A howdah-houdah on Television Today -- A howdah, or houdah, is a accustomed which is positioned on the ashamed of an elephant, or occasionally some added animal, acclimated a lot of about in the able to haversack flush bodies or for use in hunting or warfare. It was as well a aspect of affluence for the owner, and as a aftereffect were active with big-ticket gems. Tiger hunting in India in the canicule of the British Raj was alarming for both the tiger and the hunter. It was not conflicting for the tiger to try to arise up the accountability to get at the hunters in the howdah, and at such abutting range, a burglarize was not an able weapon. For such 'last ditch' defense, a large-bore, bifold barrelled pistol was used, and these came to be accustomed as "Howdah Pistols". The one credible achievement is a able classic artificial by Purdey in the ancient bisected of the 19th century. Like a lot of howdah pistols, it is a abounding smoothbore, in this case, 0.662"(16 ga) with 7 1/2" barrels. Since they were meant for 'snatch & shoot' action, it has abandoned a abecedarian bean beginning afterimage and no rear sight, but it is about afire (2 pounds 6 ounces), and the antipode is in fact superb.
The howdah pistol was a large-calibre handgun, about with two or four barrels, acclimated in India and Africa in the mid-to-late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, during the aeon of British Colonial rule. It was about brash for defence abut tigers, lions, and added alarming animals that adeptness be encountered in bound areas. Multi-barreled designs were initially favoured for Howdah pistols because they offered faster reloading than was attainable with beside revolvers,which had to be loaded and unloaded through a aboideau in the accessory of the frame.
The appellation "howdah pistol" comes from the howdah, a abounding saddle army on the ashamed of an elephant. Hunters, abnormally during the aeon of the British Raj in India, acclimated howdahs as a anchor for hunting agrarian animals and bald large-calibre side-arms for advocacy from abominable attacks.
The ancient howdah pistols were little added than sawn-off rifles,typically in .577 Snider or .577/450 Martini-Henry calibre. Later English accoutrements makers artificial specially-designed howdah pistols in both burglarize calibres and added accustomed blaster calibres such as .455 Webley and .476 Enfield. As a result, the appellation "howdah pistol" is about activated to a bulk of English multi-barrelled handguns such as the Lancaster pistol (available in a arrangement of calibres from .380" to .577"),and different .577 calibre revolvers produced in England and Europe for a brusque time in the mid-late 19th century.
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