Massive Spanish Naval Flintlock Blunderbuss Swivel Gun for comment

[Cerjak]

Massive Spanish Naval Flintlock Blunderbuss Swivel Gun for comment
Overall 105 cm weight 11.2 kg
Mark: Crown RM at the center of the lock.
Similar Blunderbuss could be seen in the Navy Museum of Venice
Any comment on it will be welcome.

[Cerjak]

more pics

[M ELEY]

Cerjak, what an amazing swivel you have! I have always wanted to add one of these to my maritime/naval collection. These 'rail guns' were used both to attack an opposing ship via a broadside blast, but also to repel boarders clambering over the side of one's ship. Some swivels were also used on primitive forts in the New World as protection. As they distributed a spraying blast, they were often loaded with partridge shot, broken glass, nails, etc, to inflict massive and horrific wounds! I must say I am envious of your new acquisition!
Mark

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by M ELEY

Cerjak, what an amazing swivel you have! I have always wanted to add one of these to my maritime/naval collection. These 'rail guns' were used both to attack an opposing ship via a broadside blast, but also to repel boarders clambering over the side of one's ship. Some swivels were also used on primitive forts in the New World as protection. As they distributed a spraying blast, they were often loaded with partridge shot, broken glass, nails, etc, to inflict massive and horrific wounds! I must say I am envious of your new acquisition!
Mark

Cap'n Mark, colorfully rendered description of these guns in use (of course!). These were full stocked versions of the breech block loaded deck guns used on naval vessels and of course pirate vessels. These were often loaded with the kinds of scrap material (langrage) you note and were intended to literally clear the opponent decks and create carnage prior to attack. One form of such deck gun was called colloquially, 'the murderer'......it would seem quite accurately. Grim, but the way it really was.

[fernando]

I am bit perplex at the support of the idea that blunderbusses provide a spraying shot and that whatever contents is used to load them.
Aren't we taught that, shots go out the barrel basically in a straight direction;and the main purpose for wide (flared) muzzles is the easiness to load them quickly, even if trembling ... or in the dark; notwithstanding the probable impression caused to those facing a wide(ning) muzzle, which is a different thing.
... and that the loading with indiscriminate junk is equally mystique, as it would damage the barrel walls much sooner than wished; the preferred load being pondered doses of buckshot

In a different register ...
The first time i saw this blunderbuss being offered for sale (to me) it belonged in the collection of a then recently deceased famous Belgium sportsman.
Amazing how things may go around and around, passing through or ending in hands of dishonest people.


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[Jim McDougall]

Not sure on blunderbusses, and possibly the idea of loading ease might have some bearing, but shotguns have a 'choke' to tighten the shot pattern if I understand. I would think that the shot or whatever is being fired would expand outward as projected. I thought that is why shotguns etc were close range weapons.
I know colloquially shotguns have always been called 'scatter guns', whether to disperse groups of combatants or scattering their fired content unclear.

With cannon and those deck guns, the use of misc. scrap, glass etc was pretty common from most of what I have read, and as these were smooth bore, there was not concern over the barrel interior.

[CSinTX]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

, but shotguns have a 'choke' to tighten the shot pattern if I understand.

I have years of shotgunning under my belt and my thought as well, at first. But then I remembered the most "open" choke throwing the widest pattern is designated "Cylinder". A cylinder choke is the same diameter as the bore. There is no flare in it. I am not aware of any choke that is more open than the bore. We know that constricting the bore will tighten the pattern but not so sure if flaring it would do the same. My feeling is that yes it would but it would need to be gradual so that the shot load could be disrupted by the expanding gases as it traveled forward in the barrel. Exactly as this one is designed.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

... With cannon and those deck guns, the use of misc. scrap, glass etc was pretty common from most of what I have read, and as these were smooth bore, there was not concern over the barrel interior.

Jim, i ignore where you have read that such habit was "pretty common" (certainly not in your bookmobile library ) but certainly in pages with a Hollywoodian ambiance ... if i may .
Let me transcribe a Wiki passage, for one, as visibly put in an English far better than mine:
The blunderbuss could be considered an early shotgun, and served in similar roles. While various old accounts often list the blunderbuss as being loaded with various scrap iron, rocks, or wood, resulting in damage to the bore of the gun, it was typically loaded with a number of lead balls smaller than the bore diameter.
But to admit that such concept as you quote is far from an 'exponential gauge', let me introduce to you a character described by a Dutch priest called Philippus Baldaeus (1632-1672) as being a Portuguese soldier that, during the first siege of Diu (1538), having ran out of bullets but still having a powder charge, decided to pluck one of his teeth and load his musket with it for an extra shot, for the surprise of the enemy, who had considered him out of ammo.
How about that for an approach ? .

(Oil on canvas by A.A. Canelhas)

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