delete please

wtc

No worries tin man....

always like looking at interesting pieces. how does the barrel break....I see the lever but cannot ascertain how you load it.

I will agree it does have the appearance of a gun that shoots a projectile other than a bullet, could even be a line thrower.

is this a cartridge gun...?
is it rifled....?
any markings on it....?
name....proofs.....water table......numbers....?

Sean
 
Its a falling block action, .885 [7/8"] smoothbore with a short 1 3/4" chamber. My research at this time leads me to think it is for shooting lance bombs into whales after they have been harpooned. Haven't had the forend wood off of it yet....its pinned on.
The lance bombs had fuses that were ignited by the burning powder upon firing and exploded inside the whale about 7 to 10 seconds after firing..........hopefully killing the whale quickly so that it couldn't pull the ship around and especially in the Artic where there were ice floes. The search continues!
 
Sounds right. The whaling guns with which I have been involved were 8ga. The bombs which I armed used inertial hammers which struck a cap, igniting the fuse when the gun was fired. The delay was shorter than that, three or four seconds. Dangerous things. If the flash gets past the fuse in the lance bombs, they could premature. With the inertially armed bombs, bump one hard on its back end - or drop the gun on its butt, and the bomb could arm.
Put the bomb into the whale's thoracic cavity, and a rapid kill results. I prepared the bombs and the launching blanks used to take the first whale legally killed in recent times.

We had a mounted whaling gun that had been found out near Davis Strait/Baffin Bay. It was loaded whith a lance bomb when it was recovered. It was marked to "Active" out of Dundee.
 
Interesting stuff Tiriaq, thanks for posting. Are there any antique lance bombs kicking around these days that can be purchased? It wold be kinda neat to have a 7/8" one.
 
I've never seen one. I did stumble across an antique burst version similar to the ones I worked on. There is a chap in the US who collects whaling gear. I'll see if I can find his contact information. I was invited to go on that hunt, but that just wasn't to be.
 
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