Alexander Hamilton may have died being too clever by half.
Hamilton chose his brother-in-law’s duelling pistols, ones he must have known had a “hidden” single-set trigger. Hamilton would have had a half-pound trigger pull by setting the trigger; Burr would have had to endure a twelve-pound unset trigger pull. Advantage: Hamilton, right? And yet he ended up firing his shot over Burr’s head, likely from squeezing off the round too soon. Oops.
Now, I don’t like single-action triggers on defensive handguns; I’d like a single-set trigger on one even less.
I’d say Hamilton chose poorly.
UPDATE:
The two sides do, however, agree that there was a three-to-four second interval between the first and the second shot, raising difficult questions in evaluating the two camps’ versions.[10] Historian William Weir speculates that Hamilton might have been undone by his own machinations: secretly setting his pistol’s trigger to require only a half pound of pressure as opposed to the usual 10 pounds. Burr, Weir contends, most likely had no idea that the gun’s trigger pressure could be reset.[11] Louisiana State University history professors Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg concur in this view. They note that “Hamilton brought the pistols, which had a larger barrel than regular dueling pistols, and a secret hair-trigger, and were therefore much more deadly,”[12] and conclude that “Hamilton gave himself an unfair advantage in their duel, and got the worst of it anyway.”[12]
David O. Stewart, in his biography of Burr, American Emperor, notes that the reports of Hamilton’s intentionally missing Burr with his shot only began to appear in newspaper reports published in papers friendly to Hamilton in the days after his death. The two shots, witnesses reported, followed one another in close succession, and none of those witnesses could agree as to who fired first. Prior to the duel proper, Hamilton took a good deal of time getting used to the feel and weight of the pistol (which, incidentally, had been used in a duel in which his own 19-year-old son had been killed on the same Weehaukin site), as well as putting on his eyeglasses in order to see his opponent more clearly. His seconds placed him so that Burr would have the rising sun behind him, giving Hamilton a better target, though during the duel itself, one witness reported, Hamilton seemed to be hindered by this placement.
*I don’t generally use wikipedia as an authoritative source on anything, but rather as a repository of useful summaries and links about a subject. So take this as you will.
I have read (though I cannot put my finger on the link now, of course) that Hamilton had stated before the duel that he would not, under any circumstances kill Burr in the duel. His shot, therefore, was a deliberate miss. Burr’s, of course was not. According this site: “It is believed that Hamilton fired first and probably honored his pre-duel pledge to throw away his shot. However, his unorthodox manner of firing up instead of into the ground gave Burr the justification to take aim and shoot Hamilton.”
He did indeed choose poorly, but the choice was not the weapon, but his point of aim.
The thesis from the linked article is that the received wisdom — that Hamilton, the noble soul, missed deliberately, thus revealing Burr as the cruel sort who would take slow, careful deliberate aim to kill an unarmed opponent — is perhaps more spin than truth. Certainly Burr did take aim to deliberately kill Hamilton. However, the fact that Hamilton deliberately chose pistols owned by his brother, an accomplished duellist who had fought Burr with the same pistols — pistols manufactured with a single-set trigger that would not be obvious to an uninformed opponent — and fired his shot above Burr’s head as his arm was bringing the pistol down to put the unusually precise adjustable sights on his target — indicates he may well have intended to kill Burr himself with a faster, more precise shot, and shot high simply because he got buck fever.
It’s a good article, if a bit dated.
Anyway, to clarify: the point is that Hamilton and his cronies had every incentive to swear that Hamilton had promised to fire into the air, if only to get some revenge on Burr.