Lancaster pistol

 ( Black-powder Pistols ) 

The Lancaster pistol is a multi-barrelled (2 or 4 barrels) handgun produced in England in the mid to late 19th century.John Henry Walsh, The Modern Sportsman's Gun and Rifle: Including Game and Wildfowl Guns, Sporting and Match Rifles, and Revolvers (Cox, London, 1884) p. 439 It is chambered in a variety of centrefire pistol calibres—chiefly .38 S&W, .450 Adams, .455 Webley, and .577 inch.Maze, Robert J. Howdah to High Power. Tucson, Arizona: Excalibur Publications, 2002. . The designer, London gunsmith Charles Lancaster, began his career in 1847 as an apprentice to his father, Charles Sr. During the 1850s he invented oval bore rifling and the gas check bullet. Lancaster pistols

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Description It is a modernised version of the pepper-box pistol popular in the early-mid 19th century.Myatt, F, 19th century firearms (London 1989) Unlike these earlier guns which had percussion cap ignition, the Lancaster was chambered for the more modern Brass cartridge. The unique oval rifling also enabled it to fire .410 .

Howard L. Blackmore (2025). 9780486409610, Courier Corporation. . ISBN 9780486409610

It had a faster rate of fire than the standard-issue Adams revolver and was often fitted with a Tranter-type trigger to overcome the heavy pull of the revolving Firing pin.

Sometimes classified as a howdah pistol, the Lancaster pistol enjoyed popularity with British officers in India and Africa during the British Raj, owing to its faster rate of fire and increased reliability over contemporary revolvers. Lancaster pistol at national army museum It was highly prized by hunters and explorers for close range defense against big game, such as or cape buffalo.

Wayne Webster (2025). 9783739650845, BookRix. . ISBN 9783739650845

Unlike revolvers, it does not leak gas when fired since there is no gap between the chamber and the barrel. 1883 Lancaster pepperbox at the Royal Armories One rare variant, made for the Maharajah of Rewa as a hunting weapon, took the form of a four barreled rifle. Oval bores

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Use in Sudan

Its ammunition had greater stopping power than the contemporary Beaumont–Adams and Colt Navy revolvers, making it ideal for colonial warfare. When facing charging tribesmen like the Zulu people or Ansar (the so-called Sudanese ), more modern ammunition tended to go straight through the enemy who would keep going. What was needed was a heavy lead bullet that would lodge in their body and bring them down. One famous user was the photographer and film maker Victorian cinema Lieutenant Colonel John M. B. Stanford, who killed a fanatical assegai-wielding Sudanese Ansar with a Lancaster pistol while working as a war correspondent at the Battle of Omdurman. It was eventually displaced by the various in the late 19th century as revolvers became more reliable and faster to reload, thus removing many of the advantages of the multi-barrel design.

Categories: Black-powder Pistols, Multiple-barrel Firearms, Pistols Of The United Kingdom, Victorian-era Weapons Of The United Kingdom, Hunting Equipment

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