The term derringer is a genericized misspelling of the last name of Henry Deringer, a famous maker of small pocket pistols in the 1800s. Many copies of the original Philadelphia Deringer pistol were made by other gun makers worldwide, and the name was often misspelled; this misspelling soon became a generic term for any pocket pistol. The original Deringer pistol was a single shot muzzleloading pistol; with the advent of cartridge firearms, pistols began to be produced in the modern form still known as a "derringer". Henry Deringer (October 26, 1786 - Unknown, 1868) was an American gunsmith born in Easton, Pennsylvania. ... A Browning 9 millimeter semiautomatic pistol Ordnance pistol of the French Navy, 19th century A pistol or handgun is a usually small firearm that can be used with one hand. ... John Wilkes Booths Deringer A Philadelphia Deringer is a small percussion handgun designed by Henry Deringer (1786-1868) and produced from 1852 through 1968. ... Muzzleloading is a term used to describe any firearm, but more particularly historical firearms, which are loaded at the muzzle, or open end of the gun barrel. ... Rimmed, centerfire . ...

A derringer is intended to be the smallest useable handgun of a given caliber. They have been used by women as a weapon which is easily concealable in a purse, or as a stocking gun, although the extent of this usage has been much exaggerated by Hollywood. Derringers are not repeating firearms—repeating mechanism such as used on semiautomatic handguns or revolvers would add significant bulk to the gun, defeating the purpose. The original cartridge derringers held only a single round, usually a pinfire or rimfire cartridge, usually around a .40 caliber, and the barrel pivoted sidways on the frame to allow access to the breech for reloading. The famous Remington derringer design doubled the capacity, while maintaining the compact size, by adding a second barrel on top of the first, and pivoting the barrels upwards to reload. Each barrel then held one round, and a cam on the hammer alternated between top and bottom barrels. The Remington derringer was originally sold in .41 Rimfire caliber, and achieved wide popularity. The .41 Rimfire bullet moved very slowly at about 425 feet per second (about 290 miles per hour). It could be seen in flight but at very close range (such as at a casino or saloon card table) it could easily kill. It was sold from about 1871 to about 1936. Purses, such as this one by Burberry, are fashion accessories with a function. ... A stocking gun is a small firearm which can be held in a holster in a womans stocking. ... ... A semi-automatic firearm automatically loads a round into the chamber after the weapon is fired, but still requires a trigger pull for each round that is fired. ... Revolver is also a rock-and-roll album by The Beatles. ... A pinfire firearm cartridge is an obsolete type of brass cartridge in which the priming compound is ignited by striking a small pin which protrudes radially from just above the base of the cartridge. ... A rimfire is a type of firearm cartridge. ... The word calibre (British English) or caliber (American English) designates the interior diameter of a tube or the exterior diameter of a wire or rod, also common for handguns. ... This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey. ... Saloon may refer to: Any bar, especially in the American Wild West. ...

Clip of the COP derringer patent 4,407,085

Even with the advent of smaller, higher powered cartridges made possible by the use of smokeless powder rather than the black powder used in the 1800s and before, the classic Remington design is still popular; a Remington pattern derringer in .38 Special is still smaller than the most compact .25 ACP semiautomatic, and provides far superior terminal ballistic performance in its 2 shots than the .25 ACP does with 6 or 7. While the classic Remington design is a single action, manufacturers have also made double action derringers, including some 4 shot models, with the barrels stacked in a 2 x 2 block. The "COP" derringer, made in Torrance, CA, provided 4 shots of .357 Magnum, still in a package not much larger than a .25 ACP automatic, and significantly more compact than a similar revolver. The COP derringer was invented by Robert Hillberg and closely resembled his earlier work on insurgency weapons. Image File history File links COP_patent_4407085. ... Image File history File links COP_patent_4407085. ... Smokeless powder Smokeless powder is the name given to a number of gunpowder-like propellants used in firearms which produce negligible smoke when fired, unlike the older black powder which it replaced. ... Black powder - here a 100 grams container - can be freely bought in Switzerland. ... . ... The . ... Terminal ballistics, a sub-field of ballistics, is the study of the behavior of a projectile when it hits its target. ... A US Army 45 Colt. ... A US Army 45 Colt. ... Drawing from US patent 4,407,085, covering the COP Derringer operating mechanism The COP 357 was a 4 shot Derringer type pistol chambered for the . ... The . ... The Colt Single Action Army, one of the most popular revolvers of all time A revolver is a multishot firearm, usually a handgun, in which the rounds are held in a revolving cylinder that rotates to fire them through a single barrel. ... An insurgency weapon is a weapon, generally a firearm, that is designed to be mass produced as cheaply as possible, smuggled or airdropped into occupied territory, and used by insurgents to engage in guerilla warfare against an occupier, or for use by rebels against an established government. ...

Despite their stopping-power advantage over most "pocket guns," modern derringers rarely are seen for sale in gun shops. Instead, a whole variety of similarly-sized .32 ACP and .380 ACP semiautos, (notably the Kel-Tec P-32, selling to that market are what gun stores mainly have in their display counters for customers wanting truly tiny handguns now, as they carry up to 8 rounds instead of a derringer's 2 while being far faster to reload and shooting similar-power ammo. Kel-Tec CNC Industries Inc. ... The Kel-Tec P-32 is a compact self-loading, or semi-automatic locked-breech pistol that has become extremely popular as a deep concealment weapon among civilians licensed to carry concealed in the US. [1] It is believed to have been designed by George Kelgren, the innovative Swedish designer...

A related design, often grouped with derringers since it fits nowhere else, is the Semmerling pistol. It is a 5 shot, .45 ACP pistol and a manual repeater; the barrel mechanism is manually pulled forward to eject the fired round, then pushed back to chamber the next round. These pistols were originally built for the U. S. Army, and the few available on the civilian market are highly sought after due to their unique combination of high power, large capacity, and tiny size. Another military pistol that is truly a derringer design is the Liberator Pistol, a .45 ACP insurgency weapon dropped behind Axis lines in WWII. The . ... The Army is the branch of the United States armed forces which has primary responsibility for land-based military operations. ... Liberator Pistol (FP-45) A pistol manufactured for the United States military during World War II. The pistol was designed for the United States Army in 1942 by the Inland Guide Lamp Manufacturing Division of the General Motors Corporation in Dayton, Ohio. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II...

External Links

• Derringer