Dueling pistols broadly lacked rifling but this English one had a unique hidden form of rifling called ‘French Rifling’. The idea was during a duel the pistols would be inspected for rifling to ensure neither side was cheating. But French rifling wouldn’t be seen, allowing one party an unfair advantage.
French rifling wouldn’t go the full length of the barrel so all but a thorough examination would suggest the gun was smooth bore.
Jonathan Ferguson from the English Royal Armouries Museum suggested that the name came from the English associating French people as being underhanded, rather than French usage of the rifling.
Royal Armories: 11:59 https://youtu.be/p1fYUafNpUg?si=
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Miss him entirely because it’s smoothbore and nails the neighbor’s dog.
Tally ho!
For those who don’t know
Own a musket for home defense, since that’s what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. “What the devil?” As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he’s dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it’s smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, “Tally ho lads” the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion. He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. Just as the founding fathers intended.
Lolol what is this from?
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/own-a-musket-for-home-defense
There’s a copypasta about the idea of using strictly 1700s firearms tech for home defense.
Laat wednesday in baltimore
“Congratulations you’re hired!” - Local P.D. probably
So the English created a cheat, and then named it after the French because they perceived the French as cheaters. The lack of self awareness is staggering.
It seems like insisting on a specific pistol would be a dead giveaway, but there was probably ample opportunity for some sleight of hand.
It’s still odd to me that someone would elect to settle an argument with this kind of honor game and then cheat.
Old timers in the hotrod community still refer to a purposefully hidden element as being Frenched, never thought about the origin 🤔
It’s still odd to me that someone would elect to settle an argument with this kind of honor game and then cheat.
What if you get challenged by some douche
What if you get challenged by some douche Huh… fair point. I didn’t even think about that, I just sort of figured the guy with the ornate set rigged pistols was the douche. But if people were just lining up wanting to shoot me I’d start looking for an advantage at some point.
At the same time, if people are lining up to get a chance to shoot you then you just might be a douche.
Yeah… I’m starting to think that we’re just not going to figure this out with reason alone ;-)
It turns out that even when your honor and social reputation are on the line, most people aren’t really keen to die.
But how does the cheat work? I thought the seconds choose weapons?
Johnathan mentioned in the video the rules of dueling would be agreed upon by the duelists. So a cheater might arrange for an opportunity to swap them or perhaps have a third party (that he bribed) pick them.
I wonder if one would normally aim a non-rifled pistol differently, so that if your opponent got the rifled pistol they would be likely to miss their shot.
You aim them the same. Rifling is just more accurate because it causes the bullet to spin.
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