Bill Sykes' double-barrel muzzle loader.......What is it????

[kombi1976]

I'm a music teacher and as I've been studying the musical "Oliver"with our junior year classes I'm intrigued everytime this pistol appears.
It appears to be a double-barrel muzzle-loading pistol and Sykes has it unloaded while he threatens Oliver and Nancy just before he takes Oliver out on the housebreaking job, for those who may have the film and want a closer look.
Here's a pic....sorry it's blurry but I had to take a pic of the TV:



Here you can see Sykes(Oliver Reed) holding the ###### gun.
It has hammers and a cleaning rod under the barrels in the centre.
I'd imagine it has smooth bores just because they're drilled into a single slab.
Does anyone know what this pistol is?

[willysjeep134]

I can't say for sure, but I can tell you a little about the general style I think.

Side by side double pistols like this were common before the revolver was really refined. Smaller versions known as snake-eyes pistols were supposed to be used by gamblers and other shady men as last ditch hideout peices shortly after the percussion cap was invented. Larger versions were also seen. Many oddball pistols like this were made in Belgium and then exported. It may also be an english pistol. Many gun makers of the day made guns one at a time by hand, so I don't know if it is one model or another.

What it looks like is a big side by side pocket gun. I would guess maybe about .45 caliber or larger. It is possible that the barrels are rifled, as many of the rifling machines of the time clamped the barrel in place then rotated the cutters as they were drawn through the bore to get the correct twist. If you want a good look at an old type rifling machine, the Foxfire Book No 5 has an article on rifling barrels. On the other hand, if it is a cheap Belgian export it might be a smoothbore. At the ranges it was intended for it probaly wouldn't need to be terribly accurate.

[unspellable]

I'd think it would be a smooth bore.  In order to take advantage of the accuracy imparted by rifling, both bores would have to shoot to the same point.  If you've ever had anything to do with double barreled rifles, you know it is no easy and simple trick to get two barrels to shoot to the same point, let alone two bores in one piece of metal.

If it's meant for across the table ranges, then rifling and regulation are moot points.

BTW: I'd call this style a double bored pistol rather than a double barrel, since both bores are in one solid piece of metal.