ANCIENT PISTOLS TO AUTOMATIC AND 

 ELEPHANT RIFLES 



T TALY has the credit of the invention of the pistol, which 

 J. came into being soon after the designing of the wheel- 

 lock and the rifling of barrels. Caminelleo Vitelli of Pistoia 

 made the first about 1540. It was in the manufacture of 

 these small weapons that gun-makers from this date to the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century excelled. The workman- 

 ship was generally of a high order, and the ornamentation, 

 especially of some of the German specimens, was extremely 

 artistic. 



Moreover, during the flint and steel age, some double- 

 barrelled pistols were built with two locks and only one trigger. 

 Although these weapons worked quite perfectly, it must not 

 be assumed that the makers of these pistols could have made 

 a double shoulder gun to work satisfactorily with but one trigger. 

 That difficulty was overcome at the end of the nineteenth century ; 

 but even then the clever designers had not discovered exactly 

 what the former trouble was, and it was freely stated in a way 

 that is now known to have been wrong. Indeed, the author was 

 the first to discover the real reason for the involuntary second 

 pull and double discharge. As this phenomenon did not occur in 

 pistols, but did so in shoulder weapons, it apparently seemed easy 

 to trace the cause. Very early in the nineteenth century, dozens, 

 and since then hundreds, of designers and patentees have set 

 out with the announcement that they had discovered the true 

 cause of the trouble, and met it with a patent. As the latter 

 were always badly constructed, it may be assumed that the 

 patentees were wrong in their diagnosis. As a matter of fact, 



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