hand cannon

[Marcus den toom]

Recently these two hand cannon barrels made their way into my collection.

The first one on top is octagonal with interchanging narrow and broad flats, it has a slightly raised barrel mouth, the touch hole is located at only 2 cm from the rear and it might have been hollowed at the touch hole. Especially that last part would mean that this barrel was made after approximately the year 1400. Otherwise i would have dated this piece to 1380s. (cf http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=18049)

The length is 19 cm the bore length is 17cm
the barrel breech is 9cm wide and 7cm high
the barrel mouth is 7,5 cm wide and 8cm high
the flats measure at 4,5 and 2cm
the bore is 33mm
the touch hole is 13mm wide


The second barrel is hexagonal with the touch hole at 4cm from the rear end, it is slightly hollowed to hold the priming mass. The strange thing about this barrel is that half way down its 24cm length the barrel tapers from all sides (also from underneath). Its is probably made around 1400-1410s. Their seems to be some remains of wadding stuck to the barrel wall, with gunpowder.. also flakes of gunpowder come falling out of this one. It might have been used up until quit recently in it entire life cycle.
the length is 24 cm with 19,5 cm in bore length
the barrel breech is 9cm high
the barrel mouth is 7cm
the flats are 5,5 cm and taper to 4cm at the barrel mouth
the bore is 35mm
the touch hole is 10mm

When I tried to make picture my camera decided to say the batteries where down (even though I just changed them). So I had to take these very quickly because I only had 5 seconds every time i switched my camera on. They convey a reasonably understandable overview though.

[Andi]

Congratulations