Ethnographic Arms & Armour
 

Go Back   Ethnographic Arms & Armour > Discussion Forums > Ethnographic Weapons

 
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
Old 16th August 2020, 09:03 PM   #10
rickystl
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: St. Louis, MO area.
Posts: 1,632
Default

Hi Rajesh

Yes, it's been a long time since we've heard from you.

WOW!! What an interesting piece. By the way, in the artist rendition what appears he is holding in the left hand is a blunderbuss pistol, commonly referred to as an Ottoman knee pistol which were popular throughout most of the Empire during the period.

Some comments/observations about the posted gun:

BARREL: The barrel looks to be a reuse of a discarded smooth bore musket barrel. The octagon to round profile along with the length of travel for the octagon portion tells me this. The crude, hand made rear sight crudely dovetailed into the barrel and the bead front sight, both added at some later point.
STOCK: I'm having a hard time deciding if the butt stock, forearm, and barrel started life as a long gun and later cut down (?) The sear/trigger/release extending so far back to the end of the butt stock, and somewhat interfering with gripping where the hand would position makes me think this. Hmmmm. But I can also visualize the gun being made as shown from a wood blank. A personal protection item. Is there a hole in the stock for a ramrod provision ?
LOCK: This is really interesting. The lock looks like it was made by a backwoods blacksmith attempting to somewhat copy the Russian/Baltic snaplocks from his memory. He likely had a bare minimum of hand tools to build the gun, also utilizing the barrel and any other surplus screws, etc. lying around. As mentioned, the mainspring has slipped off the toe of the hammer. I can't tell from the photos if there is a frizzen spring or if that is just a ledge for the frizzen to rest on. I can see how the trigger/release works. Crude, but clever in it's simplicity. (Somewhat reminds me of the Vietnamese monkey guns).

The post Oliver provided is a good example of the commonly referred to Russian/Baltic style snaplock gun used for hunting with it's heavy full octagon barrel and small caliber. A unique feature being the use of a single spring to operate both the hammer and frizzen.

Anyway, congratulations on a really nice find. The crudeness of the build and the trigger release is what I find so interesting.

Rick
rickystl is offline   Reply With Quote
 

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 05:53 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Posts are regarded as being copyrighted by their authors and the act of posting material is deemed to be a granting of an irrevocable nonexclusive license for display here.