1880's Tranter's Patent Pistol Repair

 I've had this odd pistol floating around for many years, not knowing what it was, as there are no legible markings on it other than a small string of letters and a partial serial number. The rear sight was missing, as was something mounted to the rear of the break-open barrel, but I didn't know what that something might be without seeing a similar gun. So, a few days ago I decided to see if I could find out anything at all from the vast interweb on this jewel.

In the below photo you can see a rectangular hole at the breech of the barrel. A small part of the broken piece is still on the barrel but I don't know what the missing piece looks like. The only markings on this thing are on the left side of the frame. It looks like CANTER or CANTEB, then the serial number (such as it is) below the letters. With so little to go by, it was a fairly blind internet search that I commenced. I guessed the pistol was an 1870's to 1890's vintage, so that narrowed the search down considerably. Um, no, it didn't.

After 20 or so minutes of searching through old firearm photos, I finally stumbled onto a page that had one of these pistols for sale. They called it a Tranter's Patent Saloon Pistol with auto extractor, and most importantly, there was a nice photo of the missing parts to my pistol, namely the extractor and the rear sight. My guess of CANTER was kind of close.

Now that I know what's been missing, it is time to rectify the situation. The below photo shows the remains of the extractor that was still pinned to the barrel of my pistol, along with the chunk of mild steel I would make a new extractor from.

Here I start the milling process.

Oops, I went too deep and didn't leave enough thickness to make the part. I had to start over.

Below is the second piece roughed out.

In the below photo, an eagle eye might be able to see something wrong in the photo. I cut the ammunition case rim relief on the wrong side..... It was still salvageable though, as I just cut another relief on the other side. This pistol will never be fired again, as black powder ammunition for this pistol is no longer made, so it's no big deal.

Time to get out the hacksaw and files.

Below shows the nearly finished product, along with the remains of what I had to pattern the new part after (that and the above internet photo). Much filing and fitting ensued to get the part to fit correctly. Drilling the pivot hole was also fairly involved, as I didn't have an .080-inch diameter drill bit so I had to start with a 5/64-inch bit and enlarge the hole with a tiny round file. The hole had to be fairly exact in its position too, so the finished extractor would correctly interact with the pistol frame and barrel contact points.

While the new part isn't as elegant as the original, it will still fill in the gaping hole left by the broken part.

Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Now it's time to try my hand at a new rear sight.

Back to the mill for some initial whittling.

A long way to go but my hacksaw and files are still warm from the extractor job.

Getting close. Just a lot of tedious filing/fitting/filing/fitting.

And TADA!

Now the pistol is back to normal. I think there's a bullet chamber insert still missing that would go into the breech of the barrel but I'm not going to try and make one of those.