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The Bitterlich Derringer

Details found on unmarked derringers, or pistols bearing a name which is plainly that of a sales agent or owner, may help tie down a Southern origin for the gun. A nut instead of a hammer cap screw is one characteristic of pistols made by Frank J. Bitterlich, 16 Deaderich Street, Nashville, Tennessee. Bitterlich pistols are characteristic in having octagonal barrels, though there are of course exceptions. Southern-made pistols seem to have the cheaper, easily taken down detail, which Deringer himself used sparingly, of fastening the rear of the lockplate by the edge or flange of the wood screw which merely holds a notched end of the plate. Many true derringer pistols, especially the better quality ones, have the lockplate rear tip drilled cleanly through for a screw that more solidly holds the plate, but also must be removed completely to disassemble.
Bitterlich pistols have one clue which, marked or unmarked, would seem to correctly identify an arm as being made by this celebrated pistol smith. This is the detail form of the bottom edge of the lockplate (back action of course), and the rounded shape of the plate which is blended into the cross-section curve of the wood handle. The bottom edge of the plate is a broken curve with a sort of comer to it, approximately in line vertically with the front edge of the hammer. While Philadelphia derringers are usually scroll engraved on lock, hammer, and trim, Southern-made pistols are more often completely plain. Of the few Bitterlich pocket persuaders so far identified, some have edge engraving, a line of triangular-shaped chiseled indents, as a decorative border to the lockplates, and along the flat-shanked hammers. Bitterlich also seems to have pioneered in flat-butt derringers,
and made a few which have metal sheath triggers like the “Root patent” Colts and common stub-trigger cartridge guns of the succeeding decades.

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