Derringer - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The term derringer is a genericized misspelling of the last name of Henry Deringer

Henry Deringer

Henry Deringer was an American gunsmith. He invented, and gave his name to the Deringer pistol. Further development and copying of his design resulted in the derringer pistol that was generically manufactured widely by other companies.He was born in Easton, Pennsylvania on Oct...

, a famous 19th-century maker of small pocket pistol

Pocket pistol

A pocket pistol is an American term for any small, pocket-sized semi-automatic pistol or, less-popular, any other handgun of small caliber, suitable for concealed carry in either a front or rear pocket of a pair of trousers, or in an exterior coat pocket...

s. Many copies of the original Philadelphia Deringer pistol were made by other gun makers worldwide, and the name was often misspelled; this misspelling soon became an alternate generic term for any pocket pistol, along with the generic phrase palm pistol Deringer's competitors invented and used in their advertising. The original Deringer pistol was a single-shot muzzleloading

Muzzleloader

A muzzleloader is any firearm into which the projectile and usually the propellant charge is loaded from the muzzle of the gun . This is distinct from the more popular modern designs of breech-loading firearms...

pistol; with the advent of cartridge firearms, pistols began to be produced in the modern form still known as a derringer.

Design

A derringer is generally the smallest usable handgun of a given caliber. They were frequently used by women, because they are easily concealable in a purse

Handbag

A handbag, or purse in American English, is a handled medium-to-large bag that is often fashionably designed, typically used by women, to hold personal items such as wallet/coins, keys, cosmetics, a hairbrush, pepper spray, cigarettes, mobile phone etc....

or as a stocking gun

Stocking gun

A stocking gun is a small firearm which can be held in a holster in a woman's stocking. In the 19th century, Derringers were commonly used for this purpose due to the ease of concealing them....

. Such weapons designed specifically for women were called "muff pistols", due to their compact size enabling them to be carried in a muff

Muff (handwarmer)

A muff is a fashion accessory for outdoors usually made of a cylinder of fur or fabric with both ends open for keeping the hands warm. It was introduced to women's fashion in the 16th century and was popular with both men and women in the 17th and 18th centuries. By the early 20th century muffs...

. Derringers are not repeating firearms—repeating mechanisms such as used on semi-automatic handguns or revolvers would add significant bulk to the gun, defeating the purpose. The original cartridge derringers held only a single round, usually a pinfire

Pinfire

A pinfire firearm cartridge is an obsolete type of brass cartridge in which the priming compound is ignited by striking a small pin which protrudes radially from just above the base of the cartridge....

or rimfire .40 caliber

Caliber

In guns including firearms, caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel in relation to the diameter of the projectile used in it....

cartridge, with the barrel pivoted sideways on the frame to allow access to the breech for reloading. The famous Remington

Remington Model 95

The Remington Model 95 is a double-barrel pocket pistol commonly recognized as a derringer. The design was little changed during a production run of nearly 70 years through several financial reorganizations of the manufacturer causing repeating serial number sequences...

derringer design doubled the capacity, while maintaining the compact size, by adding a second barrel on top of the first and pivoting the barrels upwards to reload. Each barrel then held one round, and a cam on the hammer alternated between top and bottom barrels. The Remington derringer was in .41 Rimfire

.41 Rimfire Cartridge

The .41 Rimfire Cartridge was first introduced by the National Arms Company in 1863 and was also known as the .41 Short and the .41-100. In most designations like this, the second number refers to the black powder load, though in this case, it is clearly impossible to fit 100 grains of black...

caliber and achieved wide popularity. The .41 Rimfire bullet moved very slowly, at about 425 feet per second (a modern .45 ACP

.45 ACP

The .45 ACP , also known as the .45 Auto by C.I.P., is a cartridge designed by John Browning in 1904, for use in his prototype Colt semi-automatic .45 pistol and eventually the M1911 pistol adopted by the United States Army in 1911.-Design and history:The U.S...

travels at 850 feet per second). It could be seen in flight, but at very close range, such as at a casino

Casino

In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...

or saloon

Bar (establishment)

A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...

card table, it could easily kill. The Remington derringer was sold from 1866 to 1935.

Even with the advent of smaller, higher-powered cartridges made possible by the use of smokeless powder

Smokeless powder

Smokeless powder is the name given to a number of propellants used in firearms and artillery which produce negligible smoke when fired, unlike the older gunpowder which they replaced...

rather than the black powder

Gunpowder

Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...

used in the 19th century and before, the classic Remington design remained popular; a Remington-pattern derringer in .38 Special

.38 Special

The .38 Smith & Wesson Special is a rimmed, centerfire cartridge designed by Smith & Wesson. It is most commonly used in revolvers, although some semi-automatic pistols and carbines also use this round...

is still smaller than the most compact .25 ACP

.25 ACP

The .25 ACP centerfire pistol cartridge is a semi-rimmed, straight-walled pistol cartridge introduced by John Browning in 1905 alongside the Fabrique Nationale model 1905 pistol...

semiautomatic, and provides superior terminal ballistic

Terminal ballistics

Terminal ballistics, a sub-field of ballistics, is the study of the behavior of a projectile when it hits its target. It is often referred to as stopping power when dealing with human or other living targets. Terminal ballistics is relevant both for small caliber projectiles as well as for large...

performance to the .25 ACP. While the classic Remington design is a single action, manufacturers have also made double action derringers, including some four-shot models, with the barrels stacked in a 2 x 2 block. The COP 357 Derringer

COP 357 Derringer

The COP 357 is a 4 shot Derringer type pistol chambered for the powerful .357 Magnum round. It was designed by Robert Hillberg, based on his earlier work on the Hillberg Insurgency Weapon.It was manufactured by the now defunct COP Inc...

, made in Boise, Idaho

Boise, Idaho

Boise is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho, as well as the county seat of Ada County. Located on the Boise River, it anchors the Boise City-Nampa metropolitan area and is the largest city between Salt Lake City, Utah and Portland, Oregon.As of the 2010 Census Bureau,...

, provided four shots of .357 Magnum

.357 Magnum

The .357 S&W Magnum , or simply .357 Magnum, is a revolver cartridge created by Elmer Keith, Phillip B. Sharpe, Colonel D. B. Wesson of firearms manufacturer Smith & Wesson, and Winchester. It is based upon Smith & Wesson's earlier .38 Special cartridge. The .357 Magnum cartridge was introduced in...

in a package not much larger than a .25 ACP automatic, and was significantly more compact than a similar revolver. The COP derringer was invented by Robert Hillberg

Robert Hillberg

Robert Hillberg is a firearm designer. He was the former head of High Standard Manufacturing Company. His designs included the folding shotgun stock, the Whitney Wolverine, the Wildey .45 gas-operated pistol, and the four-shot COP 357 Derringer...

and closely resembled his earlier work on insurgency weapon

Insurgency weapon

An insurgency weapon is a weapon, most often a firearm, intended for use by insurgents to engage in guerrilla warfare against an occupier, or for use by rebels against an established government...

s.

A related design, often grouped with derringers since it fits no other standard classification, is the Semmerling

Semmerling

The Semmerling LM4 is a five shot, manual repeating double action pistol designed for backup purposes.-Concept and History:The Semmerling series of pistols included the, LM1, LM2, LM36+1, LM4 and XLM. The only version available to the public was the LM4. The LM4 was first designed and manufactured...

pistol. It is a five-shot, .45 ACP

.45 ACP

pistol with a manual repeater: the barrel mechanism is manually pulled forward to eject the fired round, then pushed back to chamber the next round. These pistols were originally built for the United States Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

, and the few available on the civilian market are highly sought after due to their unique combination of high power, large capacity, and tiny size. Another military pistol that is truly a derringer design is the FP-45 Liberator

FP-45 Liberator

Not to be confused with the EMD FP45 diesel locomotive.The FP-45 Liberator was a pistol manufactured by the United States military during World War II for use by resistance forces in occupied territories.-History:...

, a .45 ACP insurgency weapon dropped behind Axis

Axis Powers

The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...

lines in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

The Remington derringer design is still in manufacture as of 2010. Bond Arms, Cobra Arms and American Derringer all manufacture the over/under derringer in a variety of calibers from .22 long rifle

.22 Long Rifle

The .22 Long Rifle rimfire cartridge is a long established variety of ammunition, and in terms of units sold is still by far the most common in the world today. The cartridge is often referred to simply as .22 LR and various rifles, pistols, revolvers, and even some smoothbore shotguns have...

to .45 Long Colt. The current production of derringers are used by Cowboy Action Shooting

Cowboy action shooting

Cowboy Action Shooting , also known as Western Action Shooting or Single Action Shooting, is a competitive shooting sport that originated in California, USA, in the early 1980s...

reenactors as well as a concealed-carry weapon. It is the smallest handgun that is capable of handling the largest ammunition. Some favor the derringer as a concealed carry weapon because of its size as well as the swiftness of putting it into action. Critics believe it is not an adequate weapon for self-defense since the derringer possesses a two-shot capacity.

Derringer manufacturing history

Remington Model 95

over-under derringers were manufactured from 1866 until 1935, in several rimfire calibers, the most common of which was .41 rimfire. They were never serially numbered, but were numbered within production batches. Batches apparently went from 500 to 5,000 guns per batch depending on demand. There were 3 trademarks — "E. Remington & Sons, Ilion, NY", "Remington Arms Co.", and "Remington-UMC". The 1st model derringer had a hollow rather than skeleton butt and no extractor. It was marked "E. Remington & Sons, Ilion, NY". The 2nd had a skeleton butt but no extractor and the same trademark. The 3rd model had a 2-part extractor and same trademark. The 4th model had a one piece extractor and all 3 trademarks.

Remington went bankrupt in 1881. In 1883 the assets were bought by Hartley & Graham of New York, a major firearms wholesaler. Hartley & Graham renamed the company Remington Arms Co. and marked all Remington firearms with that trademark until 1910. In 1910 Hartley & Graham merged Remington with Union Metallic Cartridge Company and changed the trademark to "Remington-UMC". In 1921 Hartley & Graham sold Remington and UMC to the DuPont

DuPont

E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , commonly referred to as DuPont, is an American chemical company that was founded in July 1802 as a gunpowder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009...

company. DuPont separated Remington and UMC and marked all Remington weapons except the derringer with Remington Arms Co. The derringer continued to be marked Remington-UMC until production ceased in 1935.

Hollow-butt derringers were made only in 1866. Skeleton butt without extractor from 1866-67. Two part extractor thru '69. One part extractor thereafter. Derringers with one part extractors marked E. Remington & Sons, Ilion, NY—1870-1881. Remington Arms Co. mark—1883-1910. Remington-UMC—1910-1935.

Philadelphia Deringer

A Philadelphia Deringer is a small percussion handgun

Handgun

A handgun is a firearm designed to be held and operated by one hand. This characteristic differentiates handguns as a general class of firearms from long guns such as rifles and shotguns ....

designed by Henry Deringer (1786–1868) and produced from 1852 through 1868. A popular concealed carry handgun of the era, this pocket pistol

Pocket pistol

design was widely copied by competitors, sometimes down to the markings. Over time, the common misspelling "derringer" that was used on copies of Deringer's design has come to refer to any small-sized, usually large-caliber

Caliber

In guns including firearms, caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel in relation to the diameter of the projectile used in it....

handgun that is neither a semi-automatic pistol nor a revolver

Revolver

A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...

.

For loading a Philadelphia Deringer, one would typically fire a couple of percussion cap

Percussion cap

The percussion cap, introduced around 1830, was the crucial invention that enabled muzzleloading firearms to fire reliably in any weather.Before this development, firearms used flintlock ignition systems which produced flint-on-steel sparks to ignite a pan of priming powder and thereby fire the...

s on the handgun, to dry out any residual moisture contained in the tube or at the base of the barrel, to prevent a subsequent misfire. One would then remove the remains of the last fired percussion cap and place the handgun on its half-cock notch, pour 15 to 25 grains of blackpowder down the barrel, followed by ramming a patched lead ball down onto the powder, being very careful to leave no air gap between the patched ball and the powder, to prevent the handgun from exploding when used. (The purpose of the patch on the ball was to keep the ball firmly lodged against the powder, to avoid creating what was called a "short start" when the ball was dislodged from being firmly against the powder.) A new percussion cap would then be placed on the tube (what today would be called a nipple), and the gun was then loaded and ready to fire. (The half-cock notch prevented the hammer from falling if the trigger were bumped accidentally while carrying the handgun in one's coat pocket.) Then, to fire the handgun, a user would fully cock the hammer, aim, and squeeze the trigger. Upon a misfire, the user could fully re-cock the hammer, and attempt to fire the handgun once more, or, equally common, switch to a second Deringer. Accuracy was highly variable; although front sights were common, rear sights were less common, and some Philadelphia Deringers had no sights at all, being intended for point and shoot use instead of aim and shoot, across Poker-table distances. Professional gamblers, and others who carried regularly, often would fire and reload daily, to decrease the chance of a misfire upon needing to use a Philadelphia Deringer.

A common magician trick from this era called the "bullet catch

Bullet catch

The bullet catch is a conjuring illusion in which a magician appears to catch a bullet fired directly at him—often in his mouth, sometimes in his hand or caught with other items such as a dinner plate...

" was commonly done with a Philadelphia Deringer without applying a patch on the lead ball. The magician would, with great fanfare, go through the motions of pouring a small amount of blackpowder down the barrel, followed by inserting a very light overpowder wad, and by then dropping an intentionally-undersized lead ball down the barrel, unpatched, after showing it carefully to the audience, and placing a cap on the tube. Prior to handing the gun to another person, the magician would tip the Philadelphia Deringer, causing the lead ball to drop into a closed palm. The accomplice or a volunteer from the audience would then aim the Philadelphia Deringer at the magician, squeeze the trigger, the gun would fire, a large cloud of blackpowder smoke would appear, and the magician would, with great fanfare, have "caught" a bullet out of the air, holding the palmed bullet between his fingers. The trick was highly dangerous, as the overpowder
could kill at short distances, and a real bullet or other small object, could be dropped down the barrel before the handgun was fired, for a volunteer or accomplice intent on malice.

Henry Deringer's production records, and contemporaneous records of his imitators, indicate that these pistol

Pistol

When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...

s were almost always sold in matching pairs. (A typical price was $15 to $25 for a pair, with silver-inlaid and engraved models selling at higher prices.) The choice of buying a pair, in part, was to compensate for the limited power of a single-shot, short-barreled pistol, and to compensate for a design considerably less reliable than subsequent cartridge derringer designs. Original Deringers are almost never found still in their matched pairs today.

Initially popular with military officers, the Deringer became widely popular among civilians who wished to own a small and easily concealable pistol for self defense.

In total, approximately 15,000 Deringer pistols were manufactured. All were single barrel pistols with back action percussion locks, typically .41" rifled bores, and walnut stocks. Barrel length varied from 1.5" to 6", and the hardware was commonly a copper-nickel alloy known as "German silver". (The back action lock was a later, improved design among locks, which had its spring and mechanism located behind the hammer, where it was thereby protected from dirt, fired cap residue, and gunpowder residue unlike earlier front action locks that had their springs and mechanism located directly in the path of such residue in front of the hammer, under the tube.)

Because of their small size and easy availability, Deringers sometimes had the dubious reputation of being a favored tool of assassin

Assassination

To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

s. The single most famous Deringer used for this purpose was fired by John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth

John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well-known actor...

in the assassination of

Abraham Lincoln assassination

The assassination of United States President Abraham Lincoln took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the commanding General of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee, and his battered Army of...

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

. Booth's Deringer was unusual in that the rifling twisted counterclockwise (left-handed twist), rather than the typical clockwise twist used on most Philadelphia Deringers.

External links

The Booth Deringer--Genuine artifact or Replica?, a report of an FBI analysis of the Booth Deringer, made after rumors that the original had been stolen and replaced with a replica.
Derringer
Derringer Resource website
The Texas Defender, Bond Arms .45acp/410 Shotshell

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Design

Derringer manufacturing history

Philadelphia Deringer

See also

External links