As promised, today we have some video dealing with early 19th-century pistols.
You might want to watch “A brief introduction to the rules of historical pistol duels” as well, though I ask you to bear in mind that the Code Duello was not followed by everybody everywhere. For the duel in A Duke in Shining Armor, I referred to The Art of Duelling (1836), whose rules are different. This same gun aficionado simulates a duel here. This and today's official video make it clear how difficult it was to shoot accurately, even with the finest pistols and lots of practice. In short, in my story I did take liberties regarding the level of accuracy generally possible.
Though the video doesn't show the loading process in quite as much detail as this Nerdy History Girl could wish, Sklar does give an idea of what was involved in loading a pistol, while his examination of the gun offers a clue to how many things could go wrong—as The Art of Duelling emphasizes.
Video: Showing and firing an antique percussion pistol (Aston 1842)
Image at top is a still from the video. Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be. To watch the video, please click on the title to this post or the title of the video.
One of us -- 
1 comments:
Wish we could have seen the target after all the fun loading and shooting.
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