So in early 1983 I walked into a friend's gun shop and asked to see a Remington 1871 he had. Knowing I tend toward service pistols and military rifles he asked why I was interested.
Now I am talking about the over under layout, single action pistols "as seen on TV" as a hide out gun a in bijillion '50's and '60's "Cowboy shows". I must have had half a dozen toy versions during those times including one mounted on a spring loaded device that went up a shirt sleeve like I think the TV Bat Masterson had at one point. I even had a plastic water pistol version of one during the great high school Junior Class water gun fight that lasted a couple of weeks that spring (Can you imagine 16 year olds ambushing one another and sniping the occasional teacher with semi realistic water pistols in the halls of public schools today?)
I explained that I wanted to compare an original.41 Rim Fire to the German .38 Special I had been carrying.
He suggested that I bring the "modern" .38 in so he could weld it shut. Said it might make an interesting shadow box display piece.
I was appalled and said so and he then offered to weld it open for free as well.... for use as a sinker while fishing for sea cats out in the bay.
There followed tales of horror about dropped derringers, snagged derringers, and "slipped" derringers during which the gunshop owner owned up to a dropped derringer discharge that blew off a boot heel and really tick off his wife, another customer when called a BS'er dropped his pants and showed the scar from his dropped derringer (seriously, he did) and a third customer insisted ZZTop had not made a record in a while because a member was shot in the gut by a dropped Derringer.
I called them all old fools. I unloaded and brought in my derringer which I had initially left in the car and we all looked it over and the gunshop owner ( an actual smith) showed me all that could go wrong. Having carried the thing a year successfully I again called them old fools for being "afraid of a mechanical object"
My buddy was driving that day and I left the shop in the passenger seat with an empty derringer. The only mechanical safety on those things was the half cock. As we headed around the belt way I retrieved my two hard cast DEWC hot loaded rounds and popped open the Derringer while on half cock, loaded it, closed the barrels and locked it and pulled the hammer back a bit to cycle the barrel selector....and slipped the hammer. Not ten minutes from calling folks old fools I had proved myself a young one.
The bullet struck the driver's car door, shattered inside and the report in a closed car was rather loud. That would have been enough to teach me my lesson….passing through my left hand striking the bones that support the little and ring fingers of the left hand was really not necessary as a teaching point. The "hamburger" and blood splatter across the dash and windshield was a true attention getter. Who knew you could see arterial bleeding that far down stream?
At the hospital they wanted to immediately amputate at least the pinky finger back to the wrist. They told me both impacted bones were "like chewed up tooth picks" and the ER doc was very anti gun.
I had them stablize the wound and sought another opinion. I went to the ER in my VA hospital almost three hours drive away from where I had folks wanting to cut and am very glad I did. New set of x rays showed not even broken bone, much less chewed up tooth picks. Also original ER wanted to do a resection (cut from entrance to exit to get access to the wound channel which was pretty much the standard for GSW to an extremity in those days) and the young doc at the VA had worked under Dr. Martin Fackler (yes the gel shooting guy) in Vietnam and was VERY confident in Dr. Fackler's technique of treating such wounds with out cutting.... think cleaning rod and patch three times a day until the wound closes... yes it hurt like you think....times 3....and took over six weeks.
I was told the fingers would not function and that amputation might still be on the table to prevent a nerve dead pinky from getting caught in stuff and amputated in an uncontrolled manner.
They were wrong as the fingers work and have feeling and are strong. The hand does dang near everything it could...and warns of approaching rain storms...
Just a couple of years after the stupidity (not an acciedent, just me being stupid) I met Dr. Fackler when he retired moved to our area and joined our gun club. I thanked him for his medical research work profusely.
I ended up doing some of the number crunching for the great Fackler verses Marshall and Sanow "debates" and played with rifles and shotguns with him a few years. For a bit he showed off a balloon that had been struck by a .45ACP and not popped, demonstrating his argument that pistol bullets did not cut every tissue they went by... that was a balloon I shot in a club competition he was at.
Any how....The Derringer? I still have it. Used it in handgun and general firearms safety courses and with the exception of two Speer plastic bullets around 1992 the gun has had only primerless and powderless dummy rounds loaded in it since "the event"
I am a lot more muzzle conscious, especially with short barreled guns, and I do not recommend traditional derringers to folks.
If you just have to have a Derringer just remember a lot of "old fools" recommend you find something else.
an embarrassed
-kBob