Dueling pistols broadly lacked rifling but this English one had a unique hidden form of rifling called ‘French Rifling’. The idea was during a duel the pistols would be inspected for rifling to ensure neither side was cheating. But French rifling wouldn’t be seen, allowing one party an unfair advantage.
French rifling wouldn’t go the full length of the barrel so all but a thorough examination would suggest the gun was smooth bore.
Jonathan Ferguson from the English Royal Armouries Museum suggested that the name came from the English associating French people as being underhanded, rather than French usage of the rifling.
Royal Armories: 11:59 https://youtu.be/p1fYUafNpUg?si=
It seems like insisting on a specific pistol would be a dead giveaway, but there was probably ample opportunity for some sleight of hand.
It’s still odd to me that someone would elect to settle an argument with this kind of honor game and then cheat.
Old timers in the hotrod community still refer to a purposefully hidden element as being Frenched, never thought about the origin 🤔
What if you get challenged by some douche
At the same time, if people are lining up to get a chance to shoot you then you just might be a douche.
Yeah… I’m starting to think that we’re just not going to figure this out with reason alone ;-)
It turns out that even when your honor and social reputation are on the line, most people aren’t really keen to die.