Indian Combination Matchlock & Crossbow?

adrian · 15th July 2020, 10:56 AM

Congratulations, you seem to be the first kid on the block to have one of these, and it's a mighty big block.

It is not mine, it just happened to be in amongst an assortment of antique small arms that I was cataloguing for an auction house, the collection included quite a lot of top end Indo Persian arms.

I lashed a piece of wood where the bow would go as an experiment. Photo below, it worked perfectly. Please ignore the hasty & untidy rope work....

rickystl · 19th July 2020, 05:34 PM

Hi Adrian

Yes, your experiment makes things more clear. I was under the impression that the hook(s) were moveable. But as mentioned, they are not. I can now visualize the bow lashed with leather throngs. It would seem to use a fairly long arrow. This would seem to be a period experimental piece. In theory the bow/arrow arrangement used as a backup once the gun was fired and not enough time to reload the gun. A different idea on the superimposed guns from the period.
It's certainly an interesting piece. And likely the only known surviving example.

Ricck

Philip · 19th July 2020, 05:55 PM

As previously said, this is the first such bow/gun combo out of India that I've seen. Haven't yet encountered reference to any such example out of Europe.
India was fertile ground for imaginative weapons combos such as pistol barrels on armor-piercing punch daggers, and features ranging from innovative to simply weird, like automatic pan-cover opening on matchlocks and triangular bores on hunting guns.

You might be interested to know that centuries before the familiar Elgin cutlass-pistol, the Europeans did some interesting things using wheellocks. There are two German battle-axes with pistol barrels and wheellocks mounted on the side, the handles are hollow for storing bullets and spare pyrites and the trigger is fitted with a rotating safety that blocks it as required. These are preserved in the Armory of the Palazzo Ducale, Venice, and date to the 1530s.

Then there is the pair of Spanish lances with double-barrel pistol setups, in the Armería Real in Madrid (cat. I.20). Date is uncertain, best guess is ca. 1600. Significant is that the locks are proto-miquelets in that the mainspring pushes up on the heel of the cock, whose spade-like toe engages the horizontal sear. But -- the frizzen surface is slightly convex, like the arc of a (very large) wheel. And it has a manual safety (no half cock sear) identical to that on many German wheellocks...

15th July 2020, 10:56 AM	#1
adrian Member Join Date: Mar 2012 Posts: 130	Congratulations, you seem to be the first kid on the block to have one of these, and it's a mighty big block. It is not mine, it just happened to be in amongst an assortment of antique small arms that I was cataloguing for an auction house, the collection included quite a lot of top end Indo Persian arms. I lashed a piece of wood where the bow would go as an experiment. Photo below, it worked perfectly. Please ignore the hasty & untidy rope work.... Attached Images

19th July 2020, 05:34 PM	#2
rickystl Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: St. Louis, MO area. Posts: 1,630	Hi Adrian Yes, your experiment makes things more clear. I was under the impression that the hook(s) were moveable. But as mentioned, they are not. I can now visualize the bow lashed with leather throngs. It would seem to use a fairly long arrow. This would seem to be a period experimental piece. In theory the bow/arrow arrangement used as a backup once the gun was fired and not enough time to reload the gun. A different idea on the superimposed guns from the period. It's certainly an interesting piece. And likely the only known surviving example. Ricck

19th July 2020, 05:55 PM	#3
Philip Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: California Posts: 1,036	As previously said, this is the first such bow/gun combo out of India that I've seen. Haven't yet encountered reference to any such example out of Europe. India was fertile ground for imaginative weapons combos such as pistol barrels on armor-piercing punch daggers, and features ranging from innovative to simply weird, like automatic pan-cover opening on matchlocks and triangular bores on hunting guns. You might be interested to know that centuries before the familiar Elgin cutlass-pistol, the Europeans did some interesting things using wheellocks. There are two German battle-axes with pistol barrels and wheellocks mounted on the side, the handles are hollow for storing bullets and spare pyrites and the trigger is fitted with a rotating safety that blocks it as required. These are preserved in the Armory of the Palazzo Ducale, Venice, and date to the 1530s. Then there is the pair of Spanish lances with double-barrel pistol setups, in the Armería Real in Madrid (cat. I.20). Date is uncertain, best guess is ca. 1600. Significant is that the locks are proto-miquelets in that the mainspring pushes up on the heel of the cock, whose spade-like toe engages the horizontal sear. But -- the frizzen surface is slightly convex, like the arc of a (very large) wheel. And it has a manual safety (no half cock sear) identical to that on many German wheellocks...