Another interesting find

Road King

Road King

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Maritimer in Southern Ontario
Picked up this Blunderbuss today and is a good match for another old percussion gun I've had hanging around in my gun room. The steel barrel measures 15.5 inches long and a muzzle ID diameter of 2 5/16".:eek: The gun is in good shape and sparks well in it's original flintlock configuration. The gun has Belgium proof marks and a carved stock similar to the percussion gun that is shown in the photos.




















 
Shoot the thing but use black powder of course.

The Brits nitro proof damascus doubles all the time, I dont know where (damascus barrels = blows up if you cut a loud fart) anecdote came from, but its overused to the extreme.
 
hickstick_10 said:
Shoot the thing but use black powder of course.

The Brits nitro proof damascus doubles all the time, I dont know where (damascus barrels = blows up if you cut a loud fart) anecdote came from, but its overused to the extreme.
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if you look at the barrel it could be the start of the welds breaking lose i have handled a few damasus guns so far and have a set of barrels theat are just like that gave it the same test you do on engine blocks to look for cracks you bet crack right on the weld it may or may not unwind only one way to find out
 
You mean an LPI test or an MPI test? Yes that would be a smart move to do. In an MPI the dissimilarity of metals could be enough to show the lines of weld, creating a false indication.

Dark lines dont necessarily equal cracks.
 
antiqueguy said:
if you look at the barrel it could be the start of the welds breaking lose i have handled a few damasus guns so far
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Shooting damascus barrels remains a controversial issue. In most cases, the place to look for safety issues is inside the bore and check for excessively deep pitting (without defining what deep pitting is ) as well as estimating barrel thickness (as in OD minus ID assuming the bore is centered in the barrel). I don't recall ever shooting a muzzle loading shotgun with a steel barrel (as opposed to damascus) and the majority of my cartridge shotgun shooting and some of my rifle shooting has been with damascus barrels. The only problem that I have ever had was when I did not calculate barrel thickness and tried to shoot a gun with a barrel thickness of .01" plus deeply pitted in the thin area. The thin area was out towards the muzzle and the barrel burst with the first test shot. I have been told that the British Proof House requires barrels to be a minimum of .020" thick at the muzzle as well as no deep pitting.

cheers mooncoon
 
There are very, very few antique muzzleloading guns that do not have welded barrels. The Snider rifles which are so popular to shoot have single linear seam welded barrels, unless they are Mark IIIs.
When these guns were being made, the twist welded barrels were considered superior to linear seam barrels. Only cheap civilian and military guns had linear welds.
If you think about blunderbuss barrels for a moment, once the bore diameter starts to increase, pressure is going to start dropping.
 
tiriaq said:
There are very, very few antique muzzleloading guns that do not have welded barrels. The Snider rifles which are so popular to shoot have single linear seam welded barrels, unless they are Mark IIIs.
When these guns were being made, the twist welded barrels were considered superior to linear seam barrels. Only cheap civilian and military guns had linear welds.
If you think about blunderbuss barrels for a moment, once the bore diameter starts to increase, pressure is going to start dropping.
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i know most have welded barrels because unless it was a cast bronze/brass barrel how else would it get together i check the seams very closely on muzzleloading and snider barrels but i do it even more on a wound and or damascus barrel because there has been more then one case of one turning into a slinky lol. a crack in the weld on a linear barrel near the muzzle not really something to worry that much about if it was welded good at the start and there is always the choice of cutting it down if its a cheap "sporting" gun

pitting in a wound or damascus is even worse if its on a weld it will start spliting the seam rust will get in there and start doing what rust dose best
 
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That is a nice piece of firearms history right there! I've always wondered what a blunderbuss looked like when it was fired and what the target looked like. If you would like to shoot it, bring it out to my place and I'll set up a piece of plywood at 10 yards in my backyard and a video camera and I'll film you (from a safe distance) when you fire it. I can also set up a second video camera aimed at the plywood. We can then post the results on this forum.
 
The thickness of the barrel at the muzzle is 0.1275", which is pretty heavy. The barrel appears to be cast and not Damascus and the lines on the barrel are machine marks. I haven't had the barrel out of the stock. I have heard of people shooting these weapons, loading them with steel wool and shooting them at night, effect are pretty spectacular.

Win 38-55, I'm really not interested in being anywhere near this thing when the trigger is pulled. LOL

Stilling trying to figure out date on this thing (thinking maybe 1760s) but have read that flint lock Blunderbusses where still being produced in Belgium in the 1800s.
 
Win 38-55 said:
That is a nice piece of firearms history right there! I've always wondered what a blunderbuss looked like when it was fired and what the target looked like. If you would like to shoot it, bring it out to my place and I'll set up a piece of plywood at 10 yards in my backyard and a video camera and I'll film you (from a safe distance) when you fire it. I can also set up a second video camera aimed at the plywood. We can then post the results on this forum.
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Sons of Guns fired one off. Cut a pretty wide swath at close range. OP-Nice gun.
 
Road King said:
Win 38-55, I'm really not interested in being anywhere near this thing when the trigger is pulled. LOL
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I understand ..... I wouldn't even stand anywhere near you when you pulled that trigger! ;):D

That face-on view is most persuasive. I think I'd rather be facing Dirty Harry's 44 Magnum than that thing!
 
So not welded or wound, yet the question remains. Why the tooling marks!? I'll bet its to add stability/strength to the barrel.

Someone correct me if I'm off base but my understanding of the reasoning behind the bell on the blunderbuss is that it was incorporated into the design to speed load times...like a funnel. These things were meant for close quarter naval/battlefield scenarios (more-so naval, clearing the deck while boarding or making a boarding party think twice about advancing on your deck)...the original trench gun {demoralizer:)}.

OP totally cool gun. I wouldn't hesitate to fire that for 1 second...as a matter of fact, if the stock can handle the recoil it is a must!!! YOU MUST SHOOT THAT GUN!!! PICS, MAN...WE...NO! I NEED PICS OR SLOW MO VID EVEN BETTER!!!!

Now, go forth and do what you know in your soul to be right.
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...and report back;)
 
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