Sea Service Pistol

Origins

The Board of Ordnance issued pistols to the Navy separately from the Army, in patterns suited to shipboard life, from the early eighteenth century. The earliest recognizable sea service pistols had 12-inch barrels and heavy walnut stocks; the pattern was regularized in the mid-century, and a new pattern with a 9-inch barrel of carbine bore followed during the Napoleonic Wars, when the Navy's growth demanded arms in enormous quantities. Merchant ships, East Indiamen and privateers bought the same pistols or close copies from London and Birmingham makers, so the type was everywhere a ship's company might have to fight hand to hand.

Design & Construction

The Sea Service pistol is deliberately plain and robust. It has a round smoothbore barrel pinned to a full walnut stock, a flat lock with a swan-neck or later a ring-neck cock, a brass trigger guard and a heavy brass butt cap, which made the pistol a club once it had been fired. Its defining feature is the belt hook, a long flat steel bar screwed to the left side of the stock, which slipped over a sash or belt and held the pistol securely while the sailor went up the rigging or over the side. The later pattern fired a .56 ball from a 9-inch barrel, is about 15½ inches long and weighs about three pounds; many had a wooden ramrod and, from later production, a swivel steel ramrod that could not be lost overboard. Locks were marked with the crown and 'Tower' or the maker's name, and the Navy's own inspection marks.

Combat Use

The pistol's place was the boarding action. As ships closed and grappled, boarders went across with a pistol in the belt and a Boarding Cutlass in hand, fired once at close quarters and then fought with steel, while men behind them swept the enemy's deck with Swivel Guns and the Blunderbuss. Cutting-out expeditions — night boat attacks on ships moored under enemy batteries, a Royal Navy specialty in the wars against France — relied on pistols and cutlasses because muskets were too clumsy in a crowded boat. The Golden Age Pirates of 1650-1730 used whatever pistols they captured, including Navy and merchant patterns of this kind; contemporary accounts say Blackbeard went into action with six pistols in slings across his chest, because each could fire only once.

Legacy

Percussion conversions extended the Sea Service pistol's life into the 1840s, and the Navy later issued percussion sea service pistols before revolvers took over. Originals with Tower locks and Navy markings survive in reasonable numbers and are sought by both naval and pirate collectors; the belt hook makes them easy to identify and to fake, so buyers should look for matching marks and period repairs. Reproductions are common in reenactment and film, and the pistol remains, with the cutlass and the 32-Pounder Naval Long Gun, a defining weapon of the Age of Sail.