Carleton underhammer

[Brian James]

While away shooting, many of the reproduction percussion single shot pistol shooters were using underhammer pistols, either by Fienwerkbau, Tilo Dedinski or Andreas Baumkircher, but there were Pedersoli Cook pistols and to my surprise a couple Carleton underhammers.

I know a few people who have the Pedersoli Carleton in Canada and I personally like the design. What I hadn’t realized was a German gunsmith was also making them as well “Waffen Winter”. This one belonged to a good Polish shooter. An interesting piece in 41cal vs 36 from Pedersoli. These custom or semi custom pistols are appealing to me.

 

[vagrantviking]

Always admired many of the underhammer designs too. Ingenious, simple, fast very often.

Is this mechanism an inline striker parallel to the bore? It's a bit difficult to make out. Keeps movement parallel to the bore but guves up a little lock time if it requires the flash to go around corners.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Brian James]

Yes, the the hammer moves forward parallel to the bore. The trigger guard is the spring.

 

[pistolero_libre]

The path for the priming flash is not as direct as some underhammer pistol designs (e.g. Billinghurst, Cook) but not a lot more torturous than many sidehammer pistols. The drum incorporates rather large internal holes so there's little-to-no restriction on the priming flame path. In terms of lock time it would be very very difficult to discern any difference between the Carleton and the more direct underhammer designs.

I've had the Carleton for a number of years now and, after learning a few tricks, I've been able to make it a very reliable performer. I've only recently been able to achieve better scores with the Cook pistol. The Carleton has been, for me, the easier pistol to learn to shoot well.

And then there's the "cool factor"... Shooting with a pistol which is substantially different in mechanical design than all the other pistols on the line is an experience.

 

[Brian James]

Pretty sure this is the Pedersoli version at the Worlds.