A month or so ago, with Olympic Fever at its highest here in the UK, my good friend Phil Crawley (instructor at the Black Boar School of Swordsmanship, Edinburgh) and I started a crazy scheme: Fired up by images from the original 1908 London Olympics, we figured we might have a go at reviving the lost Olympic sport of Pistol Duelling.

Safety and the legalities in this country being paramount, we were unable to go back to the original concept – firing wax bullets under primer power through real firearms (although I hold the necessary licences to do this, but not against live human targets!!!).

So we searched for an alternative, that achieved the same effect but much more safely and legally, but kept the archaic spirit of the sport. We found it in a concept originally intended for paintballers – single-shot CO2 paintball guns with a self-contained gas reservoir cartridge, but firing rubber balls at paintball velocities.

Some severe modifications later (I am a hobby gunsmith with over 20 years of ‘tinkering’ with guns) and we had our guns, and they definitely have a flavour of turn-of-the-century duelling about them. I just need to complete them by adding the heart-shaped guard (this should get done within the next week of so) then we shall test them for range, accuracy etc., and modify the existing rule set accordingly.

We shall, of course, adopt the obligatory long canvas overcoat and mask associated with the original sport!!!

We shall soon have to strike some medals……

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Julian, do you have a reference for competitors actually firing at each other even with wax pellets and parlor shots? All I can turn up on google so far is that they shot dummies dressed in fancy coats. I would love to be wrong since your paintball idea is really funny.

You're a twisted man, I love it! Why not use paintballs, though? Makes judging easier. The pistols look fabulous, by the way!

I always wanted to bring back the footrace in armor with big shields, as the Greeks originally did.

Matthew

A picture paints a thousand words.......

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And this one, too......

Paintballs are messy - I suppose it would make judging easier, however, this is the sport of gentlemen, and gentlemen of honour always acknowledge their hits.......

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What a wonderful idea! Julien, you just made my day. I would love to see such a sport undergo a revival of popularity.

Tony Wolf put together a neat summary of the different aspects, practices and history of the sport here-
http://www.bartitsu.org/index.php/2011/12/pai...irca-1908/

I have to admit I am usually not too interested in anything related to firearm, but this I like!
I would even ponder participating :lol:

Read this fantastic account of the thrill of the sport in a contemporary newspaper:

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/pape...80627.2.10

Who could fail to want to have a go after reading that?

That is some nice work you've done with those pistols.

I shoot 19th century firearms and am very interested in doing this myself.

What brand and model paintball gun did you use?

Thanks, Jonathon.

You will excuse me if I don't give away all my 'secrets' after all the hard development work that went into this, but you should be able to deduce by the photo.

Everything I used was freely available and relatively inexpensive. You could spend many, many hundreds of dollars on custom paintball guns, but they all require you to carry gas cylinders or hoppers (for multiple shots) etc., or just look space-age/tacticool/milsim! I wanted an extremely simple, entirely self-contained system (you only get one shot, after all!), that was highly modifiable into a 'period-look' piece. Almost the polar opposite of the current trend in paintball guns, in fact!

We were extremely lucky that the base gun was being commercially made; we could not have done this two years ago, without a massive custom budget......

Julian

I completely understand, I just hope the maker of that marker will ship to Australia :P

Julian, this is fantastic. You've got to let me play.

I'm an associate of Tom Crawley. I have the "Jacob's Armory" site on facebook. I'll look on Tom's page for a contact for you. Aw this is very exciting.

I would love to try this!
Sounds like great fun.
And I am usually not really into guns, but this sounds terrific.

What a fantastic response, thanks guys! I never expected such enthusiasm! I wish I could give everyone the chance to play......as it is, I must crack on and get these finished! (although I must admit to pinging a few rubber balls around my front room earlier today - you know what they say: "all work and no play.....")

Julian

I love that! This sort of thing is undoubtedly happening informally-and probably not safely-- so it's a great idea to relate it to historical regulated competition.

I knew a kid who, with his brothers, would take the projectiles out of .22 casings, replace them with wax, and spend the day hunting each other.

Now that I think of it, I think that was the same kid who later murdered his father and ended up confined to the state mental hospital.

Your idea is better.

COOLEST. SPORTING EVENT. EVER.

I'm inspired to find two inexpensive nerf guns and do some mad scientist style tinkering on them...