Post by tinkerpearce on Jan 23, 2020 12:18:11 GMT -5
Picked this up last year; a friend of mine owns a gun shop and when this sort of thing comes in he lets me know. It's an anonymous Belgian .38 vest-pocket Bulldog. It's anonymous because I haven't had the time and energy to spend hours scouring my resources to pin down the maker. Fairly typical folding-trigger double action modeled after the Webleys. These little guns were produced by the bushel in the late 19th C., and were relatively inexpensive. They were actually quite popular in the 'wild west' as a hide-out or backup pistol. If you compare the size of the .38 cartridges to the gun you get a sense of how genuinely small this gun is; a J-frame S&W absolutely dwarfs it. It's quite well made, with good fit and finish. It even has a cross-bolt safety that locks the hammer, and an internal system that cams the hammer back enough to prevent the firing pin from touching the primer until the trigger is pulled, so it's drop-safe.
The bore slugs at .375 and the chambers have a straight-through bore, so it was chambered for something like .38 Short Colt or .38 Webley Short. I had some Buffalo Bullet Company 125gr. dry-lubed bullets on-hand, so I converted them to a heel-base and loaded them in .38 S&W brass over 10gr. of Triple-7 FFFg. This works pretty well, and with great care I was able to put five rounds in the black at seven yards... about the best one can expect of a gun of this sort. The double-action trigger is surprisingly smooth and not at all 'stagey.' One thing, though- rapid-fire is out of the question! Even with the modest power of this cartridge recoil kicked the gun up 45 degrees and I had to reset my grip for every shot. Someone with much smaller hands might do better.
As to this cartridge, I ran them over the chronograph. From this gun they make 544 fps. for a whopping 82 ft/lbs of energy. Not a powerhouse, but it beats harsh words.
Interesting little gun, and kind of fun.
