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Three Barrel Pistol
25wcf
Member Posts: 43 ✭✭
This is a little long, but trust me, there is a question here. Back when the world was young and I was going to grammar school in rural northern California, I had a friend named John. He lived with his parents in an old house they rented from a widow lady who was in a rest home. The lady's husband had been a jack-of-all-trades, and the large garage and shop located on the property still had most of his tools and treasures buried in its nooks and crannies. I loved to visit John because most of our time was spent digging around in the shop. We were probably no more than ten years old at the time, and curious about everything. There was quite a bit of dirt and rat droppings and just plain trash in the shop, but I remember that we derived great pleasure inspecting the old Model T Ford, the metal and wood-working tools, farming implements, horse tack and blacksmithing tools, as well as other items that defined the old gentleman's life, including wooden duck decoys, salmon fishing gear, beer making and bottling equipment, a redwood plank rowboat and many other wonderful things. Anyway, one day John went into his father's bedroom in the house and brought out an old pistol to show me. He said his father had found it somewhere in the house. We had both been raised around guns, so there were no issues of safety involved as we keenly inspected the piece. I had never seen a pistol like that one before in my young experience, nor have I seen another to this day, over fifty years later. The pistol was old-looking even then, and it had a brown look to it with a few rust spots here and there. It had a fairly large frame, with a top break action and three stacked, or superposed barrels. It looked a lot like the Smith & Wesson single shot target pistols that were made on a revolver frame. The barrels were at least ten, perhaps twelve inches long, with a .22 barrel on top, a .38 barrel in the middle, and a .410 barrel on the bottom. I remember seeing the hammer, but I do not remember what kind of barrel selector device it used. I do not remember if there were any markings on the gun. At that time, I did not know how unusual the pistol was, and over the years I have often wondered about its story. Was it a factory gun of domestic or foreign manufacture? Or was it a custom gun, perhaps even something the old boy put together on his own? Has anyone here ever heard of anything like it?
Comments
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=90386616 does yours look like this?
Well, it has been a while and the details are fuzzy, but I believe the frame was larger and had a trigger guard. The first time I ever saw a S&W single shot target pistol, it reminded me strongly of the old three-barrel pistol I saw.
Can't do research till above is known. Best, Joe
Sorry, but I have not seen my friend John or the pistol in fifty years. Although I have been thinking about posting here for some time, I really did not mean for anyone to do a research project. What I was thinking is that this forum represents much collective wisdom and experience, and perhaps if someone had seen a pistol with three superposed barrels chambered in three different calibers they would say so. I certainly would have posted pictures if I had them, if only to share the oddity with you folks. Thanks for the response.
I can think of no commercially made gun in the configuration that you describe.
Did this gun have a cylinder, or were the barrels chambered?
I believe the barrels were chambered. I appreciate your persistence. Thanks.