Indian/Afghan/Islamic Flintlocks & Matchlocks. Any interest?
 

Just wondered. I've always liked these things and you get a lot of 'bang for your buck' anyone interested in a discussion of them>?
If so I'll take some pictures of the few I've got at the moment :-)

Yes I have a large collection of Indo-persian matchlocks and flintlocks and would like to see some other collections.

LOL, don't get your hopes up too much, I've only got three at present!
I'll take some pics in a bit and post them.
BRB

Heres the only flint I've got. Its huge, if it had a conventional style stock it would be 'brown bess' sized.
I think its Indian?

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/014-1.jpg
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/012-2.jpg
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/010-7.jpg
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/011-3.jpg
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/013-4.jpg

the concept 'Less is more' was lost on the maker clearly ;-)

Afghan 1900-1940. The barrell and lock may be older. Nice showy piece
I have a few similar. If you show closeups of lock and barrell will give more info. These guns were still in use thru the 1990's

Luckily they then swapped them for AK47's and RPGs! :-(

Heres some close-ups! ;-)

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/027-1.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/029-1.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...20Bowl/030.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/031-1.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...20Bowl/032.jpg

damascus twist barrell dutch east india lock. That lock is late that spring is small. Typical piece that ended up in the US in the 60's -90's. Good display piece a lot of these were used in weddings. They did take down a number of soviet helicopters firing them at point blank range into the gas tanks. Brave people definatly scary and suicidal

Oh. Thanks :-)
Any guess on dates?

I've seen them fire these things at weddings etc. Very impressive monster of a gun.

Thanks again
gene

the dates I have given you are about right. probaly assembled 1920-1960 the barrell 1870-1920 the lock 1895-1920. I could be off a few years but about right.

Thanks! At least its got some real age to it unlike a lot of the stuff I get offered nowadays.

Any pictures of yours?

when I can get some time I will take better pics I have 7 or 8 more rows of rifles. The 1st section is afghan all damascus . there are some others in pics yemen,indian,moroccan,sardinian,persian etc

LOL!
OMG!

In fact OMG really doesn't sum it up at all!
That is some colllection you've got there!!!
In fact thats two or three good collections in those pictures!

Hell, did you say 7 or 8 more rows?
You're kidding?

You've got some real beauties in those pics!!

I've got one with a nice chiselled barrel, but its a 'fixer upper' and is broken in half (the wood) at the moment :-(

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/007-6.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/008-6.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/010-8.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/011-4.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/013-5.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/015-2.jpg

Any chance of a close up of the fourth gun up from bottom in the fourth picture that you posted?
The slender silver one?

that is a nice omani gun. The chiseling on these guns are almost always excelent the break is normal for this type of weapon. They are made out of rosewood and ususally have the match wraped around the stock. The barrell is early 18th century nice.I believe the pic you are talking about is a Sardinian piece. I will get pics in a couple of days, They are pretty rare chiselled steel overlaying a very slim stock. I have been collecting for a while rifles.powder flask,chain mail,swords,jambiya's etc

here is a pic of how the match should wrap around that omani stock and the match holder should be mounted on the rifle. crapey pics but should give you the idea

Thats amazing! I can see on yours that the flash pan is the same as on mine, they look like a strange bird head when you look down on them. I wondered what you meant by 'match holder'!
You mean this thing do you?

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/027-2.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c5...Bowl/028-1.jpg

That was rammed very firmly onto where the ramrod should be!
What is its purpose?

You know I had no idea it was Omani!
And Early 18th century is a bonus for sure :-)
Thanks Ward

Gene

yes the end of yours should be hollow and when the match needs to be extinquished is put into the end of it. The omani is a lot more unusual and you should restore it you will not find many of them in todays market.that piece should be under the coiled match.

That is an awesome collection. Here are some pics of my Afghan Jezail. Finally figured out how to compress them so i can post. I have 2 others that are similar to the ornate display gun in the first pic of this post. I am currently in Afghanistan and have been collecting these guns and shipping them back home as well as antique powder measures and powder flasks.

couple more

...so has anyone ever fired one of these? :)

Thats a nice one Chevalier!
Similar lock to mine.
Lovely carved steel ramrod!!! I'm gonna have to make ramrods for all of mine! 0 out of 3 still having them! :confused:

I've never fired one of these.
But my interest in guns stems from when I was a kid and a family friend (huge gun collector) let me fire a big flint dueling pistol (really nice early one, be worth a bundle now, he had several cased pairs).
I was about 8 or 9 and it was almost as long as my arm.
He used to shoot a railway sleeper in a big double garage with his guns (it was the 70s! I know the police would shoot him for that now).
I pulled the trigger (struggling to hold it out with both arms) and it went 'CLICK'.......'Fizzzzzzzzz'........and in that second I thought "hmm, its not going to fire" and relaxed....
BOOOM!
LOL.
Very scary, smelly, loud!

And there was a new beam of sunlight like a mini spotlight coming through the back wall of the garage.

Loved them ever since!
Never fired another sadly.
I've got a beautiful muff-pistol which would probobly take the pressure.
In fact I have a matchlock which might!
Hmmm, I'll post pictures of them later.

When I mas much younger and stupider I fired one of the Indian matchlocks at the range. firing a 230 year old weapon is not something I would recommend to anyone. You lower the match into the pan wait a few seconds than the pan ignites and then in a few seconds the weapon fires a 70 caliber ball, I never managed to hit a target with it. Now somethng fun to fire is the broomhandle pistol or the german lugar.

I will remind people that these guns are mechanical damascus and usually heavily pitted if there are any flaws in the barrell it can blow up and kill you. Also do not ever use modern gun powders or pyredex. Black powder is the only thing to use and there are diffect grain sizes of it and it is dangerous to handle if you are not used to it. Again I do not recommend it

Almost all functioning firearms are illegal over here now.
Even black powder stuff for reinactment is very strictly controlled.
I have a replica broomhandle, you can't even buy new ones of them (or any replica firearms) over here now, not even plastic ones unless they come painted signal orange or some other daft colour.

Of course the most missused 'legal' firearms in the UK have always been shotguns, but they didn't ban them because the rich do love to slaughter the wildlife with them!

I wouldn't be suprised if soon we'll all be eating with plastic forks and spoons (even plastic knives will be banned!).

BTW, the dueller I fired as a kid fired beautifully.
You never forget the smell of a black powder!
He owned tons of antique stuff. Sporting rifles, big game hunting 19thC stuff, an underlever winchester, Lot of revolvers too, Addams, Tranters, Colts, I liked the 'cowboy' guns as a kid! Never let me fire them (or anything else after the garage wall got that hole). Can't say I blame him, most of his collection of pistols were cased pairs. The dueler was a monster though, wish I had a cased pair like that now!
They lived in the big victorian house and he'd converted the 'pantry' into a huge gun cabinet.
Would be worth a fortune now! Literally! I just hope it didn't all get handed in during one of the periodic gun amnestys after he died by some uncaring relative.

A little different in U.S. . I believe the statistics are we have in private ownership enough guns to arm every man woman and child in the country. Things have changed over the years and to buy new pistols is pretty regulated. I remember going thru a barrell of lugars to pick the one I was nterested in all had been decommisoned from the Israli army. You can not buy surplus foreign ammo anymore.

OK, so going off on another tangent here, but another slightly crazy friend of mine used to fire this sort of thing all the time (when it was still legal, he had all the licences and do-dahs), old muzzle loading 'double rifles' and the like, and anyway, we were chatting about how the barrels often look 'thin' on the upper rim of the muzzle.
He said it was due to persistant overcharging the load and the projectile rubbing harder on the upper edge as it exits the muzzle.
I've not got enough experience of firing these things to venture an opinion, but I notice that my Afghan damascus barreled musket has the same thinning.
Any thoughts?
Its interesting to think of these 1.5m long barrels being overcharged to fire further! If the theory is true of course.

Gene

Just picked up this Miquelet. Using Firearms of the Islamic world, by Elgood as a reference, I believe this to be a boyliya rifle from Bosnia/Herzegovina. My guesstamate of age would be 19th century. Most of silver facing on the lock is gone. I took a photo of a nice piece of silver, still left on the top of the barrel. I hope Ward will chime in here with his opinion.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...iquelet001.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...iquelet002.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...iquelet003.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...iquelet005.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...iquelet006.jpg