Watch: Allen & Thurber Pepperbox Pistol
Russ Chastain 08.01.16
A pepperbox handgun packs a good bit of punch, especially for what it is: a muzzleloading self-defense pistol with multiple barrels arranged in a cylindrical fashion (which resembles the cylinder on a revolver, though of course considerably longer).
In the video below, Ian of Forgotten Weapons takes us through a brief history of pepperboxes and their fairly widespread use by civilians for self defense, and then he takes a look at one pepperbox in particular.
This one is fairly fancy, with engraving and silver inserts on the grip panels. This one even has the name “J. Eaton” engraved on the left side of the bar-style hammer.
Similar to a double-action revolver, one pull of the trigger cocks the hammer, rotates a barrel into alignment, and drops the hammer to fire that barrel.
Ian lets us know that the pepperbox was a commonly-carried sidearm simply because it was fairly cheap and widely available. As he says, “[You could] buy this for a few dollars and go on about your life.”
Sage advice; an affordable gun is better than no gun.