1777 Charleville Armi San Marco / Navy Arms

Anyone have any experience with this flintlock pistol? Smoothbore, .69 caliber. Build quality, reliability? What it worth? Owner said he purchased in the 70s and shot a few times. Pictures look like it is in pretty good condition. Thanks for any help!!

I have one I bought about '77, haven't fired it yet. To say the trigger pull was hard was an understatement; I had to exert so much pressure on the trigger it was actually painful and no I don't mean just uncomfortable. When the rammer was in place it rubbed against the tumbler with quite a bit of force. I debated taking the springs out to put in a bear trap. The fit of the metal parts was very good and the fit of wood to metal wasn't bad though there is a very small piece of filler (colored epoxy?) at the butt cap. A friend tuned it for me and it now has a crisp trigger with no creep or excess travel but it's still a little stiff. The springs are still stiff and the hammer fall and frizen opening occur in a milisecond though the frizen timing seems good. I haven't tried it to see if it sparks well or not and it still has the oak flint I put in it back when I got it. I think I have a mold somewhere and If I find time for a casting session I do intend to try it and if it shoots well I may try to lighten the main and frizen springs. I really think it's a neat pistol and I had originally bought it with the intention of shooting it in smoothbore matches but it got set aside and forgotten. If you buy it I hope you have better luck than I did with mine or if you don't mind doing some work I believe you will have a unique piece. I have no idea of the value but I probably paid about $70 or $80 new for mine.

Thank you for the information. Local guy has it for sale, $250. Said he fired it about 20 times with no issues. Appears to be in good condition. I already have a pedersoli AN IX and queen anne, but love the looks of the Charleville

I recently bought an original 1777 and to say the trigger pull was hard is a gross understatement. I put in a shim on the tumbler, polished everything and did some filling. It’s nice and crisp now and seems to need less pressure to fire too. I’ve thought about working on the trigger return spring, but won’t touch the main spring, being afraid of losing the good spark it has.

Nearly all sear springs are on the unnecessarily heavy side. The power of that spring only needs to be enough to return the sear in a full and positive manner. If your lock depends on the sear spring to hold the sear in place when cocked, then you have very poor geometry in the angle of the sear nose, and or, the tumbler full cock notch. A smooth light or medium trigger pull weight is nice, but remember that gun was never designed to be a target pistol.

I have one of these, love shooting it. It’s not accurate at all, but it’s great with buck shot.

Got one. Had to reharden the Frizzen. Aside from that it's pretty nice.

How did you re-harden the frizzen? Did you do it yourself or send it out? If sent out.....to whom did you send? Thanks, Jason

TBone said:

Got one. Had to reharden the Frizzen. Aside from that it's pretty nice.

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Very interesting looking guns, I've been looking to get one recently but they're hard to come by.

Nathan55770 said:

Very interesting looking guns, I've been looking to get one recently but they're hard to come by.

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There is one on GunBroker, right now

I sold my last one. They’re cool and well made pistols.

Not the most accurate things to shoot, the barrel has way too much taper, its more like a sawed off shotgun.

They were designed as cavalry pistols, during the flintlock era and being smoothbore gave you ammunition options. Close is the effective range of the pistol, unless you are shooting at a larger mass/group of soldiers/cavalrymen, probably within ten yards. Maybe help get you out of a jam, during a cavalry fight. The saber was still considered the primary arm.

I recently acquired one of these for $150....plus $40 to replace the missing top jaw and screw! Have everything that I need to fire it, just not the time, right now. Maybe in early July.

Jason60chev said:

How did you re-harden the frizzen? Did you do it yourself or send it out? If sent out.....to whom did you send? Thanks, Jason

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I case harden my frizzens.

You can harden them with a propane torch, the quality of the work might be lagging.

You’’ll need a stack of bricks to make a makeshift forge, and a MAPP torch kit and hardening compound.

What works best if you’re using a torch is to heat the steel to orange for about 15-20 min and dip the face into hardening compound mixed with crushed charcoal (I use chared leather pieces) and let it cool, it is now normalized and soft.

Then reheat with the clay coating on it to around 1600 its described as an orange red color.

Quench in room temp water.

Then heat the foot and up to the pan cover edge to an even blue color, I use a butane torch for this.

Or….

Send to someone who can do it for you.

Jason60chev said:

They were designed as cavalry pistols, during the flintlock era and being smoothbore gave you ammunition options. Close is the effective range of the pistol, unless you are shooting at a larger mass/group of soldiers/cavalrymen, probably within ten yards. Maybe help get you out of a jam, during a cavalry fight. The saber was still considered the primary arm.

I recently acquired one of these for $150....plus $40 to replace the missing top jaw and screw! Have everything that I need to fire it, just not the time, right now. Maybe in early July.

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The design of this pistol in my opinion is flawed because its imbalanced, its really only designed for very close combat.

You’re load needs to be very modest too, r the recoil will be uncontrollable. I had to lower mine to 50 2F and 30 3f.

The pistol really ought to have been designed with a 58/62 cal smoothbore barrel.