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Scottish "Murdoch" Pistol

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Here is our Scottish "Murdoch" pistol. These are quite popular with Highland reenactors. They are a stylized copy of a civillian Scottish type pistol. We call them "Murdochs" today because Murdoch was one of the known makers of this style of pistol. Be sure to check out our Royal Highland Regiments Pistol to see what the enlisted men carried.

Here's a view from the left. Notice the fancy pierced and filed belt clip? All-metal Scottish pistols were carried by clipping them to a 1" leather strap that was slung over one shoulder and under the other.

Here is a view from the top. Many original civillian Scottish pistols were made with fancy faceted barrels.

A note on the authenticity of non-engraved Murdoch pistols

Try though I might, I have never found an original example of this type of pistol that is not profusely engraved.

My theory is that back in the 1960's somebody made a copy of an original gun and had it reproduced sans-engraving to keep costs down. Today there are dozens of shops in South Asia that are reproducting copies of them, and they all are copies of the same prototype from decades ago.

In the late 1970's and early 80's an English company called "Coach Harness and Co." made a kit of castings to build an early Murdoch and Christie pistol. It was completely engraved (well sort of, the engraving was cast in, it wasn't done by hand). The Coach Harness guns were nice looking, but were made of cast parts and were of marginal quality.

About a decade ago, we commissioned a few fully engraved Murdoch type pistols to be made. They are not currently available, but I have posted these photos to give examples of what engraved pistols can look like. I repeat, the pistols in this section ARE NOT AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE. Please do not ask when they will be available or if they are in stock. They are not, nor will they be in stock. These were from ONE shipment of custom made pistols purchased around 2002-2003 from a shop we no longer deal with and we will not be getting any more. It is that simple. I cannot come up with the words to make this any clearer: the engraved pistols are NOT available and these photos are for informational purposes only.

This one is plain steel, with hand engraving.

Left side of the engraved steel piece.

This pair was made with a brass frame.

This one has a charcoal blued steel finish with gold inlay.

Here's the left side of the gold inlaid piece.

This one has a charcoal blued steel finish with silver inlay.

Here's the left side of the silver inlaid piece.