Huh, never seen an underhammer before. Very interesting.

Very nice, who was the maker? Looks nicer than some Hopkins & Allen (sp?) under hammers I used to see on the market some decades ago.

It is a H&A , in nearly new condition when I got it. This was the first I'd ever seen, and have seen only one other since, a rather used and beat one of the same model.

I'll have to look in my 1970s and 1980s Gun Digests and see if I can find a listing for that H&A. Wanted one of their under hammer Boot Pistols badly 40 years ago. Neatest under hammer I've ever got to handle was a Norwegian 1860 Kammenlader - under hammer breech loading 18mm rifled musket. Family member in Norway owns it, had been in the family for years - they hid it from the Germans from 1940 to 1945.

I've been trying to find a TC Hawken in .58 Add one of the musket cap nipples and well - pseudo Rocky Mountain Musket. Have had some fun running some of my old stock of BP substitutes thru a Henry .45 70 single shot. One can of CTG grade Pyrodex predates Hodgdon company taking over Pyrodex. Moved it from the old paper can to an empty plastic RS grade cannister. Still works and still stinks like bad eggs when fired.

.50 is easier to find and feed.
Pretty much all BP is .45 or .50 now.

Pistols are mostly .36 or .44.

Yep, I want a .58. My 2 percussion revolvers are fitted with cartridge cylinders. Navy Colt fires hollow base .38 wadcutters and the 1860 Army Colt I feed with .45 Schofield handloads.

Heck, I load BBs into my French Fusil (mind you they're usually in a paper wad).

Nice, good idea using the wad. Closest thing I have to that is a 20 gauge breech plug that convert s a break open shotgun to a muzzleloader . Uses shotgun primers. I use a takedown cleaning dog with a 20 gauge brass jag for a loading rod.

Have a NEA /HR break open .58 cal musket. Shoots fun.

I'll have to look for one. Thanks for the tip

Just as the founding fathers intended.

Should be useful on anything up to elk, maybe larger. Putting holes in a paper elk target is acceptable!

With better sights, it might well be a good hunter. I did okay with the basic notch and post sight it has on it.

I have seen pics of a vernier sight for those rifles

Life size paper Elk target - Appliance Box with a few areas marked for heart & Lungs.. .58 would even handle Bison

I always have doubts about how much gun to use on which game (I don't hunt). I remember reading a story about a professional African hunter who underestimated the Cape Buffalo -- at the cost of his life.

Cape Buffalo are damn tough critters, I know a few folks who go after them - some of the Ruger Execs I used to see daily when I worked the factory in Prescott and the owner of a custom gun company in Flagstaff. You have to get in close and stand a good chance of being turned into a greasy smear on the ground if you screw up. North American Bison - get back a bit, put one in the boiler room and wait for it to keel over or use the old pre horse method of stampeding them off a cliff.

Funny you came to mind recently as wondering how you were

I’m not that familiar with black powder rifles but I would assume this is a percussion cap. Unless it’s harder for the powder to fall out than I think. Only advantage I can think this would give is maybe some resistance to rain getting into the chamber.

19th century design that cropped up when the Percussion cap became popular. Simple lock work and very direct path for the flame from the cap to the powder. Pistols, rifles and some shotguns used the system. Norway had an odd under hammer percussion breech loader from the 1840s thru 1860s.

Yes, a percussion ignition muzzel loader. The idea was for a simpler arrangement than the conventional somewhat busy lockwork, and keep the sometimes sparky percussion caps further away from the shooter's face.

copper cap fragments in the eye can be nasty, even perminantly blinding.

Got slashed in the cheek once. However, it was from the shooter next to me while we were shooting in ranks.

Had cap frags get me from single shot pistol. Took a while for one to work out of a finger

interesting, i appreciate that they used the trigger guard as the hammer spring and that you can see how the trigger is connected to the hammer

Schweet! I love the ol' charcoal-burners.

Oh you'll love this: https://svartkrutt.net/ Norsk black powder weapons site

One of the few black powder types I've not fired. Looks fun.

Unusual, but a very nice piece.

Glad the recoil didn't beat you to death. That's an excellent design,

Oh...so very nice. You don't see underhammers around anymore. H&A did a good job with theirs and parts can be had (although you have to dig...). Still keeping an eye out for a Gemmer on my part.

Numrich seems to still have a good selection of parts

I believe that it was Numrich that originally released a lot of the underhammers in the 70s.

That was the big time for them.

Damn neat.

rabbi-tom wrote:.Check this out

Super nice

Very cool! I almost jumped on a mule ear double rifle years ago,i went with something else...and then of course ive not seen one again for sale. Thats how it goes gotta buy it when you see it!

Found a pic of a under hammer kit, http://www.longrifles-pr.com/underhammer.shtml

What a strange-looking gun! I never saw, or even heard of, anything like that before.

The pattern was never common, sort of a niche design for some hunters.

Was there supposed to be a practical reason for the unusual design?

Very simplified action, moves hammer and cap away from face . More direct ignition path. I don't know when the design first came about, but only know of them well after most percussion arms were obsolete as combat weapons. With the heavy barrel, mine was a low cost precision hunting/target shooter.

Good gravy that thing must kick like a mule.

Much less than you might think. Even a 1861 Springfield replica with a standard war load give only a modest thump, though a fair bit lighter. The heavy barrel Underhammer with the same load is barely noticeable.

I imagine it's a combination of the reduced explosive power of black powder when compared with more modern propellants, combined with the weight of the firearm, primarily in that thick barrel.

Personally I like my light-and-handy more modern rifle, but I still insist on a bolt action, because I am a goober.

Black powder is actually more "explosive" than modern smokeless, but exerts less total energy. However, accelerating a heavy bullet to X velocity with either is going to have the same recoil. Yes, its the mass of the heavy barrel that mitigates perceived recoil. As for a practical hunting rifle, I never said I'd ever taking such hunting. For a full power hunting rifle, something more like one of my Mosin Nagants would do better. Using my MAS 49/56 would be handier still but seems like it would be cheating.

I used to have a Mosin but even with strenuous effort to remove all the cosmoline and some mild polishing/filing it still got some real nasty Mosin lock. Can't fault the mechanical simplicity of it, though, especially when compared to other rifles of similar vintage.

I have no doubt it could've taken deer cleanly and humanely if needed. It certainly had no trouble hitting a man-sized target at 50 yards, even with my poor skills using iron sights.

It is attractive, however I still do not much like firearms of any kind though I do own one. The same model I carried in the AF.