Unusual Firearms: Key Guns

In our last article about unusual firearms, we looked at the Greener police shotgun. In today's post, we will look at a very unusual class of firearms, a combination of a key and a gun, the so-called Key Gun.

Key guns were apparently used in the 17th and 18th century, but they are pretty rare. They were apparently intended to be used by jailers for self-defense purposes, when they were making their daily inspections of the prison cells. The idea being that the jailer could use the same object to open the cell door and also defend himself, in case the prisoner inside tried to escape.

Key guns were initially incredibly primitive devices. The example above is merely a tube sealed on one end, with a touch-hole on top. Note the lack of any firing mechanism. The jailer would have carried a lit cigarette or cigar in his mouth. To discharge this weapon, the jailer would touch his cigar on the touch-hole and light the powder within the key.

Some other examples had actual firing mechanisms. For instance, we have a model that uses a matchlock firing mechanism, one using a flintlock and another one using percussion cap technology.

Click on images to enlarge.

Whether these weapons were actually practical or not is a completely different matter. These are all small-caliber and short range firearms with low stopping-power and it isn't quite clear how usable one of these is once the jailer has started turning the key, because the gun can no longer point at the prisoner and the jailer can't put his finger on the trigger while turning the key. No wonder then that these weren't very popular.

Combined Firearms: Other Weapons

In the last few posts, we have seen firearms combined with axes, with swords and knives and with daggers. In this post, we will look at some examples of firearms combined with other weapons.

The first ones we will look at are available for display in the Historisches Museum in Dresden, Germany.

What we have here are a pair of German-made spear heads dating from around 1560. Each spear-head has two pistols, one on each side of the head. The pistols are powered by wheel-lock mechanisms, which the Germans were very good at producing, due to their expertise with clocks and clockwork mechanisms. Note that the first spear head is also very heavily decorated indicating that it was built for a rich customer. The first spear head also has a note that says it was built by one Peter Peck of Munich.

The next set of weapons may be seen in the armory display at the Tower of London, England.

Image taken from W.W. Greener's The Gun and its Development, Second Edition. Click on image to enlarge.

The above image shows a round shield with a built in matchlock firearm. These shields date from the 16th century and were ordered by King Henry VIII for use by his bodyguards. About twenty specimens still remain in the present day. The pistol uses a breech-loading mechanism. Also note the grill on the shield. This allows the user to hide behind the shield, but still aim the firearm at the enemy.

The image above is also due to King Henry VIII of England. It is currently on display in the Tower of London as well. This is a combination of a spiked mace with three hidden matchlock pistols in it and is called Henry VIII's Walking Stick. He was known to wield this weapon personally and often took it with him when he would wander about town at night, to check to see if his constables were doing their duty. Unfortunately for him, one of his constables at the parish of St. Magnus (near the London bridge) did his duty very well. He confronted the disguised King at the bridge-foot and demanded to know what this suspicious character was doing with a mace so late in the night. When the King tried to escape, the constable called a watchman to assist him and together, they arrested the King and tossed him into a unlit, cold, tiny prison cell for the night (Such prisons for vagrants, debtors and beggars were called Poultry Compters). In the morning, when his identity became known, the King personally summoned the constable and the watchman who'd arrested him. The two came in trembling, fully expecting to be tortured and beheaded. Instead, they were commended for their honesty and integrity and rewarded with large gifts. The King also immediately passed a law that granted an annual stipend of 23 pounds as well as a large quantity of bread and coal annually for ever to the prison where he spent the night, for the benefit of his fellow prisoners and any other future prisoners! In an article in The London Magazine Vol. III from 1833, it was mentioned that the parish was still receiving its annual grants.

The above image shows a whip which conceals a flintlock pistol within it. The barrel is about 12 inches long and the firing mechanism is concealed by the tassels on the whip. This particular specimen was once the property of a notorious Neapolitan bandit. However, it must be noted that such whip-pistols were not exclusively used by bandits alone. In the 17th and 18th centuries, similar weapons were presented to drivers of French mail coaches travelling south of the town of Lyons.

Combined Firearms: Daggers

In our last post, we studied the combination of a firearm with a sword. In this post, we will look into a relative of the sword, the dagger, which was also combined with firearms throughout history.

The combination of a firearm with a dagger was more common than combining a firearm with a sword. For one thing, they were cheaper. Also, unlike a sword, a dagger wouldn't be unbalanced as much and the firearm is also easier to manipulate and aim than if it was attached to a sword. As with swords, many of the early combined dagger pistols were made in Germany.

Image taken from W.W. Greener's The Gun and its Development, Second Edition. Click image to enlarge.

In the above image, we have a fine 16th century pistol dagger. This specimen uses a wheel lock mechanism. Note that unlike the pistol swords we saw in the previous post, this one has the barrel pass through the middle of the blade, thereby giving it better balance. The removable muzzle stopper piece is seen at the right bottom of the image. The muzzle stopper is removed to load the weapon and when replaced, forms the point of the dagger blade. The weapon is fired by depressing a small stud in the handle. The weapon is also beautifully ornamented, indicating that it was made for a rich customer.

In 1838, the United States Navy commissioned the Elgin Cutlass pistol, which is the only combination firearm ever to be officially accepted as a standard weapon by a military anywhere in the world. This combined a percussion lock pistol with a 11.5 inch long bowie knife.

This weapon was not only the first combination firearm officially accepted in military service, it was also the first percussion lock weapon adopted by the US navy. They were originally designed for use with the Navy South Sea Expedition. This is a .54 caliber weapon with a 11.5 inch blade. It had some success, especially in a battle in the Fijian islands in 1840. However, only 150 of these specimens were ever made. A few were used in the Civil war, but were unpopular with the troops. Some of them made it to civilian hands and were used in the Wild West.

Click on images to enlarge.

The above two weapons are Katar knives from India, circa the 18th or 19th centuries. Both weapons feature two firearms attached to them. In the first picture, we have two flintlock pistols, one on each side of the blade. The heavy blade has an engraving of the Hindu Dieties Shiva on one side and Kali on the other. The blade is made of the best pattern welded steel and the handles and sides have floral patterns that are inlaid with gold. The second Katar has two percussion lock pistols, one on each side of the blade. Like the first one, this is also heavily engraved. One side of the blade has a scene with two cranes and the other side has two elephants charging at each other. The blades are designed to be used as thrusting as well as slashing weapons and could easily go through mail or even plate armor.

In all the above weapons, they all feature single-shot pistols. After the advent of revolvers in the mid 1800s, some weapons began to incorporate revolver technology along with daggers.

The above images feature two examples of a type of weapon called the "Apache Revolver". This is a weapon that was produced in the late 19th to early 20th centuries (about 1870 to 1918). Most of these weapons were produced by French or Belgian (especially around the town of Liege) manufacturers, such as N. Dolne and J. Deleaxhe. The reason for its name is because it became famous as the sidearm of a notorious Paris based gang of criminals called Les Apaches. This distinctive weapon consists of a pepperbox revolver using pinfire cartridge technology, coupled with a knuckle duster (a.k.a. brass knuckles) and a wavy blade. The blade, the knuckle duster and the trigger are all foldable. Folded up, it measures only 11 cm. in length and can easily be carried in a pocket. When it is unfolded, it expands upto 20 cm. in length. The whole weapon weighs about 380-400 grams. It was generally carried with the first chamber unloaded, so that it could not be accidentally fired while it was still in the user's pocket. The user could put his fingers into the finger holes of the brass knuckles and punch someone with it, without unfolding it. Alternatively, the user could unfold it and use the brass knuckles as the handle and either shoot the revolver or stab the enemy with the blade. The firearm part was definitely underpowered and inaccurate and the blade was only a couple of inches long, nevertheless it was used quite a bit in the Paris underworld. Note that the sample on the left is heavily engraved. Quite a few gangsters had this done to show off their weapons and such weapons may actually be the first examples of "gangsta bling"! These weapons continued to be used in the 20th century. One example of a combination brass knuckles and pistol, called the Le Poilu, was manufactured by the French during World War I.

The next two examples are the sort of weapons that were designed along the principle of Swiss army knives. Both are dated to the 1860s and are both made by different firms in Sheffield, England. The first one is made by the firm of Unwin and Rogers and combines a pistol with two folding blades. The pistol is in .28 caliber and uses a rimfire cartridge. Unwin and Rogers received their patent in 1861 and made these weapons in many other calibers as well, such as .32, .34 etc.

The second one is made by another Sheffield firm called R. Turner & Co. This one uses a percussion cap and is in 0.22 caliber. It also contains a knife, corkscrew, hole punch, hook and tweezers. The cylindrical knob at the left side of the body is the cocking lever and is pulled out to cock the weapon. The picture below shows the other side of this weapon

The user would remove the barrel and breech and load the weapon and put the percussion cap in the end of the breech nipple. The user would then pull the cocking knob at the back of the weapon. On firing the weapon, the breech and barrel would also leave the weapon as a secondary projectile.

In the next post, we will cover some other combinations of firearms with other weapons.

Combined Firearms: Swords

In our last discussion, we explored how axes and pistols could be combined together into a single weapon. In this post, we will explore pistols combined with swords.

Early pistol swords and knives were mostly used in Germany and France by hunters, as a secondary backup weapon to their hunting rifles. The image below shows a combination of a hunting knife with a wheel lock pistol dated to 1546.

Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License from user Unforth at wikipedia.org.

Click on image to enlarge.

This weapon was made in Germany and is now to be seen in the NY Metropolitan Museum collection. Note that the pistol barrel is located entirely on the back of the blade.

Combination of a wheel-lock mechanism with a sword has been in use since at least the 16th century. Since swords were traditionally much more expensive to manufacture than axes, knives, spears etc. and wheel-lock mechanism was also more expensive than other firing mechanisms, such weapons were usually used by aristocrats. Since they could afford it, these weapons were usually heavily engraved and decorated as well.

German-made Riding Sword from circa 1575. This combines a rapier with wheel-lock pistol. Click image to enlarge.

Hungarian/Polish Saber with wheel-lock pistol from circa 1565. Click image to enlarge.

In the golden age of piracy, a weapon that combined a flintlock pistol with a cutlass was used by pirates as well as navy officers, for boarding purposes.

Click on images to enlarge

The illustrations above show two such designs. The first is actually a replica of a French made cutlass-pistol. Both these examples feature a single-shot flintlock pistol attached to the side of the cutlass. Pirates would swing over to the victim ship and discharge their pistol first and then close in for hand-to-hand sword fighting. Since the same hand could discharge the pistol and hold the sword at the same time, this left the pirate's other hand free.

All the above weapons depicted here are single shot weapons. Somewhere during the 19th century, when revolvers started to become popular, several French, Belgian and German manufacturers such as Lefaucheux, Lepage, Dumonthier, T.A. Rauh & Co. etc. began to combine pinfire revolvers with swords. This allowed the user the option of firing multiple shots without reloading. Such weapons were never officially adopted by any military, but were very popular among officers in many European countries. In fact, in the Paris Exhibition of 1867, there were over 30 models of swords-revolvers on display.

The above is a Belgian made weapon from 1877. The revolver uses pinfire cartridges and the trigger is behind the hilt, as is the loading gate for this weapon. Unusually, the scabbard has a depression on the outside so that the revolver barrel stays outside the weapon even with the scabbard on. This allows the user to fire the pistol even if the scabbard is still on the sword.

The picture above is a weapon made by T.A. Rauh and Co. of Solingen, Germany. The revolver barrel is located parallel to the right side of the blade. As before, the revolver uses pinfire cartridges. This weapon was granted US Patent #52504 in 1866.

The picture above is a 30 inch long short sword made by E. Lefaucheux Co. of France, to the order of a Peruvian importer. As before, this uses a pinfire cartridge revolver. Incidentally, it was Eugene Lefaucheux's father, Casimir Lefaucheux, who invented the pinfire cartridge. Eugene Lefaucheux inherited his father's business as well as his mechanical talents. With a view to improving the business, he went to study in Liege, Belgium for a period of time. There, he learned the latest practical manufacturing techniques, as well as negotiation tactics with local suppliers. It was also in Liege (which was a hotbed for making cheap, unlicensed firearm copies at that time) where he saw clones of the Colt Pocket 1849 and Navy 1851 revolvers and was impressed enough to make his own revolver versions. His first patent drawing of 1854 looked very similar to a Colt Navy 1851 model externally, but his 1854 model used pinfire cartridges inspired by his father, instead of the old fashioned cap-and-ball muzzle loading mechanism of the Colt model. This meant that his revolvers were much more reliable, easier and faster to load and more immune to weather conditions than the Colt model. In fact, the Lefaucheux 1854 revolver was considered the most advanced handgun of that era. It was only a matter of time before he adapted his revolver mechanisms to be attached to swords.

Pistol swords were not as widely used mainly because of the expense. One more major issue was that the pistol mechanism would cause the sword to unbalance towards the hilt, making it harder to wield the sword. Furthermore, since the pistol was permanently attached to the sword, it became much heavier and therefore harder to point and aim as a pistol. So instead of gaining a 2 for 1 weapon, the user ended up with an off-balanced sword and a heavy pistol! This is why pistol-swords never really gained much popularity throughout the ages.

Combined Firearms: Axes

In the early days of firearms history, there was no automatic reloading mechanism for firearms, so once the firearm was discharged, the time taken to reload a firearm was pretty high. During this time, the user of the firearm was at great risk of a counter-attack unless he had some other weapon to defend himself. With this view, there were several weapons developed that would combine a firearm with some other weapon. Unlike a rifle with a bayonet attached, these weapons were primarily designed as axes, swords, daggers etc., but had a pistol attached.

The first class of weapons that we will study are the pistol-battle axes. These first appeared in Europe in the late 1400s and still continued to be used into the 1800s in some parts of the world.

Public Domain Image taken from W.W. Greener's The Gun and its Development, Second Edition

The weapon in the illustration above is a pistol-axe made in Germany in the beginning of the 17th century. The reader may note that this weapon has a wheel-lock firing mechanism near the head of the axe. The barrel is six inches long and fires out of the top of the axe. The handle behind the wheel-lock is about 2.5 feet long and has the trigger mechanism at the end of the handle. This weapon was designed to be used by a horseback rider.

Click on image to enlarge

The above illustrations show two more fine German made pistol-axes, from the Dresden museum. As before, these use a wheel-lock firing mechanism as well. The triggers for these two axes are located just below the wheel-locks. The axe heads have a blade edge on one side for cutting and a ice-pick like spiked point on the other side to pierce through tough plate armor. The top spikes of the axes are removable to reveal the hollow barrels inside. Note that these two axes are much more expensive and have better workmanship than the previous one and also have intricate engravings on the body of the axes.

Click on images to enlarge

The next two illustrations are an axe using matchlock firing mechanism and another one using the flintlock firing mechanism. This particular flintlock axe was made in Germany in the late 17th century. Flintlock axes were also heavily used by the Polish Cavalry between the 16th and 18th centuries and was one of their trademark weapons.

Indian made battle axe. Click images to enlarge

The above illustrations are an Indian made Tabar axe from the 17th century. This one uses a matchlock firing mechanism as well. There is no real trigger, as the matchlock is mounted on a long thin lever around a pivot point, as can be seen in the first illustration. The fire is applied by simply pulling the other end of the long thin lever. This axe is an all-steel construction and originally had gold inlay, most of which is worn off. Judging by the carvings on the axe head, this was probably owned by a Hindu, since at least four human figures are depicted.

Indian made battle axe. Click to enlarge

The next illustration is a weapon dating from the 19th century. This is a pistol axe taken from the Santal tribe of India. The Santals are a tribe that traditionally occupied areas of the modern day Indian states of Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa and Assam. This particular weapon is 16.5 inches (approx. 42 cm.) long, of which 8.5 inches (21.6 cm.) is the pistol barrel. It is a very light weapon and the thickness of the barrel at the muzzle is only 0.2 inches (approx. 0.5 cm.).

Axes were the most common weapons to be combined with pistols, since these two were the easiest to combine together. These designs were very widespread indeed. In the next few posts, we will see other weapons that were combined with pistols.