Firearms are designed using the relatively simple principle of using an explosive powder to fire some type of bullet through a tube and ideally hit a target. Because of this, there have been a lot of different designs since the invention of gunpowder, not all of which have been successful.
One of the most popular examples of a firearm that is interesting in theory and desirable to gun collectors to be kept in storage is the idea of the pistol sword or gunblade.
This is different to a bayonet, a sharp knife designed to be attached to the end of a rifle, as the blade and firearm parts of a pistol sword are far more closely linked and the roles of each component are reversed.
A pistol sword is primarily meant to be used as a close-range bladed weapon, with the pistol part being secondary and designed for close-range purposes where accuracy is less of a concern.
There have been a lot of gunblades of varying designs over the years, many of which are traditional weapons with a gun barrel at the end. Still, the most famous example, the one that tried the hardest to make the concept work and the one that ultimately doomed it to novelty status was the Elgin Cutlass.
Point And Shoot
Inspired by the Bowie knife named after the Texas revolutionary James Bowie, the Elgin Cutlass was designed to be both a gun and a knife, rather than previous attempts which had rather unwieldy and optimistic firing actions.
It featured an 11-inch Bowie knife underneath the barrel of a .54 calibre smoothbore Elgin pistol.
Because the pistol was only single-shot before it needed to be awkwardly reloaded, the blade allowed for the shooter to defend themselves at close range whilst they waited for it to reload.
It was designed and commissioned by the United States Navy for the Wilkes Expedition of 1838 and even saw some use by a landing party to defend sailors from the attack on Malolo, an island near the country of Fiji.
Only 150 Elgin Cutlass Pistols were ever made, and with the benefit of hindsight, it is pretty clear as to why this was the case and why the pistol proved unpopular.
In theory, the idea of a combination knife and gun sounds intriguing as a convenient way to be safe at close or long range, but in practice, weapons like these ultimately provide the worst of all worlds.
It had to be sheathed rather than holstered, was bulky and overly large, was heavy, had a strange and counterproductive centre of gravity for a pistol and a completely unsuitable grip for a knife.
The Elgin Cutlass was relatively unpopular and whilst some of the pistols were still used as late as the Civil War and even ended up in the Frontier West, the weapon proved to be ill-fitting for its purpose.
However, because the concept is so fascinating and the designs so interesting, pistol swords are highly sought after by collectors.