Brown Bess Date of Manufacture?
- Thread starter jpc
- Start date
If it is in superior condition, you might be able to read the date on the storekeeper's stamp on the right side of the rear of the comb of the butt.
If it has a gooseneck ####, as opposed to double throated, it is earlier. The changeover took place ca 1812, IIRC.
But there is really no way to determine what year a given India Pattern Musket was made. About a million India Pattern muskets were produced.
If it has a gooseneck ####, as opposed to double throated, it is earlier. The changeover took place ca 1812, IIRC.
But there is really no way to determine what year a given India Pattern Musket was made. About a million India Pattern muskets were produced.
Beautiful looking musket!
Probably the best you can do is say between 1795 and 1810. The Ordnance adopted the ring-neck #### on their India Pattern muskets in late 1809, and it seems to first appear on India Pattern muskets in 1810 (hence De Witt Bailey in his 'Small Arms of the British Forces in America' calls these 'Pattern 1810 muskets'). David Harding in his 'Smallarms of the East India Company' - probably the greatest scholarly work on British arms of the period - says that the EIC adopted the ring-neck on its Windus' Pattern Muskets in 1813, though I have seen an EIC lock with a ring-neck dated 1812 and the ring-neck had been used by the EIC for several decades on other arms, such as pistols, as Harding points out. But the transition on Ordnance muskets seems absolute and dates yours before 1810, assuming the the lock is original to the musket.
You may find the initials of the lockmaker on the inside face of the lockplate and the barrel maker on the bottom of the barrel. Often these initials can be identified with known makers (Harding for example has a list of them, and they are pretty exhaustively covered in 'British Gunmakers' by Nigel Brown). Some of these makers are known to have operated only for a few years and that can narrow down the date for the manufacture of those components, though that doesn't necessarily mean the gun was assembled at that date.
The view and proof marks on the barrel can't be dated more closely than the proposed date for this musket, ie c 1795-1810.
The 1810 cutoff means that your musket was almost certainly in existence for the later part of the Napoleonic Wars, and the War of 1812 - that's never so certain with the later ring-neck #### muskets, so yours is that much more collectible and historically interesting.
Hope this helps!
Probably the best you can do is say between 1795 and 1810. The Ordnance adopted the ring-neck #### on their India Pattern muskets in late 1809, and it seems to first appear on India Pattern muskets in 1810 (hence De Witt Bailey in his 'Small Arms of the British Forces in America' calls these 'Pattern 1810 muskets'). David Harding in his 'Smallarms of the East India Company' - probably the greatest scholarly work on British arms of the period - says that the EIC adopted the ring-neck on its Windus' Pattern Muskets in 1813, though I have seen an EIC lock with a ring-neck dated 1812 and the ring-neck had been used by the EIC for several decades on other arms, such as pistols, as Harding points out. But the transition on Ordnance muskets seems absolute and dates yours before 1810, assuming the the lock is original to the musket.
You may find the initials of the lockmaker on the inside face of the lockplate and the barrel maker on the bottom of the barrel. Often these initials can be identified with known makers (Harding for example has a list of them, and they are pretty exhaustively covered in 'British Gunmakers' by Nigel Brown). Some of these makers are known to have operated only for a few years and that can narrow down the date for the manufacture of those components, though that doesn't necessarily mean the gun was assembled at that date.
The view and proof marks on the barrel can't be dated more closely than the proposed date for this musket, ie c 1795-1810.
The 1810 cutoff means that your musket was almost certainly in existence for the later part of the Napoleonic Wars, and the War of 1812 - that's never so certain with the later ring-neck #### muskets, so yours is that much more collectible and historically interesting.
Hope this helps!
