Pietta Le Mat "Navy Model" (An unfaithful reproduction of the 2nd model original Le Mat)
It's a 9-shot .44 caliber percussion revolver, with a 20ga percussion shotgun barrel as the arbor. The Savage-24-like selector on the hammer flips down to hit the cone for the shotgun barrel.
The originals were .41 caliber (I believe) with an ~18ga shotgun bore. The original selectors were slightly different, and the takedown lever/pin (depending on 1st/2nd model) were different.
The action is a little strange. At the time, Le Mat needed to get around some Colt patents, so it uses a pin under the hammer to lock the cylinder, instead of a bolt above the trigger. It's not as good a system, and the guns go out of time a lot easier than the Colts did.
It's also a really big and heavy gun. Moreso than the picture can communicate. I have huge pianist hands. The gun looks normal-sized in my hand.
Due to the short throw to the shotgun cone, the mainspring is really stiff. You have to be a professional thumb-wrestler to cock it one-handed.
These guns saw limited use in the Confederacy during the American civil war. They were only issued to officers. General Beauregard was good friends with Le Mat, and pulled some strings for him I opine. I seem to recall that 2000 of them were ordered, from France, but only about half got through the Union blockade.
There were also some pinfire and certerfire versions made later on, but they were even uglier than the percussion model. They never caught on, and AFAIK were only sold in Europe. I think there was also a carbine version, but they are about as rare as rare can get. Ian of Forgotten Weapons has an interesting video on the post-war iterations of the Le Mats.
But in spite of its impracticality, it's interesting, and much different than all the other combination guns in my collection.
Incidentally, the gun used by Ed Harris in "Westworld" is a Pietta Le Mat "Cavalry Model", that appears to have been cartridge-converted to .38 Short Colt. In reality, I expect this would be a pipe bomb (at least the shotgun barrel, which any real conversion would probably want to leave as percussion I expect), but I guess it's strong enough to shoot blanks.
Last edited by Mr. Polecat; 07/28/18 02:30 PM.
