Love your channel. I saw you on forgotten weapons and have been following you ever since. The title of this post caught my eye, and I had to comment. Just for context, I'm a 70 year old American. Growing up, my grandfather, who was a mechanical engineer, built a shooting range in his basement. There were retractable steel plates over the windows, air extractor with a steel bullet trap and black oak backstop. It's was the perfect setup for small caliber target shooting, after dinner, the family would retire to the basement for an evening of fun. Good times.

@jonathanferguson1211

2 ай бұрын

Thank you! The range sounds great.

Here in Sweden, traditional bolt-action .22 rifles (technically just short, but in common parlance everything up to .22LR) are still referred to as “salongsgevär” - parlour rifles.

@awmperry

2 ай бұрын

@@crassgop I’ll reply once I get to my phone. Just give me twenty minutes - it’s on the other side of the parlour.

Back in the 90s i bought a few of those cheap 1800s .32 rimfire revolvers that you see broken at gunshows for $8. I managed to fix 3 enough to shoot wax bullets with just a primer. We used these as parlor guns

@SkoshiTiger1

2 ай бұрын

By any chance did you get the idea out of an issue of Popular Mechanics?

@danirizary6926

2 ай бұрын

@@SkoshiTiger1 I think I might have gotten the idea from there. I did not come up with the idea.

@Legitpenguins99

2 ай бұрын

That's radical

@Legitpenguins99

2 ай бұрын

How did you manage to fire it without rimfire cases?

@danirizary6926

2 ай бұрын

@@Legitpenguins99 drilled an off center primer hole that put a small pistol primer very near edge, bent hammer nose a little inwards. Later I got good at reloading rimfire casings using a couple methods

I'm gonna say the little hoop hanging down is for adding weapon charms. Like you could hang your favourite flower off it or something just because you like how it looks.

That gun is quite the gorgeous piece of design, very gentlemanly and classy.

The Kolibri's were also "parlor pistols". When you need a smaller caliber, like 2mm (0.08cal), and 2.7mm (0.108cal).

The Royal Armouries staff Christmas dinner must be fun.

A Winter Lecture and #WhatIsThisWeapon the same afternoon, what a day to be a @RoyalArmouries subscriber!

@RoyalArmouries

2 ай бұрын

Don't say we don't treat you

@user-pw8gc1hy7r

2 ай бұрын

​@@RoyalArmouriesHi , royal armories can you make a video on a mc-51 or a mc-51sd if you have one in the collection?

In Germany up to late 1990s socalled , Zimmerstutzen ' ( chamber rifles), mostly in 4mm Rimfire, had been produced for indoor target shooting. In pre wwl Germany and interwar era, those rifles had been popular, but now they are rather rather rare used.

After dinner wafer thin mint? Nah, after dinner duel!

@tektrixter

2 ай бұрын

That would be using the wax bullet dueling pistols, not the parlor pistols.

@samholdsworth420

2 ай бұрын

@@tektrixter well we can duel with plinking instead

As you've done this parlour pistol it would be fun if you could do a little spot on the now almost defunct history of Pubs/Bars with "parlour" shooting ranges attached. As far as I know there's only one left in the UK, the The George & Dragon in Potterne. As well as the rifle range in the bar they have a bowling/skittles ally in the basement. I think it was mainly .22 ammo used & the ranges were 45 foot long steel pipes, often with a bell as the target. You could have drinks with friends, eat & shoot. Often there were leagues with teams competing against each other. Was popular between the two world wars & a good way to keep peoples eye in for shooting.

@4d4m22

2 ай бұрын

Bell Target shooting in pubs with air rifles was massively popular in the early 20th century, especially in the Midlands, with local, even national leagues. Typically 6 or 7 yards so most pubs could accommodate a range. There are tales of shooters taking aim over the heads of drinkers sat at tables! It has had a bit of a resurgence in recent years, using low power 10M Olympic style target rifles though not in pubs as such,. Targets were/are steel plates with incised rings, painted with a non-drying white paint to see the pellet hits and in the centre is a hole with a bell behind it.

@joeybagodonuts6683

2 ай бұрын

I'd never heard about any of that, thanks for posting! ​@@4d4m22

If it was used in a fair ground, instead of a parlour, then the loop could be to chain it to the counter. That restricts peoples ability to point it in dangerous directions and stops people walking off with it.

@dustyak79

2 ай бұрын

Damn So simple My theory was fancy Victorians would add some flare by hanging a silk scarf or something since it be brought out for special occasions at a home party.

@gergokerekes4550

2 ай бұрын

that would make sense but this is a rather expensive piece of kit for that I think. but the direction might be right, if you would want to display these on a gunwall, maybe this could be used to mount it?

Parlour guns always fascinated me.

Do you think maybe the central loop is for attaching the gun to a table or bench like a carnival shooting gallery? These seem a bit more fancy and you probably wouldn’t worry about people walking away with them but that’s just a guess.

Thanks very much, Jonathan and team. What a fascinating design, it is far classier than its modern equivalent, i.e. a £15 pot metal Chinese air soft.

Louis-Nicolas Flobert dislikes this.

That period did fun indoor fireworks too.

@michaelwright2986

2 ай бұрын

Good grief! I remember indoor fireworks in England, when I was a child. Everything was coal burning then, so I suppose they didn't make much difference to the air quality.

@causewaykayak

2 ай бұрын

@@michaelwright2986 Bought from Ellisondons (spelling?) out of Exchange & Mart perhaps ? - along with Black Face Soap, Dodgy Chocolate (laxative to prank your Pals) and Magic Snowstorm (poisonous Metaldehyde tablets). Those days before the HSE !

@mandowarrior123

3 сағат бұрын

Don't they still make them? We had those quite hazardous things in my youth at least, not more than 25 years ago

A parlour pistol would never work for me. My grandma had a strict rule against shooting guns in the parlor. Also, no wearing hats at the dinner table.

@terry7907

2 ай бұрын

Didn’t everyone’s?

I came to see re:loaded yesterday and really enjoyed it but I always think the same thing when I visit, there's loads of artillery around with no annotation, and the arms and armour inside the main staircase have veiwing windows with a bit of thought you could have label's on the half windows to interpret the artifacts on display.

Indoor shooting without any ear plugs... no wonder the great-grandfathers were a bit of hard-hearing. A nice presentaion again, a very obscure weapon. I'd like to the ammo for these, too!

What do you get if you scaled this design up to a rifle cartridge? A Montigny Henry ... I'll see myself out

Just watched the latest episode of the BBC series Forensics the real CSI on BBC IPlayer. Thought Jonathan Ferguson and the others at National Armouries might find it interesting as it covers a case in Birmingham UK where a man used a 3D printer to create numerous firearms. Would love to hear Jonathan’s opinion on this area of new technology and it’s potential effect on the UK.

Do you think that this is what Kipling called a Saloon pistol in Stalkey & Co ? I have always been curious about that. Rather like I saw a perfectly ordinary, single shot, percussion, pocket pistol described as a ladies muff pistol the other day. I’d love to see a series on these civilian artifacts by somebody.

I wonder if the lanyard loop was to keep the pistols pointed toward the target? We sometimes see this in current day shooting parlors. The weapon leashes are anchored toward the base of the targets, precluding the shooters from errantly pointing the guns back at parlor guests.

It puts me in mind of the obscure Slazenger(?) single shot pellet pistol of the 1970's. It was a limited run made in Ontario, Canada. It was horrible in that it seemed to be weakly made of fifty pounds of zamak painted with blue- black enamel. It would have made a good paperweight. ​@skepticalbadger Somewhere we have or at least had a pic of dad in the old country at a midway. The shooting gallery there used a very common style of barrel cocking .177" single shot rifle that may have had a mv of six hundred fps. The target was rigged to the shutter of ablack and white camera, it must have been a Polaroid or something similar. So we have a pic of twenty something dad aiming the rifle, dad decked out in a typical mode of dress of the era and locale, a wool sportsjacket, collared shirt, pleated trousers, belt, and narrow tie. Must have been out ladykilling on the weekend. :D

Hey Jonathan, could you do a video about the WW1 Becker Type M2 Gun, if you ever find one?

gorgeous guns

Very cool gun

Love to see the content about obscure and unusual guns, thank you for your work. If it's not too much trouble, would you mind showing off an 1875 Lee vertical action? Pretty please 😔IMO it's the pinnacle of single shot rifle actions

Exquisite design. Sleek & classy, such eye candy!

in a similiar vein,one could get a .22 insert for their Luger and go upstairs at the pub and plink cheap ceramic figurines.

Since it's a parlour pistol I wonder if the ring is a means to attach it to something and prevent theft.

3:00 It looks like the video loops around here, or there's some sort of continuity error in the editing. 6:12 Speaking of grips, the way you have to grip around the spur on the trigger guard doesn't seem comfortable, does it? 10:11 It looks like some still do it in Switzerland. 11:25 The first thing I thought when I've seen the name of the designer.

Are these similar to the ones in The Count of Monte Cristo when he practices indoors? I can’t remember the name of them, but I instantly thought of the book

@samholdsworth420

2 ай бұрын

I'm sure it's something similar 😊

@jonathanferguson1211

2 ай бұрын

I've just checked and he's certainly describing something like a parlour pistol, fired using only a cap though, so not like anything I've seen from the 1840s. More like a bulleted breech cap pistol from the late 19th century.

@F1ghteR41

2 ай бұрын

@@jonathanferguson1211 Didn't Flobert start offering his cap pistols in the 1840s?

Interesting

😮 You mean that you haven't followed Forgotten Weapons religiously Johnathan ?! Ian has posted more than one article on these things. I believe the French even engaged in 'Street' competitions with something similar - wearing Fencing type protection (No. Not wearing fencing - as - protection 😐)

@BeetleBuns

2 ай бұрын

a good picket fence would be quite adequate protection though against something like this

@jonathanferguson1211

2 ай бұрын

Fairly religiously, yes - I don't believe he's covered one of these before? If you just mean parlour/saloon pistols in general, well yes, that's a broad church.

That seems like a really large caliber for a parlour/indoor pistol. Most had like 4-6mm, with around 4,4mm becoming the norm by the end of the century. And, of course, only propelled by a percussion cap, not an actual cartidge! This gun might have been more designed for courtyards rather than indoors.

@jonathanferguson1211

2 ай бұрын

You may have missed the on-screen clarification that it's only 7mm.

@ThePerfectRed

2 ай бұрын

@@jonathanferguson1211 My mistake, thanks for the hint!

@JvS1711

2 ай бұрын

Pretty sure the most common calibre in Europe was the 6mm Flobert.

In 1807 in London, Pall Mall was the first street to get gaslight.

Ah, the equivalent of having nerf guns available on game and curry nights with the lads :)

Like to read about early obturation methods

I so love the old drawings and manufacture - those embellishment details are glorious, rarely seen outside of high end shotguns these days. as an aside to your aside, aluminium is light, has fine engineering properties and also has a low thermal capacity, so 'coldness to the feel' may be considered a minor inconvenience by competition shooters unless the competition is outdoor and somewhere seriously cold.

i’ve seen .410 shotgun pistols labeled as parlour pistol what’s the deal with these where they centrefire pistold conversations?

The ring thing I can picture some Victorian gentleman or lady hanging a silk scarf for decoration, as it would bring out some flare to the occasion you’d bring out a parlor pistol. And maybe even as some kind of visual effect to the steady aim of the shooter as they’d likely have an audience. Pure speculation.

yea our guns are cool

Nice, quite obtuse for sure but indeed interesting. 😊

you drink some good Jenever with your gentlemeanly friends. you shoot some paper sheets in your parlour. it sounds soo outlandish, yet this was probably the sunday afternoon of many.

There was also the Flobert series of parlor pistols. It used self contained metallic cartridges but they were very small and the only propellent for the round was the primer. Absolutely no gun powder in the case.

It is not technically an "underhammer". What you see is a cocking indicator.

:)

LOL What do you mean "when"??

From a more _civilised_ age.

I love the 3rd Reich eagle you wear on your jacket

@TheAncientAstronomer

2 ай бұрын

🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

@causewaykayak

2 ай бұрын

But is it 😊 ? ?

@33skippy

2 ай бұрын

@@causewaykayak I'm not sure the joke works in hi resolution, but in 360p you cant tell

@jonathanferguson1211

2 ай бұрын

It's a crow from the movie The Crow.

@squidundertheinfluence

2 ай бұрын

@@jonathanferguson1211The original from 1994? (And how has it been 30 years?)