Ugly Gun Sunday

Here's one that's something of a departure; an ugly gun that's worth a great deal of money.

This one is a Bittner lever action pistol in 7.7 mm Bittner. A repeating pistol with 6" octagonal barrel with matted top flat, tall front sight and an unusual ramp rear sight graduated to 150 meters. This is a stripper-magazine-fed pistol with the housing in front of the action with checkered wood panels on sides. The action mechanism is unusual in that the bolt stays fully retracted until the ring trigger is pulled which moves bolt forward stripping a round into the chamber. The ring lever has a slot in the back to allow the trigger contact with shooter's finger which releases when bolt is fully closed. Per the web page it was found at, it appears less than 500 of these rare pistols were made in 1893. As noted by the page's author, when a pistol is scarce, a magazine and cartridge are even more so. Asking price for this particular piece is $17,500.

More images are at http://www.horstheld.com/0-Bittner.htm