Knee-pistol of the Osmanic Empire

[Philip]

Originally Posted by rickystl

Hi Philip.

Yes, there had to be a European origin to this pistol style. It seems like it never caught on in Europe.
Come to think of it, at our shooting range there is a cowboy action area with a manican horse. Maybe I should try this out ? LOL


Rick

True, the gun-butt style of grip was in fashion for only a limited time in Europe but we see in some Western countries a wider popularity of big pistols whose barrels approached or even overlapped carbine size. Case in point -- those long barreled pedrenyales with short ball butts made in Ripoll. Brescian pistoletti had barrels as long as 20-22 in. -- comparable to those on the short trombino (with a conventional shoulder stock) made throughout the peninsula. ( I just picked up a trombino made in Naples, probably late 17th cent., with a barrel barely over 19 in., and a bore around .50 diameter.) There are quite a few Brescian pistols around which are longer. Similarly long handguns were made in Germanic countries as well but I'm not as familiar with those.

So it goes to show that both Western and Eastern cultues saw the need for very large handguns, it's just that a particular grip style was preferred in one area for a much longer period -- perhaps in keeping with the technical conservatism which many Oriental civilizations were prone to in the first place.