• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

Howdah Pistol

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

awc

32 Cal.
Joined
Sep 15, 2013
Messages
117
Reaction score
62
Been thinking about gettin a HOWDAH PIstol,anyone have any experience with this firearm?Would look good in my collection.Been looking at the 20 guage PEDERSOLI fro CABELAS.
 
I have the same one, a 20x20 ga. it came in kit form from Dixie. Good shooter. I carry it on my horse in a holster I made.
 
They're great. I have the 20 gauge. Works great with .600 balls, I've shot it with shot as well. Some people find that they're not super reliable if you use substitutes. The first time I ran mine I had no ignition with 777 powder and all the popular brands of caps. In the short term I used my limited supply of real black to get running and in the long term I bought some factory musket cap nipples which will ignite anything 100%.
 
I have the dual 50 cal model. Heard all kinds of horror stories about ignition problems. Mine shoots just fine with Pyrodex 3F and #10 caps. Just get close. Accuracy not the best. But very fun to shoot. Always attracts a crowd at the range.
 
btech said:
Accuracy not the best.

With no rear sight and just a bead up front, and shooting off-hand, accuracy isn't spectacular. Up close and personal is where it's at with this gun, but that's what it's intended for. But if you use a solid rest and take your time with it, it can surprise you with what it's capable of.

IMG_1880_zpsb49f3974.jpg


IMG_1885_zpse1ee5488.jpg


IMG_1887_zps711494c6.jpg
 
Jumpshot said:
With no rear sight and just a bead up front, and shooting off-hand, accuracy isn't spectacular. Up close and personal is where it's at with this gun, but that's what it's intended for.

A lot of folks lose sight of that. "Howdah" is the Indian term for the seat box used on an elephant's back from which the upper crust & the English hunters went looking for tigers. If a big, black and orange striped kitty decides 'enough is enough' then it's no time to worry about sights...it's 'prepare to repel boarders' and no second place winners! :thumbsup:
 
Jumpshot said:
Yup. This is what Howdah pistols were made for.

No kidding and it's just that fast!!! If you even suspect there's one around, you better be 'locked and loaded'!! :shocked2: :thumbsup:
 
Well finally found a HOWDAH today at CHERRY'S FINE GUNS.Should be here by Monday.Can't wait to try it out
 
....and the FUN begins ! Lucky you! now ya have to post pics when it arrives and also give us a range report !
What caliber did you get ?????
 
When I was on the exchange with BAOR, I saw a PAIR of Dublin-made Howdah pistols (custom-made for a Brigadier, late of the Indian Army) that were EIGHT BORE percussion doubles. = Just THINKING about firing an 8-bore PISTOL makes my arm ache, though if I had a panther or tiger in my lap, I likely wouldn't notice the recoil!!!

yours, satx
 
Back before October Country changed hands, they specialized in big bore hunting rifles....62, .69, .75, 8-bore and 4-bore. Not to let it rest at that, they even had hired a guy schooled on registering bores and cranked out a double percussion 8-bore rifle. Their site had a great photo of one of their customers leaning against his big male lion in East Africa with the note the shot had been taken on the charge and at point blank range. The kicker was that the lion had slid to a stop at the guy's feet! Well, good for you, Kemosabe...if it'd me, the lion would have slid right on by on a layer of brown stuff! :rotf:
 
Saw 2 tiger's up close in I corps area near Chu-Lai. REALLY I MEAN REALLY get your attention. Way more than cobras or buffalo. One of them you could hear purring like a kitty kat FROM 25 yd. as it walked on a paddy dike. Wanna see some rifles come up quick.....makes hair stand up on your arms. No howdah pistol on me, just an M-60, ....Man those were the good o :youcrazy: ld days.....Tom
 
"Michael Tillman's meeting the tiger" in Robert James Waller's SLOW WALTZ IN CEDAR BEND is not only "a good read" but it actually happened Dr. Waller, while he was "researching" a portion of the novel.
(Part of SLOW WALTZ is set at a national park on an island in India.)

Prof. Waller said, in a televised interview on BOOKMAN, on PBS TV, that, "The interview with the tiger happened in exactly that way. Both of us were too astounded to do more than carefully examine each other at 'near touching range'; I was too entranced with her to be frightened, UNTIL LATER. Then I was frightened out of my wits."
(Having had "a close encounter of the 2nd kind" with El Tigre in USASOUTHCOM in 1991, I can relate. - When one realizes how close that one came to "being invited to late-night supper" by a predator, "it gets your attention". = Jaguars consider "homo sapiens" as "slow-moving, easily caught, tasty protein" and nothing more than that. Furthermore, hand-size paw-prints IN your tent and next to your bunk will "keep you up nights".)

yours, satx
 
Your post above reminds me of the famous comment of W.D.M "Karamoja" Bell ("The Old Africa hand"), when he overheard a member of the NY EXPLORER'S CLUB bragging about how far away that he could shoot game in Kenya, "I am little impressed about how well one shoots game at 200 yards, but rather more how well he kills at two yards".

yours, satx
 
Absolutely! I now appreciate, even more, why those guys switched over to doubles charged with buckshot when they went to look for wounded kitties in high grass and underbrush! Bell was quite a character...anybody who thinks 7mm Mauser is too much for elephants is aces in my book! :wink:
 
Back
Top