An afghan jezail or north african rifle?

[francantolin]

Good day dear members,
here is an Afghan rifle I think.
Maybe just a decoration wallhanger with a lot of mother of pearl and brass decorations but with an heavy octagonal barrel.
The price was reasonable so I let myself be tempted.
I read the problem of our friend with his english riflegun but I still decided to buy it.
Nice baby not long 1 m 05 cm but weight of 3.0 kg
I would like to repair it and clean it a little,
the loading mechanism works but the plate moves ,
There is no punch which is not necessarily a bad thing given the number of false punch on Afghan reproductions ...
it is perhaps an assembly made from old parts as they often did in Afghanistan to make a decorative model barrel and plate seems to match.
could we say 19th century ?

[kahnjar1]

Afghan origin but COULD be assembled from parts. Does the touch hole line up with the BOTTOM of the pan? This is usually a sign that it was assembled from parts. Barrel seems a bit short for a flintlock, but who knows.........Worth keeping IMHO as an example of the type.

[francantolin]

Thank's a lot kahnjar1 for your reply !

I read about Sindhi flintlocks with these kind of large octogonal barrels.

Yes it seems a little short...
For the hole line and the pan,
If I have understood 😅
I think it can be +/-ok , in comparison with other flint plates.

What I would like to do is to dismantle the barrel and plate, clean all and reassemble it
I have to remove gently some fixing parts

[kahnjar1]

From the latest pics the barrel looks to be an original one, but the fit is all wrong so could well not be the original one from the stock. The touch hole is too high from the bottom of the pan. Is that French lock you show, the lock which is attached to the Afghan, or another?
Stu

[francantolin]

The french model is just to show how high the hole must be
So if I can readjust / wind down the barrel in the wooden gaps it must fit good...

[corrado26]

I think because of the remarkable style of the butt this gun was made by a handyman of the Sind people in today Pakistan. Guns of this type, with sharply curved flaring butts are typical of Sind, now a province of southern Pakistan.

[Jim McDougall]

This is an Afghan jezail, the fabled long gun of the Khyber. These typically had genuine old East India Co. locks or copied versions. It seems there was some interpolation of components from Sind to the south such as barrels etc. but I am far from an authority on these guns.

The more dramatic styling of the butt seems atypical for Afghan, and it is hard to say what part of NW India this might be from. It is interesting that the mother of pearl applique decoration resembles the Afghan guns, and seems to have been most popular.

The French lock is interesting, not used to seeing French weapons or components in these northern Indian regions, but there were of course French elements in India to the East (Pondicherry) as with the other colonial presence there. As always trade and diffusions of population often carry these things far and wide.

[kahnjar1]

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24394
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=24388

Yes very likely of Sindi origin rather than Afghan. Above are links to a couple I once owned.
Stu