Flintlock Cartridges ('speedloaders') from the 1700s

[roundball]

Flintlock 'Speedloaders' from the early 1700's...used with a break action / breech loading Flintlock smoothbore 'fowler'.

[/QUOTE]

 

[John Wasmuth]

Wow! Thats really sontething. Wheredja find that?

 

[roundball]

A fellow ML enthusiast posted them from a high end antique place in England.

Bet a set of those would be very expensive, all being hand made way back then, so I suspect it was something the wealthy might have had.
Probably be pretty heavy to lug around too, but if duck, dove, pheasant hunting, no question it would be handy...

 

[BrownBear]

Bet a set of those would be very expensive, all being hand made way back then, so I suspect it was something the wealthy might have had.
Probably be pretty heavy to lug around too, but if duck, dove, pheasant hunting, no question it would be handy...

Hmmm. That begs the question of when the wealthy started using gun bearers/loaders, doesn't it? I can't see a rich man burdening himself, but the more's the merrier for the guys trailing along behind him.

Get a load of the faces of those frizzens!

 

[Jason Lewis]

neat, i wonder how they work?

 

[roundball]

neat, i wonder how they work?

I assume the break action Flintlock would open and show a chamber at the breech, the same as a modern break action shotgun does, and a preloaded unit is simply inserted, the action is closed, and you take the next shot, repeat, etc.

Its interesting how many of the basics we think are modern creations were actually invented centuries ago...and I assume if low cost mass production manufacturing techniques had been available back then, some form of that design would have probably flourished, expanded, and become part of the 'traditional landscape'.

But built by hand, they must have been extremely expensive to have a set of those made, and out of the question on a large scale.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

I actually saw such a gun in person at the Baltimore Antique arms show years back. They show up with some regularity on European antique arms sites and in high end English auction houses. Heck I even saw a flint lock revolver once.

Such guns were too sophisticated in operation and costs for the average soldier, so they were relegated to a few being made for wealthy individuals.