American Gun Craft’s Desperado hand cannon looks like a double barrel 12 gauge shotgun but it is not a firearm under federal law. There is no gimmick here, Desperado is a hybrid black powder and percussion device you load from the front with black powder and shot then shoot with a 209 shotgun primer.

Desperado may just be the most powerful handgun ever made. It is great fun to load and shoot. Because it is smooth bore and short-barreled, it is pretty quick and easy to load. The 209 shotgun primers are more consistent than the caps I have used with other black powder guns. Every shot I loaded launched with great effect. The instant smoke screen is like a magic trick for each shot.

The Desperado is a modern howdah pistol. What is a howdah? The Arabic word هودج (hawdaj) translates as “bed mounted on the back of a camel”. The word howdah was adopted by the British in India to describe hunting platforms mounted on elephants. These hunters in British Raj needed large-caliber side-arms in the basket with them just in case a tiger jumped in with them. Rifles were too long and slow for this contingency.

Howda pistols were large caliber handguns, often with two or four barrels, designed to stop large predators at extremely close range with a heavy high-velocity projectile. The Desperado would be right at home on a tiger hunt.

More than most other guns, black powder guns require knowledge of safety rules and reloading techniques. If you don’t know the fundamentals of black powder shooting, the Desperado is not for you. It is not difficult to load and shoot, but you must know what you are doing or you can create a very dangerous situation. It is a good gun to learn with, but you need to get some instruction before you shoot it.

Desperado is a handy size for home protection or use in a car. Are black powder guns good for self-defense? For over 100 years they were used effectively as military, defensive and hunting firearms. You only get two rounds before a reload, but they are two very effective rounds. The velocities of black powder shotgun loads are about 100 fps to 200 fps less than modern shotshells. That difference is not enough to impact their effectiveness for self-defense.

The front-loading break open design makes Desperado impossible to load with a regular shotgun shell. If you load it with smokeless powder, that would make the Desperado a pipe bomb, so it would become a destructive device under federal law.

As a muzzle-loading, black powder weapon, Desperado meets the definition of an “antique firearm” under the Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968. It is not a firearm under federal law and may lawfully be received and possessed without going through a Federal Firearms License holder. State and local laws may vary, (looking at you New Jersey) know your laws before you order one.

This is a boon for law-abiding citizens, but a prohibited person under the GCA is prohibited from possessing any ammunition, including 209 primers so this is not a work around for convicted felons and drug addicts. See 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(3), (a)(16).

Features of the Desperado Hand Cannon:

Break open, Double Barrel, Side-by-side, Smooth-Bore Muzzle Loader

Action: Single hammer, single trigger (selector on the hammer selects barrel)

Barrel Length: 8″ Length hand-polished Blued Barrel

Overall Length: 12 inches

Caliber: 20 or 12 Gauge

Ignition: 209 Primer in Breech Plug

Suggested Load: 60gr FFG, 1 oz shot

Finish: Polished Blued

Weight: 4 Lbs

Stock: Black finish rubber handguard and large 3 finger rubber Grip

Sights: Bead and rib

MSRP: $639

Weighing in at four pounds, the Desperado is a handful with two 8-inch smooth-bore barrels. Full-size rubber grips make the felt recoil no worse than a .357. Easy to aim, it has a straight mid-rib with a simple brass bead front sight. The oversized trigger guard allows the use of gloves which might come in handy for the recoil sensitive.

The Desperado can fire 1-ounce loads up to .729 inches with up to 60 grains of FFg black powder or its equivalent using .740-inch shot cards and wad standard #209 primers. American Gun Craft recommends Goex or Pyrodex powders.

Shooting the Desperado:

I shot the Diablo almost 50 times. I wiped it clean after each range session and there was no buildup of carbon. The recoil was quite manageable and controllable with the recommended 60 grains of powder and 1 oz of shot. I shot with two hands on the grip like a revolver.

I found the accuracy quite acceptable for self-defense at 7 yards. Aiming center of mass, I never failed to hit the target. With buckshot or ball, it should stop a threat while creating a dense confusing cloud of smoke to cover your escape.

I am sure with load development and some Kentucky windage you could get out to 25 yards, but this gun shines up close. It was completely reliable even using primers that have been in my garage for 10 years. The variety of loading components that work in this gun make it cheaper and more practical to shoot than chasing ammunition.

During the times of plague, I found that shotgun primers and black powder were easier to come by than most fixed ammunition. The many types of shot and ball which can be used made shooting this beast affordable and interesting.

A black powder gun lets you chose your own adventure. It gives you complete control over how much powder you’re using and your projectiles. Roofing nails, rock salt, or broken glass may not be great loads, but they are now on the table. This makes Desperado cheaper to shoot than a modern firearm and infinitely flexible when it comes to load selection. Anything is possible, ranging from blank loads up to dangerous loads that will blow up your gun. When using fixed ammunition from a manufacturer, there are standards and inspections. When you load your own, you are the research and development technician as well as the safety inspector.

The firearms we now call shotguns showed up in the 1870s with side-by-side double-barrel percussion shotguns. Modern shotguns directly evolved from them. I have used my .75 caliber Brown Bess musket as a shotgun with great results. The .75 caliber barrel is about 11 gauge.

Load development for the shotgun is simple but attention to basics will yield the best results. Every shot is a custom handload. The burn rate of the powder is critical. The manufacturer suggests FFG powder, which is pretty coarse and traditionally used in rifles and shotguns (a higher number of F’s in the name indicates finer grains of powder). The slower ignition and lower peak pressures coarse powders provide for improved safety and consistent patterns.

An ancient rule of thumb states that the best load for black powder shotguns is an equal measure, by volume, of shot to powder. Shooting more powder than shot by volume will tend to open the pattern, using less powder than shot will tend to tighten the pattern, making it denser.

After the powder is loaded, a wad is needed over the powder to keep the flame of the burning powder from invading the column of shot as it moves out of the barrel. This disrupts the shot column and could melt or deform the individual shot, causing them to diverge once they leave the muzzle. A typical over-powder wad is dense cardboard about 1/8 inch thick. You can buy them or make them.

Some shooters advocate use of a soft cushion wad next to moderate the shock of the igniting powder to protect the shot. These cushion wads can be a hard ‘fiber’ wad or a soft paper felt wad about 1/2 inch thick. Some shooters just skip the cushion in the name of simplicity.

You may want to use a plastic shot cup. While not traditional, this provides a nice pressure seal for higher velocities. The cups I used fit nicely and held a 1 oz load of shot. A shot cup makes for tighter patterns. Use the ramrod to seat it firmly against the wad. Every skeet range is covered in once-fired shot cups, no reason you can’t recycle these.

Once the shot is loaded use an over-shot wad, usually 1/16 inch cardboard, to keep the shot from rolling out of the barrel. Without rifling to hold your projectiles in, you need an over-powder wad to keep the shot in place. This serves the same purpose as a shotshell crimp, sealing out the elements and keeping your load secure. Shooting the Brown Bess musket, I have raised the muzzle to shoot and had the shot roll out.

I had some old paper shotgun shells that were too sketchy to shoot. These made excellent donor cartridges to get wads and shot from while disposing of the uncertain powder and hulls. My Brown Bess round balls were a great fit and worked well.

I also used paper cartridges from my Brown Bess. I like to use the brown paper grocery store bags for making cartridges and shooting (pretty sure the founding fathers also used grocery bags, but they may have had other sources of paper).

Shotguns can also shoot balls or slugs, instead of shot. Everything else stays the same….powder, card wad, cushion wad, then a tightly fitting lubricated patched ball or a slug. An ounce lead shot weighs 437.5 grains. A Brown Bess musket of .75 caliber is an 11 gauge. An 11 gauge ball weighs 625 gr. and can be safely shot in the Desperado.

If I was considering the Desperado for serious practical use I would make paper cartridges the way soldiers did for black powder rifles. In the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, soldiers measured powder into a paper tube and tied it off adding a ball. This gave them a quick reload and the paper wrapping made a great wad. Jefferson Arsenal sells kits for both ball and buck and ball and has some great instructional videos.

Paper cartridges were used with ball and buck and ball (a multiple projectile load). Civil War soldiers had a separate pouch of caps, for Desperado, you would also need some 209 primers. It would cut loading time down, but you still need a ramrod and even with paper cartridges it is not very fast. Measuring out the powder in advance will certainly make range days safer and more pleasant.

The Desperado is an amazing antique firearm. Beware, everyone who sees looks twice and the more they know about it the more intrigued they become. In most of the United States, there is no problem, you can legally own and even carry this powerful 12 gauge pistol. It has impressive ballistics and as a black powder design, the Desperado is far less regulated than modern firearms. Slower to reload than a fixed cartridge coach gun, it is the most powerful antique firearm around. In these uncertain times of ammunition drought, there is a place in your collection for an inexpensive shooting shotgun analog that is pure fun. Make sure you buy enough black powder for your friends to shoot it too.

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