A highly important tiller gun from the Montjuic castle 1430s

Raf · 10th October 2014, 02:06 PM

Hi Marcus
Ive often wondered why these early guns seem to have quite large touch holes and not much in the way of a priming pan. In The Complete Gunner (1672 ) in the section on artificial fireworks there are a lot of references to quills packed with compressed powder for various pyrotechnic effects. So is it possible that ready prepared quills were used as priming fuzes ? In which case the soldier in your above illustration may not be about to give fire to the gun , but may as it appears be inserting something into the touch hole . Just an observation...

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10th October 2014, 02:06 PM	#9
Raf Member Join Date: Nov 2013 Posts: 252	Hi Marcus Ive often wondered why these early guns seem to have quite large touch holes and not much in the way of a priming pan. In The Complete Gunner (1672 ) in the section on artificial fireworks there are a lot of references to quills packed with compressed powder for various pyrotechnic effects. So is it possible that ready prepared quills were used as priming fuzes ? In which case the soldier in your above illustration may not be about to give fire to the gun , but may as it appears be inserting something into the touch hole . Just an observation...