Chopped Flintlocks. How early?

[Clark Badgett]

That's what great about this country , everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

And you know what else they say about opinions.

 

[Brokennock]

Once again I ask…..what is the obsession with canoe guns, blanket guns, etc? I don’t get it?
5 pages so far, and we arrive at the same place we always do.
Peter Alexander said, so it must be right. Well, the internet says, so it must be right.
Why is this so important?

Thank you.

 

[Brokennock]

Once again I ask…..what is the obsession with canoe guns, blanket guns, etc? I don’t get it?
5 pages so far, and we arrive at the same place we always do.
Peter Alexander said, so it must be right. Well, the internet says, so it must be right.
Why is this so important?

Because,,,, based on this and other similar threads,,,, there are apparently a lot of guys who walk through the woods with their guns held horizontally across their chest. It would seem based on these topics that they can't figure out to reposition the gun when they get to some trees or brush that is closer together than the gun is long.

 

[mikesto44]

Blanket guns, canoe guns whatever you want to call them is just a modern term. But their just cool to a lot of people. Historically correct maybe not so much. But they sell like hotcakes at gun shows and rendezvous.
But the majority of evidence states that 30 inch barrels were the shortest produced. That I have found in any of the old documents that I have researched.
But theirs always an exception to the rule.

 

[Cruzatte]

Because,,,, based on this and other similar threads,,,, there are apparently a lot of guys who walk through the woods with their guns held horizontally across their chest. It would seem based on these topics that they can't figure out to reposition the gun when they get to some trees or brush that is closer together than the gun is long.

I think you're on to it here. Basically there are some who try to take a 21st century way of being and doing and force fitting it into a recreated 18th century imaginary world that didn't exist in that imagined way.
Some will look at a long (42" or more) gun and declare it to be clumsy in the brush. Except there isn't much brush on the Great Plains, by example. Second, and this is a little more forgivable, folks forget that the landscape in the 17th & 18th centuries wasn't what it is today. It was managed, even park-like, a well maintained hunting preserve, if you will from the arctic circle to Terra del Fuego. {see 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann)
And then there's the science of ballistics. If it existed in the 18th century, it was either poorly, or entirely misunderstood, based solely on what the human eye could see, and the observer conclude. They shot, and they guessed. They had fairly precise weights and measures (the metric system is an 18th century invention) The French had fairly precise bore gauges, even though French weights & measures differed from those of the English. But the sophisticated observation of the speed of high velocity objects, not so much. (Gladysz, & Bouchard) But that's about the extent. I conclude that failure to recognize these basic concepts and others like these can lead to many reenactorisms.

 

[stephenprops1]

How early were flintlocks being chopped down to shorter lengths?

Chief Pontiac has his men cut down their flintlocks to carry concealed under a blanket. This was a tactic used in his attempt to capture Ft. Detroit. This was in the 1600's.

 

[Clark Badgett]

Chief Pontiac has his men cut down their flintlocks to carry concealed under a blanket. This was a tactic used in his attempt to capture Ft. Detroit. This was in the 1600's.

Pontiac’s Rebellion started in 1763.

 

[Sam squanch]

My Pontiac had a rebellion. The carburetor was gummed up.

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

My Pontiac had a rebellion. The carburetor was gummed up.

This is as relevant as most of the posts here.

 

[stephenprops1]

Pontiac’s Rebellion started in 1763.

OK. Thank you.

 

[Mad L]

I am mainly wondering about smoothbores. How early were the natives/Settlers chopping them down?

The Early Model British Seamuskets, Doglocks (around 1600s) were basically cut down Brown Bess' for easier handling on deck of ships (thus "Seamusket").
From what I read they even took barrels that failed at the muzzle and cut them down and issued them to the Navy.

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

The Early Model British Seamuskets, Doglocks (around 1600s) were basically cut down Brown Bess' for easier handling on deck of ships (thus "Seamusket").
From what I read they even took barrels that failed at the muzzle and cut them down and issued them to the Navy.

Misinformation.

 

[Coot]

Misinformation.

As far as I can te

The Early Model British Seamuskets, Doglocks (around 1600s) were basically cut down Brown Bess' for easier handling on deck of ships (thus "Seamusket").
From what I read they even took barrels that failed at the muzzle and cut them down and issued them to the Navy.

I do not believe that the muskets we know as Brown Bess were introduced until early (1720s) in the 18th century, not in the 17th century.

 

[Mad L]

As far as I can te

I do not believe that the muskets we know as Brown Bess were introduced until early (1720s) in the 18th century, not in the 17th century.

I stand humbly corrected.
I just looked it up and the Muskets I was referring to were;

1715-40s Queen Anne Doglocks

 

[tenngun]

Obviously you wouldn't. However, some of us like to think about what might have been? What other possibilities were there? It's not discounting the obvious predominance of long barrel firearms, it is just a "what if", which hurts no one IMHO.

What if don’t hurt anything, and we all have things that are not HC
But given certain material and technology wide variety of equipment becomes possible.
It gets cold in the winter. A coat to the lower ankles make sense. Bannon coats in the 1750s were ankle length
Would it not be proper to make a capote to ankle length?
Can we say no one ever did it in 1750? Certainly not as none who could make a capote could make it any length he wanted.
But all we see is knee length at this time.
How about forks. Any blacksmith or white smith could make one. But table forks were uncommon for the average man.
We can’t just ask if such and such was available but also how available and what are the chances of using one
I’m using my bifocal to write this now, and there in my historic glasses with out a snow balls chance in the infernal lands of existing then