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.

Comments

CHAPTER 17 The Starr Rises

From the catalog of Wallis and Wallis, British gun auctioneers ( 1962 ) at Lewes in Sussex, we read of the sale of a Starr revolver: Lot 1060 ... A 6 shot .44 Starr SA Army Perc Rev 14", brl 8", No. 51594, the top strap bearing old engraving Col. Colt Address New York, Good Condition but action As Found & frame screw not orig . Eben T. Starr of Yonkers, New York, might not have smiled at this latter day whimsey. Marking his re volver with the name of the man he dared challenge by launching a new revolving pistol business in 1858 was to him not funny. Though the modern gun bug who fraudulently marked this in the hope someone would bite on it as a hitherto unknown Colt double action revolver we trust was unsuccessful in his piracy, per haps the buyer at the Wallis and Wallis auction cherishes his purchase for what it is: one of the best and most modem revolvers of the Civil War era. Though complex inside at first glance, its parts are well thought out and reveal Star...

CHAPTER 6 Rifle Muskets: Civil War Scandals

You place me in a most embarrassing position, Mr. Secretary. How is that, Mr. Wilkeson? the gaunt-faced Penn sylvanian queried, the lines of his expression amplified by the fatigue and, somewhat, disappointment with which he laid down his role as Secretary of War for Mr. Lincoln. Because, Mr. Cameron, the newspaperman re sponded, your contract for rifle muskets with the Eagle Manufacturing Company of Mansfield, Connecticut is for only 25,000 arms, and my friends there, whom I induced to engage in this business in expectation of your issuing a further order, as your assistant Mr. Scott assured me you would, will be sorely embarrassed in their operations on this small amount. Indeed this is bad news to me, Mr. Wilkeson, War Secretary Simon Cameron sympathetically observed, as he stuffed papers from his desk drawer into a large portfolio, scanning them briefly, consigning some to the waste basket. But as you can see, I am leaving office today; I believe Mister Stanton, who repla...

French and Belgian Arms

French and Belgian materiel was considered next best to the Enfields, though the types and calibers were more varied than either Enfield or Austrian Lorenz arms. Basic pattern for the best rifles of both France and Belgium was the “carabine” of Captain Minie. Minie’s designs had exerted profound changes in the world’s small arms armament. That change was ably summed up by lexicographer Thomas Wilhelm after the War when he prepared his military dictionary. Said Wilhelm, “Minie Rifle. A species of fire-arm, invented by Capt. Minie, from whom it receives its name. It is certain in aim, and fatal in its results at 800 yards.” The claim was, if anything, inferior to the real capability of the Minie rifle. France in 1861 possessed a surplus of many arms. During the 1840 ’s the temporary procurement of guns designed by Thouvenin, Pontchara, Minie, and others kept the arsenals busy and the soldiers active testing them. Then came the Crimean War and France’s involvement on the side of Gr...

Civil War Guns

Search This Blog