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" wrote:

Those of you familiar with my Blog have probably read the several
articles therein about survival. And yes, I've poked a bit of fun at
those who think survival can be measured by the size of your knife.
But an on-going thread, bounced around amongst a few of use keeps
coming back to the little survival rifle/shotgun (called a 'drilling'
in gunsmith-speak) the Air Force included in their comprehensive
survival pack. As best I can recall this was a .22 Hornet rifle / .
410 shotgun that folded up. Ammunition was carried in the stock,
which was all aluminum.

The purpose of such a weapon was not defense but a means of feeding
yourself.

There are civilian versions of such over & under weapons but they are
heavy and tend to be expensive. But last night I stumbled upon what
may be a suitable substitute: A black-powder pistol. (!??)

A cap & ball pistol, typically a replica (the real thing, in good
condition, is worth thousands of dollars) is inexpensive and not very
heavy. It's also not very accurate :-)

Some of them can be pretty accurate, at least in pistol terms, not rifle
or shotgun.

The Ruger Old Army cap and ball revolver, for example, can do pretty
well. (One of our local blackpowder club members more than once shot a
50-5x at 25yds on the pistol course. He may have been a mutant, was the
local consensus.)

Well, in someone else's hands, not mine. I could hit a squirrel (size
target) fairly consistently with an Uberti replica Colt 1861 Army. Why
I'd want to is another question, given the local ground squirrels.

...but hear me out before condemning the idea.

With black-powder you pour a measured amount of powder into one of the
six chambers then insert a wad of some sort, atop which you place a
round ball, a cone shaped bullet OR A MEASURED AMOUNT OF BIRDSHOT.
Another wad is installed atop the bullet and the charge is compressed
using the lever built-in to the underside of the barrel. A percussion
cap is then installed on the nipple and you go on to the next chamber.

There are a couple of features not generally known to those who do NOT
regularly fire black-powder weapons... especially cap & ball ...that
makes this idea worthy of thought. One is that when we do away with
the cartridge case -- the brass part of the 'bullet' -- the weight &
cube of our ammunition. Fifty rounds for a black-powder weapon weighs
but a fraction of 50 rounds for a regular pistol. And since the ammo
is not made-up it does not have a prescribed shape. This allows you
to store the bullets, powder and caps in whatever space is most
convenient. Another factor is that you'll probably find shot to be
more useful than ball... yet you'll still want to keep one or two
chambers charged with ball. This presents no problem. The other four
chambers may be charged with shot, fired, then charged again, leaving
the chambers charged with ball (or with a conical bullet) undisturbed,
giving you one or two 'insurance' shots to protect yourself from the
ravages of an enraged porcupine or ptarmigan.

Firing shotgun pellets through a rifled bore does neither the bore nor
the pellets any good but given the purpose of this weapon the
traditional arguments against this kind of use have no basis.

It might be worth trying a trade pistol with bird shot. Probably good
for grouse, or a rabbit if you're a bit lucky. They were smoothbore
pistols that were sometimes made to match a (smoothbore) tradegun,
usually a basic flintlock musket for hunting.

You can find them (or build your own) in 28, 24, or 20-gauge, and you
can also fire a patched ball (.54, .58, and .62 calibers, respectively).
They do tend to be flintlock, but there are some converted to caplock.

Those old smoothbore tradeguns must have worked pretty well, since they
were sold on the Colonial frontier from the late 1600s on, and the
Hudson's Bay company didn't quit offering them until just before WW1.

Just a thot. Outside the box.

-R.S.Hoover