Dangerous mass produced muzzleloaders

[Alden]

1776;
That WAS a great opening line!

Dan, I never saw a cutaway of the barrel -- you CAN'T make this up, no. How many people looked at that thing and said "yes, we shall make/distribute/buy this"?

So sad...

 

[Wes/Tex]

Alden, I agree with you 100%. Back in the day, stuff came from everywhere and we bought some pretty questionable guns including some pretty shoddy pieces from Belgium, Spain and Italy. Most makers got with the program within a year or two, thank the Lord. I can still remember all the bouncing around of the phrase, "Don't worry, you can't blow anything up with black powder". I shudder to think of some of the things that could have happened!

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I've seen some barrels with Belgian proof marks, on some 1970's vintage flinter "wall hangers", but I don't think they were at all unsafe, as the locks were such junk I don't think you could actually get the guns to function. :shocked2: I don't know if the barrels were simply cheap, or if the makers wanted something that wouldn't necessarily explode if somebody really loaded them and got them to fire.

LD

 

[Va.Manuf.06]

I would also like to add that without some prior knowledge of how these things were made "I could not make this stuff up".

Dan

Right you are Dan. Back during the Bicentenial, I well recall a local store selling flintlock "rifles" (they were actually smoothbores) that had a two piece barrel that had a round breach section for 12 inches from the breach forward and it was octagon forward of that for about 24 inches. You could see a seam where the round and and octagon sections were screwed together.

They were drilled for the vent but the locks were so bad that the couldn't have worked. At least I never heard of one being shot.....

 

[zimmerstutzen]

I ran a sporting goods store outside of phila. The sold some incredible junk. Including the two piece barrel 68 cal musket from china
two brothers were killed when one exploded

then there was the Markwell arms junk
fie sold good stuff by comparison
ultra hi. We could carry any brand that bribed the sporting goods buyer at corporate

 

[Zonie]

You don't recall a percussion 28 guage with a 2 piece "full stock" do you?

Unlike the CVA 2 piece full stock rifles which use a thin brass plate between the main stock and the forestock, this shotgun just had a 1 1/2 inch wide piece of brass sheet metal wrapped around the joint area.

I bought one of these via mailorder and loaded it up with a light 28 guage load.

When it fired, the breech plug leaked so badly that it coated at least 8 inches of the barrel channel in the breech area with powder fouling. :shocked2:

Needless to say, it only got shot once. :cursing:

 

[Wes/Tex]

I've seen some barrels with Belgian proof marks, on some 1970's vintage flinter "wall hangers", but I don't think they were at all unsafe, as the locks were such junk I don't think you could actually get the guns to function. :shocked2: I don't know if the barrels were simply cheap, or if the makers wanted something that wouldn't necessarily explode if somebody really loaded them and got them to fire.

LD

That's an interesting observation, now that I think hard on what some of those early imports looked like and how they functioned. Interesting you made the comment you did, getting them to work was a "big issue", as much from misalignment of parts as anything else. Couple had lock geometry that looked like a stoned chimpanzee had laid them out...I'm talking hammers missing nipples completely...stuff like that. I can't recall a single case of barrel failure or rupture in the groups I ran with then. Perhaps it was all the returns that motivated the surviving gun makers to get with the program and start making descent products. :idunno:

 

[nkbj]

Well, contemplate the things sold to the native Americans (or whatever is currently the correct nomenclature for previously junked peoples) and thank your lucky stars that we got better stuff.

 

[Zonie]

Does the name Stoeger Arms ring a bell?

They imported tons of junk back in the 1950's and '60's.

A lot of it was called "trade guns" and from what I've found that is an apt description.

Some of them were made to be exported to Africa to be traded to the people who couldn't afford anything else.

In the meantime, Stoeger was importing them to the US as wall hangers.

Several times I've seen these show up in the Firearms Identification area as well as the Flintlock and Percussion areas of the forum.

 

[Alden]

I see them at shows once in a while and usually have to tell the dealer what he is selling.

Don't forget it was the end of the colonial era in Africa and not only did many not want modern arms going in, and the natives not usually able to afford them, but the latter could always get a flintlock to work without someone providing cartridges.

 

[Wes/Tex]

Oh yeah, I've got an early 60's "Shooter's Bible: Black Powder Guide" by Maj. George Nonte that has a page plus add of them. Have actually shot a couple through the years, including the .92 caliber, so called "Elephant Flintlock Gun Model 6494". Another had a 51" barrel of 12 gauge, that would be great use on rebuilds if it proved a solid built barrel. Even then, they were called "decorator purposes only"...but you know it is when you can make it go BOOM! They had kind of hokey shaped stocks and an odd mix of barrel bands on some models...but the double flintlock 14 gauge I hunted for for years and never found...it would have been worth some work if it was well enough built. Some of the locks appeared to be old English or French/Belgian pieces from the early 19th century; barrel bands and other parts could be most anything. Most of them were "musket looking", some with red painted stocks...oh, pooh & piffle. Sometimes I'd find a couple or so, cut them off and stick'em full of tacks, make'm a fancy leather cover and got good money out them as wall Native hanger art. Always made it very clear it was my work and not antiques since I liked to "old" them up!

 

[nhmoose]

Just what would be wrong with a threaded 2 piece barrel that was reamed and then rifled? Remember the BREECH is threaded on all good ML barrels, having a threaded junction ahead of the breech should be way less of a hazard as the breech itself

Some of the very long smoothbore flintlocks are made of 2 piece barrels as that is the only way they can be made that long.

The question should be the quality of the barrel and not the way they have been made.

I will take a high quality barrel of 2 piece manufacture over a shoddily made single piece.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

Quality two piece> Yeah if only. Those Chinese bombs had very noticeable ridges around the interior of the barrel about ten inches from the breech from being threaded together. A place for fouling to collect and corrode the barrel and even worse, a place for the projectile to catch and or act as a bore obstruction.

No one would accept a bore with a ringed barrel or a constriction in the barrel. A ten inch octagon barrel so roughly threaded to a two foot round barrel section is an accident waiting to happen.

I understand that many blunderbuss barrels are made with the bore and muzzle bell as separate pieces threaded together. But the bell is threaded on where the bore opens up and the pressure is already being released. I have yet to see a noticeable lip or gap around the bore where they are joined together also.

 

[Mickc01]

I have a Miroku Brown Bess that I bought in 1975. It has never given me one minute of trouble. Still sparks like crazy and is fun as heck to shoot.

when I bought it, I was a teenager, just getting into reenacting and making minimum wage. That extra couple of hundred dollars at the time for a Navy Arms model might as well have been $1000.

Admittedly, the engraving is not great and it has a slightly weird shaped trigger gaurd, but after all these years it would take more than that $1000 to get it out of my hands.

So, my vote from experience is that Miroku's are well made guns.....Mick :grin:

 

[nhmoose]

Quality two piece> .

I have seen 2 piece by Day in a Hudson bay fowler that was superb.

If you do not like 2 piece barrels never shoot any gun with screw in chokes.

By the way I never mentioned China or India have a nice day

 

[Col. Batguano]

Or 12L14 steel. :stir:

 

[garry robinson]

I bought a used ultra hi flintlock pistol from a guy on guns America and the only problem i had was finding small enough flints. Other than that no problem at all. It wS sold as a Hopkins and Allen but under tne barell it said ultra hi. I've joked about India guns but I've also owned em and i never once had a problem

 

[garry robinson]

Thats a fact. I had a WW2 vet tell me the verry same thing about the city. Didnt know they used it as a marketing tool tho.