I recently acquired a Tower musket, and the internet doesn't seem to be much help. Pictures probably this weekend, in the meantime I'll just describe it.
It's a percussion, action stamped with a crown and TOWER 1860-something. It looks kind of like a 1, but there's some slight pitting and its hard to see. It's 2-band, 48" overall, 31" barrel. Appears to be full original stock with brass cap on the fore end. Brass triggerguard and buttplate. Pretty nice wood (stripe pattern) with 1 small arsenal repair.... Looks to be about .50cal, smoothbore. It has a rudimentary bead-type front sight, no rear sight, and the barrel bands are notched for sighting through. But, it also has cutouts front and rear on the barrel I assume for mounting other sights? All the material I could find online refers to .58cal rifled models which also seem to have completely different sights in the pics.
It has a ramrod with a wide flat head which is tight in the muzzle and also looks nothing like the ones in pics online. The nipple appears to be either totally ruined or replaced with a piece of solid steel. Either way it's heavily peened from the hammer falling on it and no hole visible. Not sure what that's about, this thing was my late grandfather's; I'm just looking for some information or general history. Bubba'd into a shotgun at some point maybe?
It's a percussion, action stamped with a crown and TOWER 1860-something. It looks kind of like a 1, but there's some slight pitting and its hard to see. It's 2-band, 48" overall, 31" barrel. Appears to be full original stock with brass cap on the fore end. Brass triggerguard and buttplate. Pretty nice wood (stripe pattern) with 1 small arsenal repair.... Looks to be about .50cal, smoothbore. It has a rudimentary bead-type front sight, no rear sight, and the barrel bands are notched for sighting through. But, it also has cutouts front and rear on the barrel I assume for mounting other sights? All the material I could find online refers to .58cal rifled models which also seem to have completely different sights in the pics.
It has a ramrod with a wide flat head which is tight in the muzzle and also looks nothing like the ones in pics online. The nipple appears to be either totally ruined or replaced with a piece of solid steel. Either way it's heavily peened from the hammer falling on it and no hole visible. Not sure what that's about, this thing was my late grandfather's; I'm just looking for some information or general history. Bubba'd into a shotgun at some point maybe?
