Id SA Native Guns?

[john s mosby]

I have a friend who is a big time fisherman. He travels all over the world on fishing trips. Last year he went to South America for a month. He brought these two guns back and gave them to me. He said they were used by the natives for hunting.
The first one pictured is a percussion with two piece black painted stock. The bore is about 3/8 inch smooth. The trigger guard is cast brass, the other parts are a thin metal. It's pretty crudely made. The letters SAW33 are stamped on top of the barrel near the breech.

This one is a flintlock with a natural finished one piece stock. It's smooth bored about 1/2 inch dia. It has a brass
trigger guard and buttplate with thin metal for the other parts. This one has no markings.

Has anyone ever seen guns like these? Both are crudely made guns. They both have 32 inch barrels.

 

[arilar]

Hi John,
The flintlock locks very, very Belgian :m2c:. I would say a "Lazarino" made for export in Liege to South-America maybe less than 100 years back from now. An interesting piece. :imo:
Take a lock in "Four Centuries of Liege Gunmaking", by Claude Gaier.
ARILAR :: :thumbsup:

 

[arilar]

Take a lock

Or maybe . Take a look.
ARILAR :: :thumbsup:

 

[john s mosby]

Arilar

Thanks, I'll check it out. You can't beat free guns!!
The guy also gave me an old CVA kit rifle he never finished. The kind with the 2 piece stock.

 

[thehorn]

Yeah, that flinter does look like a Belgian military musket lock. Liege turned out thousands of fowlers/single barreled shotguns for the South American and African native trade during the last years of the 19th century and early twentieth century. They used surplus parts and whatever excess parts they had in their arms shops to create these cobbled together guns. Turner Kirkland in the mid-60's bought the last remnants of the Liege factory parts that went into making up so many of these guns.

 

[SavageArcher]

Were in South America did he find these guns? They seem to be in too good of shape for your average Amazon monkey busters. I remeber reading about a Spanish made perc. 28 gauge thats imported to places like SA and Asia but they're considerable better looking than these two guns.

 

[john s mosby]

He said he was fishing on the Amazon River and found them at a outdoor sale place.
Both these guns are really crude, but interesting just the same. Don't think I'd want to try firing either one.

 

[SavageArcher]

Crude is right looks like all one needs to build one is a piece of steam pipe, a 4 by 6 for a stock, a lock and some scrape metal. I wonder about the quality of the powder they use in the SA?

 

[Zonie]

"...I wonder about the quality of the powder they use in the SA?"

Well, up until recently they were probably burning Elephant Black Powder. That was made in SA until they closed the factory and sold it.

 

[Rebel]

Well then, the guns probably weren't actually fired much then. ::

 

[Gaze]

On the percussion gun, how was the hammer made? Is it cast? It looks so flat that it almost looks stamped.

 

[john s mosby]

The hammer was cast and yes it's very flat.

 

[twobirds]

For what it's worth...the stocks look Spanish to me. Similar to what's called a "Madrid" style. The Rifle Shoppe has a photo Spanish fowler in their catalog that has a similar squared and fluted buttstock.