George Washington Flintlock Pistol

Non-firing replica

George Washingtons favorite pistol was made in London in 1748 by Hawkins, one of the best known gunmakers of the period, and it still survives as a national treasure. Elegant in its design, the gun combines simple, clean lines with tasteful silver decoration. This non-firing replica has all of the features of the original, including the George Washington nameplate on the grip.

Flintlocks may be any type of small arm: long gun or pistol, smoothbore or rifle, muzzleloader or breechloader. Because of the time needed to reload (the fastest experts could reload a smooth-bore muzzle-loading musket in about fifteen seconds), these weapons were sometimes produced with two, three, four or more barrels; however, multiple-barreled weapons were never very popular. The designs tended to be expensive to make and failure-prone. It was frequently cost-effective and more reliable to simply carry multiple single-shot weapons instead. Multi-barreled (up to eight) pistols had the barrels spread out in a 180 degree fan. All barrels fired at the same time, with a single lock. Known as a "Duck Foot" because of the resembalance in shape, they were intended primarily to be used by a ship's captain as a last ditch effort to defend against mutiny.

Flintlock muskets were the mainstay of European armies between 1660 and 1840. A musket was a muzzle-loading smoothbore long gun that was loaded with a round lead ball, but it could also be loaded with shot for hunting. For military purposes, the weapon was loaded with ball, or a mixture of ball with several large shot, and had an effective range between 40 and 100 meters. Smoothbore weapons that were designed for hunting birds were called "fowlers". They tended to be of large caliber. They usually had no choke, so they could also be used to fire a ball.

Some flintlock hunting arms had rifled barrels. Rifling is the process of cutting spiral grooves into the inside of the barrel. A tight-fitting projectile will tend to spin, which stabilizes its flight by the gyroscopic principle. Rifles are more accurate and have longer effective ranges than muskets but they take more time to load than a smooth-bore musket. The first rifled arms were introduced about 1500. Versions made in Germany for hunting large game such as boar had barrels about 50-75 centimeters long. When German immigrants settled in America, particularly in Pennsylvania, they adapted their technology to the type of game available and the demands of the Indian trade, and built the long rifle, an improvement on the small game rifles used in Europe. This weapon has a barrel 90 to 115 centimeters long, and carefully loaded and shot, will be accurate up to 300 meters.

Flintlock pistols were used as self-defense weapons and for duelling, and as a cavalry arm. Their effective range was very short, and they were frequently used as an adjunct to the sword or cutlass. Pistols were usually smoothbore although rifled pistols were produced.