A rather rustic blunderbuss

[fernando]

This blunderbuss surely has one of the most rustic barrels i’ve ever seen; the type of those looking unreal. Certainly hand forged by a village blacksmith, it has signs of having been assembled with ‘rings’. A long shot would be that this was the famous horse shoe cannon construction. The walls are extremely thick; with an extremely irregular bore of circa 18 m/m, its breech section has a 47 m/m diameter. This gives a 15 m/m wall thickness.
All components in this blunderbuss appear to be Portuguese (hurray) apart from the lock, which is signed by (Edward) Edge, dated 176?, a period from when Edge and his son engaged in an ordnance contract.
Other rustic components are the barrel band, the ramrod (original?) and the counter plate screws, with their huge head, and the butt plate.
The trigger guard shows a more refined work, but also most probably of Portuguese origin.
The barrel length measures 42 cms. Total gun length 81 cms. With a weight of 5 Kilos (11 pounds), this is undoubtedly an unusually sturdy short blunderbuss.
When wondering (as usual) what would be the purpose of this example, one would easily exclude its carrying under the cloak of the servant for the defense of his master while walking across those dangerous village in the dark of the night; too heavy for that. Perhaps it served for domestic defense or stage coach guard.
One noteworthy detail is the width of the touch hole, with its 8 m/m opening; with such wall thickness, i hardly digest it was worn by intense use.
Any ideas, Gentlemen ?


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