Matchlock Caliver

[benvenuto]

I stand corrected. this is spanish:

then fishtail and french (early, late, later)

 

[arilar]

Benvenuto,
From what book did you get this informative drawings?
ARILAR :grin: :thumbsup:

 

[benvenuto]

Guns and Rifles of the World by Howard Blackmore
Not exhaustive, but readily available and one of the best value gun books you could ever buy.

100 times better than anything by Ian Hogg :haha:

 

[musketmart]

The Caliver is a fair copy of one in the Tower , it was in use in the 1580s. The stock shape saw wide use in many European countries and in the new world, it dates to at least the 1540s. JB

 

[robinghewitt]

by Howard Blackmore

:bow: :bow: :bow: :bow:

 

[arilar]

Guns and Rifles of the World by Howard Blackmore

Thanks Benvenuto,
As usual decided that I couldnt live without this volume. Just ordered my copy from[url] Amazon.com[/url]. My library is growing fast!
ARILAR :grin: :thumbsup:

 

[benvenuto]

I thought I had nabbed a good cheap copy of his book "hunting weapons" a few months back but when it arrived I found some %$#@*!!!! had gone through it cutting out 60 pages of illustrations and text

The vendor was mortified and returned my cash, but it was very frustrating...

No more book buying for me until I come back from my big trip next year :nono:

 

[Landsknecht]

Well! I finally had the right combination of time and weather. My son and I took the caliver out to Henge's Rifle Range. He read me the manual of arms and I loaded and fired the caliver. After I took a couple of shots, I read him the manual of arms and he took a couple. :thumbsup:

We created quite a stir at the range, since nobody there had ever seen a matchlock fired. The only trouble that we had was that the range officials insisted that we stomp out the match between shots and relight for each one.

We tried both varieties of match from Sykes Sutler and, as you might expect, the more expensive variety worked better.

We both shot offhand and did not hit anything (it's going to take a while to learn how to shoot without a rear sight). Next time I will shoot from the bench. I did shoot a good cluster (offhand) with my flintlock which really impressed the officials at the range).

My son and I wear very good ear protectors so we are not always aware of how loud our guns are. From the comments that we got, the flintlocks were loud and the caliver was like a cannon.

If the weather permits, I will take my younger son shooting on Friday and will report on how the caliver does off the bench.

Shooting blanks, the caliver will be an outstanding demo at this year's Greater St. Louis Renaissance Faire. :winking:

 

Check ahead and make sure that its welcomed there, people can get real funny if you just show up without heralding the fact ahead of time.

CP

 

[Landsknecht]

I was prepared for a rebuff at Henges (which is why we brought our flintlocks), but the caliver is welcome.

As for Faire, there are details to work out, but firing the caliver will be a rehearsed show with announced times. My family volunteers at Faire and the caliver shooting may be used as an opener for one of the paid acts. Those acts are paid a bare minimum and they make most of their money by passing a hat. The bigger the crowd, the more they earn. I am sure that one of those acts would be very glad of a couple of gunshots to draw attention and an audience to their stage (especially since we WON'T be passing a hat). Several stages on our Faire site have either strong walls or a natural cliff that we can use as a backstop, even though we will be shooting blanks.

BTW--I portray a 16th century German mercenary (Landsknecht) and I will be casting bullets each day at our campfire as a demo for visitors. I can keep the good ones and re-melt the rest, since none of them will actually be fired at Faire. In 9 days of Faire I should end up with a pretty good supply.