new toy in construction.

[woodlandwildman]

Having visited the delights of plymouth and discovered a wall musket 1.5" bore with 62" barrel, I am setting out to construct a historically plausable (vaguely portable) obscenely big calibre weapon. However I cant decide what features to go for

Comments

[rosenkavalier]

I think if it has a tiller it will resemble a swivel gun, so it might be more interesting to go for something a little different...

I know what the Indian style of stock looks like, and I've an idea about the shape of the curved one (I think I've seen them on Afghanistani long muskets), but I can't picture the Japanese pistol grip - do you have a suitable image?

One possibility (stolen from Captain Thomas Thornton's volley gun - see below) would be to have a relatively short barrel with a stock and a fore-grip.

[woodlandwildman]

I'm thinking an easy to make shape and quite heavily built to boot.
as I have broken my spoke shave

indian stock
http://www.dixiegunworks.com/images/thumbs/11847c.jpg

other stocks
http://www.rememuseum.org.uk/arms/early/armmatch.htm

in response to your other replies,

I may pop up to southampton on the weekend of the 25th/26th and the fuse composition either needs more binder, more charcoal or something inert like salt in the mix.
I have emailed john and you with some test videos from work.

do you have any ideas for things to do when I'm up in teh big grey city?

[rosenkavalier]

I think the curved, under-arm stock would work well - it's rather unusual, but looks fairly practical. If it's a particularly long-barreled weapon, you could always have a mug gunner's mate with a forked stick to support the barrel at the far end (something like this would work well) - not so common in Europe, but fairly widespread for the heavier Oriental and Indian guns.

orkamedies will be in Southampton that weekend as well. I think there may have been vague ideas for a city walls pub crawl at some point, and possibility a visit to a nearby castle (Wardour or Maiden Castle were both mentioned as possibilities).

[woodlandwildman]

I've had to cut the barrel down to about 4' as with the stock it would be ridiculously heavy. (it is made from beloved scaffold bar and will be powered by the good lady rook scarer)
I might have the hook cut into the stock to save hassles

it's a good start, I'll get cracking this afternoon i reckon.

all this was inspired by a flintlock wallgun/punt gun that I couldn't afford in plymouth.

[rosenkavalier]

I've just remembered something that might be of interest: in a fire-arms auction catalogue I have at home, one of the lots is a Chinese wall-gun with (if memory serves) a barrel 6'6" long and a caliber of an inch or so. I'll have a look for it and send on the details to you.

[orkamedies]

As it's a wall gun bigger is allways better and remember if you don't have a handy wall/side of the ship you can allways make a wooden trestle/support for land use.
If you make it a small artillery piece ie linstock fired from a top vent you can get away with it as a latter period piece and also don't stock the barrel the full length this will keep some of the weight down.
A local chap has a lovely 1" cal wal gun in his private collection, i will see if i can cadge a picture or two of it for you.
If you feel the need for extra spikes try making several caltrops and chaining them together to lay out infront of your guns position when on the battle field.

[woodlandwildman]

hmmm, it looks like I'll have to make one of each type.
one chinese silk gun barrel with a wall gun mount instead of the standard "chong tong" style box. they were lashed to their mounts with rope instead of metal straps.

and one shorter matchlock boarding/fowling piece with a jezail style stock.
This should be quite accurate as many jezail muskets skipped flintlock entirely and went straight to percussion in the 1800s. Primitive but effective. (unless it's raining)

I'll let you know how I get on.

[woodlandwildman]

with potential redundancy looming, I decided that I would finish the wall piece.

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o35/lord_wynder/rocketsandcannon006.jpg

and here is a bit of detail of the black "silk" binding around the barrel..

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o35/lord_wynder/rocketsandcannon004.jpg

[rosenkavalier]

That looks rather good - I'd definitely like to see it in action...

[rosenkavalier]

What sort of lock does it have, by the way?

[woodlandwildman]

it doesn't have one as yet, however I am thinking a simple serpentine would be appropriate because of the overall simplicity of the gun itself.

I will have to rotate the barrel so that the touch hole is at the side in order to avoid the blowback from the charge or maybe just be bloody careful. But I'll see what happens when I fire off a few shots. I may make up my own black powder charges in tubes ready for insertion and make them longer to sit further into the barrel.

either way I have solved the long delay on the rook scarers by dipping the whole fuse in black powder slurry