Why you never buy a Pedersoli Continental Duelling o Kentucky Gun

[Idricus]

Hello everybody, i've just writen this small-guide to answer in other topic, but i tought to re-write it in a new topic to protect people that are thinking to buy one of this two gun.
So, sorry if i write two times the same guide.


I live in Italy in Bergamo near Pedersoli and near Investarm (investarm make plain pistol, Lyman bui it from Investarm )
Pedersoli have two quality brand: the one is rifle and pistol over 600 Euro, the secon is rifle an pistol under 600 E ( Continental duelling, Kentucky pistol and some other).
The frist have very good wood, good double trigger or francais stecker, the second is Very Very low quality BAD gun.
In november 2013, I hah buy a Pedersoli Continental Duelling Gun ( 390 Euro ) and it is a very bad gun: Bad wood, too light like plastic, pedersoli page show fake photo: Pistol seems have a nice blu barrel but when you open box you find an horrible bad-make brow-windows barrel. But this is nothing, the trigger is horrible: engagement stay 10mm from the pivot or more, so trigger moves (also 5-6mm by side) without touch meccanics. Bad belanced. Hammer springs it very very hard and after pull hammer 5 times four finger became to do pain. Too much hard hammer cause too much hard trigger: you can't take an A4 paper at 10 meter because you can't shoot without move sight.
So some days after i ask for refound.
After a week a've buy Investarm Plain Pistol (290 Euro ) the quality of wood, mecanics, trigger, barrel is withou any doub BETTER than Pedersoli Continental Duelling.
So Pedersoli have some low quality gun that you will never buy. See before buy it.

 

[Idricus]

I report for you the experience of this man. We have had the same problems: me with Pedersoli Continental Duelling, him with Kentucky Pedersoli , two of a hidden low brand Pedersoli gun.

Link

Pedersoli sell some Very bad Gun under 400 - 500 Euro. There are some other best products like Lyman-Investarm for exemple. Don't buy Low brand Pedersoli. If you want a serius replica you have to buy Pedersoli Lepage like or similar. But you have to spent more than 600 Euro. Otherwise Lyman offers good gun and rifle at good price

 

[Alden]

Grazie.

 

[frogwalking]

Hmmm. I have a Pedersoli flint Harper's Ferry pistol that I made from a kit. I paid $350 for it. I have been shooting it for 12 years. No issues.

 

[jamesthomas]

Well, if you paid $350.00 for it 12 years ago its probably one of the good ones. I wonder how much it costs now?

 

[nit wit]

If I had opened the box and saw a piece of manure I would have sent it back or at least had a conversation with The Pedersoli people. I have owned a bunch of Pedersoli firearms over the past 20 years. :thumbsup:
Maybe it's like potatoes in Maine, we can't get the best grade as they are shipped across the country and the world,we get grade 2 or 3.
So, maybe the folks in Italy get grade 2 or 3 firearms? :idunno:
Nit Wit

 

[Lorne Johnson]

It would appear that Pedersoli makes guns to different price points.

 

[nkbj]

That would make me suspect that they have sub-contracted shops to supply some of their products and are not performing adequate quality assurance checks over the work of their suppliers.

 

[Idricus]

Probably in this last years, to take low price, Pedersoli had choose to product 2 or 3 quality level.
Maybe best quality are shipped to estern market. Some years agoo F.I.A.T ( italian cars company ) still take the same choose. Unfortunatly some Italian enterprises works with this polities.
So, after few days i reported the Bad Gun to shop were i've buy it, but I have disputed 1 Our ( !!!!! ) to be refound. Probably gunseller and Pedersoli have tryed to don't refound me. After refound i've buy Plain Pistol.. Wonderfull gun!

 

[jamesthomas]

Good to know they gave you a refund and you were able to get a good pistol!. Now go do some shootin'.

 

[armymedic.2]

I have two pedersolis. My lock and trigger needed a ton of work to have it the way i wanted, but the rest of the gun is quite well done. Nice inlays. Tack driving barrel. Good frizzen. It was just lawyer proof in spring strength and trigger pull. I would call it a great gun with terrible springs. But hey. Thats how we learn to adjust locks on our own. I liked the hunt for trigger adjustment and slickness. That being said. A reasonable trigger and spring strength would have been nice out of the box

 

[Rokon]

This is really interesting in regard to two recent NEW Italian purchases from prominent dealers.

One was a 2-band Enfield from Pedersoli ordered through Dixie: barrel full of after-bluing rust and pitted--just unacceptable.

Second was a Pietta Colt 1860 Army purchased from Cabelas. Looking down the barrel there was a straight, machined groove cutting across the rifling from breech to muzzle at the 9:00 o'clock position. The barrel should never have left the factory. It was utterly runied.

I think WE are getting the 2nd and 3rd rate quality firearms from Italy and it is a shame that our suppliers, primarily Dixie and Cabelas, aren't holding the Italian makers feet to the fire in terms of quality.

It's a pretty grim situation. At this point, I would NOT BUY a current Italian reproduction from any maker without seeing and inspecting it first.

And it's time we let our importers and distributors know it.

 

[ChrisPer]

I am happy with my Pedersolis, the Charles Moore Duelling Pistol and the Mortimer Target flint rifle.

The chap i bought my Mortmer from got a Pedersoli 1858 Enfield, and it is a real looker - very good quality finish with crisp edges. There was one flaw he found - the foresight was not on straight, and the POI was such that straightening th esight would make the POI worse. I guess he is discussing it with the distributor now.

 

[Tinker2]

I think Dixie and Cabelas know exactly what quality they are buying and selling.





William Alexander

 

[nit wit]

People I've dealt with at Cabelas don't know diddley about black powder firearms.In the gun library they had a combo .40 cal and 16 ga percussion listed as a .54 and 16ga. I tried to tell the man to no avail!
Dixie,I've been there 3 times and twice Hunter Kirkland was there and within 10 feet and would not even say hello. As far as I'm concerneed he is just another rude, spoiled little snot! I will never set foot in there again.
Nit Wit

 

[starlight]

I've just taken delivery of a Pedersoli An IX Gendamerie. Overall fit and finish was good and it seems to work well enough.

My Pedersoli Kuchenreuter works just fine, but it is several years old.

I did get a Brown Bess that needed some work to the lock to get it to spark reliably (from new) and not eat flints every 20 shots.
However a trip to the 'smith and $25 worth of work wasn't that much of a drama, IMHO. I've heard rumours of that sort of problem with quite a few Bess replicas, not only Pedersolis.

 

[Ray-Vigo]

I had an Uberti Colt Navy that required drilling out most of the cones (I don't recall how many, but I remember a lot of drilling). Kroil and heat would not touch it, and Kroil is good stuff.

While none of the screws needed drilling, several also required Kroil and heat to release.

And that was all as the gun came straight from the factory. Needless to say, I was surprised as hell because all I trying to do was disassemble the gun to clean the shipping oil off and prep for first use.

Since then, the gun has needed some replacement parts and tuning, but it's not a bad gun. It's just there were some fairly glaring QC issues with it up front. I think they may have used some kind of heavy, pneumatic tools on the screws and cones.

 

[J.G. Terry]

I have learned who not to buy muzzle loading firearms from. Have had two Enfield's from Cabelas that were second class. Saw others of the same make that were also second class. These were brands that were noted by local shooters as being turkeys. One shooter had problems with one of these Enfield's years ago and was told by the importer that the guns were made reenactors and not target shooters.

 

[azmntman]

I have a "cabelas" 3 band enfield, looks and shoots just fine :hmm: . I have never gotten around to zeroing it in though, musket caps were NOT AVAILABLE locally when I bought it. Had some cheapo's that worked 50/50 :shake: , borrowed a bunch of good ones and it went boom reliably :grin: . I recall about a 6" group at 90 yds when I was last shooting it years and years and a kid ago. The gun was shooting about 6" right too. Bought the bayonet too. the sheath is cheapo. Mine is an Armi import if I recall correctly and too lazy to get it and see. I will sell it soon, no use for so long and I need to get me a nice .40 or .45 flinter. (or a smoothie??)

 

[Cpl. Ashencheeks]

I have what I think is a pre-built .45 flint Kentucky kit pistol that I bought from a gun shop that specialized in black powder arms for re-enactors back in the 1990's.

There are no markings I could find on the barrel, so I really do not know who the original manufacturer's of the kit are.

I have barely ever used it and probably have only shot it myself a total of 10 times.

It performed alright at 25 yards, but I am not really used to this type of pistol.

There is some slop on the trigger at both half and full cock and the barrel at the touchhole is nicked by a flint.

The barrel could use a better finish than it's current faded browning has at the moment, and the steel is showing through at the hard edges of the octagonal barrel.

I got this thing for real cheap back then.

I don't ever usually take it out, other than to look at it occasionally or show it to a relative that wants to see it.

I don't know if this would be a Pedersoli or not, because I can't find any proof stamps on it, but I have always assumed this gun was originally imported by DGW.

Any guesses on where something like this might originate?