Hoppes Ethan Allen caplock pistol

I ran across this pistol in the target version, looks pretty interesting. Do any of you have this pistol, would like to hear comments about quality, accuracy, and general impressions.

thanks

Are you talking about this one?



They are an interesting little gun but IMO, not quite up to a target pistol.

The grip is much too small to give a good steady hold like a real target pistol needs.
It does replicate an actual gun made by Allen & Thurber in the late 1840-1850's time period
The orignals were made in .34, .41 and .45 caliber.

The Hoppes's reproduction has one fault which I corrected on mine.

The flame channel from the bottom of the percussion nipple goes crossways from the right side of the gun to the left. The left end is threaded and one of the screws that holds the side panel in place uses that hole.
That is not the problem. I mentioned it because it might give you a better understanding of what is next.

My gun would pop the cap but misfire more often than not.

After studying the bottom of the bore I noticed a very tiny little hole that was drilled into the crossways flame channel.

Going to the local hardware store I managed to buy a 12 inch long, 1/8" diameter "aircraft length" drill.
Drilling that tiny little hole out with the aircraft length drill solved the ignition problem.

(Warning. There is a very small amount of material around that crossways flame channel and if you drill all the way thru it into the area where the lock tumbler and mainspring are, you ruined the gun.

Anyways, the only other strange thing about these guns is they do not use a standard percussion nipple.
They have a very short nipple with a flange on it.

I seem to recall seeing some of these special nipples for sale at Track of the Wolf.

Hope this answers some of your questions.

I have one that I've worked over a bit. I find the sights are difficult to see but the trigger is fair. The grip does leave a lot to desire. The quarter cock is very low but shouldn't matter on a target gun. I didn't have any problem with it firing. On mine I set the barrel back so the threads don't show and color case hardened the frame.

Zonie, yes that is the model I was looking at. Thanks for all the information. I had picked up from the internet that they had an issue igniting the load and also about some weak mainsprings, Fixing the flame channel may have addressed that issue while being interpreted as lack of impact. It caught my eye as it is a pretty good looking unit and it was inexpensive, which really got my attention.
I have used those small compact nipples from TOW before, I had to install one on a 32 pistol I have to allow the hammer to swing a longer arch in order to ignite the cap.

A little bit of useless information.
In the movie " Quigley Down Under" you can see one of these pistols in the latter part of the movie where Quigley is attempting to purchase a boarding pass, and the clerk thinks he is a wanted man, and has this pistol at the ready below his desk.
Also Hoppe's also produced a few other pistols, all quite good as quality.
They had a double barreled .36, they had the pistol of this post, and they had .36 cal. six shot revolving pistol with 4" ?? cylinder, no barrel, just cylinder.
They were quite accurate to three feet! :shocked2:
They sold these pistol complete or kit guns.
Fred

I had the double barrel which I nickle plated. Wish I would have kept it. It functioned quite well and could hit a target at 25 feet.

I have one of these bought in the early 80s for $40. I enlarged the flash channel and it is a good shooter with .445 round ball, .015 pillow ticking patch and 20-25 grains of FFFg black powder. The sights leave something to be desired, but the pistol is accurate enough to hit a soda can at 25 yards. With better sights I think it could hold its own against some of my more expensive percussion pistols.