Albanian Rat tail Miquelet pistols

Marcus · 14th April 2011, 11:49 PM

Teodor,
Elwood states that in 1805, Elbasan, the town to which he attributes production of the rat tail pistols, was documented to have 243 gunmakers. If the Turkish government did not order pistols through a contract with a consortium of these gunmakers, who did the Turkish government buy from? I doubt that prior to 1800 they were buying in large numbers from European manufactures. I would be very interested to know your thoughts on this question.
Marcus
P.S. This scenario reminds me of the situation France was in during World War I. They needed pistols badly, and they made a deal with a consortium of Spanish gun makers to provide "Ruby pistols", which were knock offs of Browning semi-automatic pistols. Probably more than 100 producers supplied "Ruby" pistols, and while the 4 or 5 big companies provided guns of reasonable quality, other small producers made guns that were more of a liability than an asset. Just as all the rat tails you see kind of look similar, the Ruby pistols were supposed to be the same, but not even the magazines were interchangeable.

14th April 2011, 11:49 PM	#9
Marcus Member Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 420	If not Albania, where? Teodor, Elwood states that in 1805, Elbasan, the town to which he attributes production of the rat tail pistols, was documented to have 243 gunmakers. If the Turkish government did not order pistols through a contract with a consortium of these gunmakers, who did the Turkish government buy from? I doubt that prior to 1800 they were buying in large numbers from European manufactures. I would be very interested to know your thoughts on this question. Marcus P.S. This scenario reminds me of the situation France was in during World War I. They needed pistols badly, and they made a deal with a consortium of Spanish gun makers to provide "Ruby pistols", which were knock offs of Browning semi-automatic pistols. Probably more than 100 producers supplied "Ruby" pistols, and while the 4 or 5 big companies provided guns of reasonable quality, other small producers made guns that were more of a liability than an asset. Just as all the rat tails you see kind of look similar, the Ruby pistols were supposed to be the same, but not even the magazines were interchangeable.