- Charleston Mini Gun Works by Sandy Phillips
Welcome to Charleston Mini Gun Works in Charleston, SC. Where early settlers dropped anchor, the Civil War began and much of the historical architecture has been preserved. Including the many churches that have earned the city also being named “The Holy City”.
Charleston is also the home of the world renowned Piccolo Spoleto Art Festival. And with both “piccolo” and the French word “Berloque” and German word “Breloque” meaning small, Charleston Mini Gun Works has much in common including its location and size and in designing and making miniature 2mm pinfire pistols. That are commonly referred to as Berloques because of their size and attractiveness/style and with the first one having been invented and produced by watch maker Franz Pfannl in Austria in 1899. And for those not familiar with pinfire cartridges, they were invented by Casmir Lefaucheux of France circa 1828 and along with percussion caps provided a vast improvement over flintlock guns and were used in the Civil War (aka “The War Between The States” and “The Northern War Of Aggression”).
The Charleston Mini Gun Works 2mm pistol Models H, B, D, R and T are unique in their own right, are designed to fire blanks and not projectiles, each have a CMGW Serial No. and come with an ejector/cleaning rod and a miniature corked glass bottle for the blanks. With the pistol and ejector/cleaning rod contained in a wood chest with a brass Charleston Mini Gun Works nameplate identifying the pistol model and having a pocket for a container of blanks. With the Models D, R and T having been added to our initial Models H and B and being associated in a very unique manner with the Democratic Party, Republican Party and Tea Party, respectively. And in applying Bill O’Reilly’s rating system, we consider ourselves proud patriots and not “pinheads” even though we design and make pinfire guns albeit very tiny ones. That are shown being fired in the VIDEOS here and on YouTube.
We greatly appreciate the enthusiastic reception we are receiving to our pistols and are now working on some unique innovative 2mm pinfire rifles that we hope to release within the next few months. And like our pistols, they will be unlike any other while carrying forward certain aspects of something old as well as quite new and unique. With each being of the breech loader type comprising a bunch of precision machined parts including including a barrel made of high grade gun barrel steel. The first rifle to be released is a long-barreled rifle unlike any other and while we are not accepting deposits, let us know if you have an interest and we will follow-up with you prior to the public unveiling. As the first “production run” will be very limited but not short in time because of the work involved and having to rest the eyes (not elves). Our little olde mini gun designer is also working on an exciting mini pistol remindful of a Buntline (long barreled pistol) that provides a big gun bang sound for a few pennies each and thus far less than the cost of a big bang firecracker or the cartridge for a normal size gun. But more about that later along with the advance of the mini rifles.
