[ The Sure Defender ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at
Ader in Paris taking a look at some
really cool antique firearms.
Today we have "The Sure Defender".
This is one of the early, very well made,
in fact really surprisingly well made,
sort of knuckle-duster pistols.
This would become a popular style of firearm,
certainly a well-reported one.
How many of these were actually sold is probably a bit limited.
These are more on the tacti-cool side of things than on the practical side of things,
but they certainly made an impression.
And what's interesting about this one is it is actually a percussion-fired single-shot variety.
Most of what we run into when we look at knuckle-duster style pistols
are actually revolvers, often pinfire revolvers.
So let's take a look at The Sure Defender and see how some of this trend actually started.
Details on some of the guns like this are often pretty sparse, and this is no exception.
I can tell you clearly what it was named, and that is "The Sure Defender".
Very nice inscribing ... there.
This example is serial number 137. As I said, these were often pretty limited in manufacture,
because as cool as they are, are they really practical?
Are they really the best thing to stick in your pocket as a self-defence weapon?
Mmm, maybe, maybe not.
Now, there are some common qualities to all of the knuckle-duster style guns,
and that is they pretty much all are a combination of three separate weapons.
One is, of course, the brass knuckles here.
On this one the knuckles are actually fairly large, which is a little bit unusual.
Some of the others I've handled had ... much smaller [finger] holes there.
And this one also gives you a nice surface to hold in your hand.
Because if you can't support this, it's going to hurt you
more than it hurts someone else when you hit them with it.
Now it's also very, very common for these to have a knife attachment.
They are always really pretty small and pretty flimsy,
but I still wouldn't want to get stabbed with it.
In this case, in order to open this we have to actually unscrew this little locking screw.
It is captive, so it won't come all the way out.
And then I can rotate that up, note there are two threaded holes, we line it up there.
So this takes a little preparation for your self-defence encounter.
But then you can have that locked in place.
And then you can have your choice of knife up,
or knife down.
Now if the knuckles and the knife alone are not going to do it for you,
then that's when you have the actual firearm.
And this one is a single shot. We have a spring-loaded button right here.
That horseshoe shaped guy is the spring, with this button.
So I'm going to push that in, and then I can open, ... there we go,
I can open this up, it's going to lock.
There's a little bit of play to it, but it locks in position there.
... Now the knuckles have turned into a pistol grip.
And then we have a trigger here.
Which doesn't appear to do much because this is our hammer.
So this sort of hourglass shape is there as a grasping lug,
and to add some weight to the hammer.
So you have to manually cock it,
bring that spring down so that it hooks on the trigger there.
Pretty simple engagement. And now you can see the percussion cap nipple there.
So you would load this with powder and ball,
you can then cap it,
and this has become a single-shot percussion pistol.
So you pull the trigger there,
the hammer is going to snap down on that percussion cap,
and fire your one round.
It even has a front sight on it which is impressive and unusual,
again, for this style of weapon.
Note that it's really quite well made.
It's not loose, it doesn't appear to be junk.
Some of these, the patents that came out on these would end up being copied,
especially by like small gunsmithing shops in the Liège area.
And a lot of those copies are pretty flimsy and pretty wimpy guns,
especially after 150 years of age.
The pinfire style, the revolver style ones, date from about the 1870s,
this is probably roughly 1860, kind of the trend setter.
People would look at this and go, "That's a cool idea, perhaps we can do it better."
But there is one of the, as they say, the OG knuckle-duster firearms.
It's pretty common for guns like this to be in really pretty loose, pretty rough condition.
And this one is really remarkably crisp, and fully functional, which is really cool to see.
So hopefully you guys enjoyed getting a chance to take a look at The Sure Defender, I know I did.
A big thanks to Ader for giving me the opportunity to take a look at it.
Thanks for watching.