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page 2 of 3 There are still other technologies, the facsimile of the Carleston pistol from the Neumann/Pedersoli production demonstrates to us one method employed around 1830. In this case, the nipple is not screwed directly into the barrel, but is set at right angles in a socket that is screwed into the barrel. Thus the nipple is at an angle of 180 degrees to the barrel, the ignition takes place by means of a very fast striker placed in the direction of fire and is driven by the trigger-guard functioning as the mainspring and guided cleanly within the milled-steel groove. There is not much found in the literature about Billinghurst himself. In the "Neuen Stockel" the following is stated about him: "Billinghurst William, Rochester, N.YJUSA 1807+1880. Benjamin Bigelow finished the apprenticeship under him before 1840." In the standard works concerning Underhammer weapons "The Pictorial History of the Underhammer Gun" by Herschel C. Logan, published by Castle Books, New York, one finds repeated references to the excellent work of Billinghurst, who produced his weapons for hunting and sport uses, indeed not in great quantities, but therefore of excellent quality. Preference for the trigger-guard serving as the mainspring Billinghurst was not the only gunsmith who decided to employ the simplest system in which the trigger-guard served at the same time as the hammer-mainspring. Names such as H. Pratt, A. J. Jones, B. C. Wood or A. Cook also have been connected to this effective technique. One of the best Billinghurst works was a revolver with an additional barrel, laying underneath and ignition supplied by an Underhammer. It should not be forgotten that Underhammer's were also experimented with in old England. The American inverter J. W. Cochran had a revolver patented in England that exhibited a special mechanism: the flat cylinder could, after unfolding the frame, be inserted from above in the vertical-aids, its bores were brought-in from the outside like taking-in the spokes of a wagon wheel. The advantage of the weapon was the ability to switch rapidly to a pre-loaded cylinder, less practical was its movement in the hand, and totally unacceptable, the continuos danger of possible flashing or arcing-over of fire; for, namely, this magnificently constructed and decorated weapon fired not only forwards through the barrel, but also laterally. Based upon this patent, the London gunsmiths Wilkinson & Son (predecessors to the Wilkinson Sword Razorblade Company of today) built approximately 17 weapons as rifles and/or revolvers; success in the market, however, was never attained. Billinghurst recognized the weaknesses of such weapons in due time and thus devoted him self to the fabrication of single-shot rifles and revolvers, among them some remarkably long-barreled pistols which possess an attachable extension stock as an accessory. Through painstaking precision handwork, the pistol reproduction by Andreas Baumkircher corresponds extensively to the typical sport-pistol of Billinghurst fabrication, in respect to the small caliber of .36 as well. Baumkircher places great value on building a replica in the strongest sense of the word, not a copy or imitation with identical sizes. Therefore he very conscientiously allowed some differences from the original measurements to creep in so that it would not be possible for anybody intentionally, with some skillful alteration, to sell the Swiss Billinghurst as a rare, abandoned original that just accidentally cropped-up.
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