Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I'm here today at Ader
in Paris taking a look at a couple of
cool knuckle-duster revolvers.
Well, one knuckle-duster revolver.
This is a Delhaxhe knuckle-duster revolver,
one of the two different styles
that were originally manufactured here in France.
Now these often gained the nickname
of "Apache" guns, which comes from the name
of a couple of Parisian street gangs.
Who took the name from the image of the American Indians, the Apaches in particular,
as the very fearsome savage warriors of the time period.
We're talking the early 1870s here, the American Indians have quite the reputation,
and there are some gangs in Paris that ... like that image and adopt the name.
Now associating that with these guns is a little bit apocryphal,
it's not clear that these were actually used by those gangs.
But in the popular media, in the popular conception,
the association was made between them.
What we actually have here is a combination of three different weapons all put together.
Namely brass knuckles, a dagger (sort of, it's a very small dagger),
and a revolver (again, it's a very small revolver).
The combination is really of fairly dubious practical value, but it certainly looks really cool.
So let's take a closer look at the Delhaxhe type.
As knuckle-duster revolvers go, this one has a little bit of a different design to it.
We're used to seeing all four of the knuckles as one continuous piece,
usually with individual separations for each finger.
What Delhaxhe did was to actually separate them,
and build this more as a revolver frame that worked as brass knuckles,
than as brass knuckles that could be adapted into a revolver frame.
So, you have a grip like this, you ... do have your finger on the trigger the whole time,
which is perhaps a bit of a questionable design style.
But, well, that's how he did it.
There's no real way to keep your finger off the trigger if you're doing this,
so try not to have a reflexive ... firing of the trigger, unless of course that's the idea.
In addition to the knuckles we have, as is typical with this sort of thing, a knife blade there.
There's a little button here to release it, it's going to swing out and lock in place.
It is a very small, rather flimsy, blade.
But if you're holding it like this you've got a kind of a stabby coming out the bottom of your hand,
and I would not want to be stuck with that, that would be unpleasant.
So that's down there.
And then we have the firearm.
Let's fold this back up.
It is nice that the knife blade folds safely and conveniently out of the way
when you're not actually using it.
Now the revolver part is a 6 shot pinfire revolver.
We have a little loading gate right there, open that up,
and you can rotate the cylinder through to load your cartridges.
Note the little notch there for the pin of the pinfire cartridges.
This is basically like a 5, maybe a 6mm (probably 6mm), rather long pinfire cartridge.
There is no barrel, this is just a pepperbox style of revolver
where each chamber is its own barrel.
I don't know if you can quite see it there, but these are smoothbore,
so there's no rifling involved.
And then we have a double-action pinfire hammer
that, unlike most guns of this style, is actually in good working order still.
And there's your axis pin.
Now once you have fired all 6 rounds, you are going to need to get the empty cases out.
And to do that you have been provided with an ejector rod,
which is threaded into the bottom of the frame here.
So you can pull that out, and then go through and one at a time
line that up, and eject your empty cases.
We do definitively know the name of the designer here,
because he conveniently marked it on the frame.
So J. Delhaxhe, Breveté, patented, and this is serial number 49.
Some reasonably nice checkering on the backstrap there.
This is actually not a terrible handling piece of weaponry.
The other major pattern of these, which was patented and manufactured
at right about the same time, was made by a gunsmith named Dolne, again in France.
And I actually have a video on a Dolne knuckle-duster Apache revolver
that I will link to at the end of the video.
So if you'd like to see the other style, you can check that out.
This one frankly strikes me as being a lot more resilient, a lot more durable.
The Dolne one has ... the knuckles fold out into a pistol grip that's kind of flimsy.
I rather like the idea with this one that the frame is solid.
And it just seems a little bit more structurally sound, I suppose.
At any rate, these are very cool to get a chance to take a look at,
and finding them in good condition like this one is really quite scarce.
So I hope you guys enjoyed the video.
A big thanks to Ader for giving me the opportunity to take a look at this one.
Thanks for watching.