and line of sight are low. There's no set trigger but the trigger is crisp and light enough. The pistol is long and front heavy and I like that, its large rotational inertia makes it very "forgiving". One does not have to struggle to keep the gun still and it is easy to execute good shooting technique. The striker moves parallel to the bore line, causing no torque to disturb the aim. There's also very little muzzle climb, the gun recoils almost straight back, which means it is not sensitive to small gripping variations.
Cleaning the Carleton has some challenges. Firing mechanism is attached to the barrel and getting water inside the mechanism housing should obviously be avoided, unless one wants to disassemble it (a minor PITA) during every cleanup. So one can't just dunk the barrel in a water tub as I do with Le Page. I either scrub Carleton's barrel with Ballistol-water mix or use a DIY device built from a car windscreen washer pump to run warm soapy water into the nipple hole and out of the muzzle. The latter method cleans the fire channel too, which is important for reliability.
All in all, after the initial wrinkles have been ironed out, I'm now quite pleased with the gun. If the ball does not land within the 4" 9-ring @ 25 meters it's my fault, not the gun's.
