Ran Across Interesting Old Smoothbore

I was out at the local Flea Market this weekend and one of my fellow vendors had a very interesting old smoothbore.

The stock appeared to be off of an old civil war era musket (reminded me of a zoave) the barrel was something like 10 or 12 ga.

The stock was cut about midway, leaving one barrel band. The barrel band was brass with a crown stamped on it.

Barrel was rusted beyond repair, no tang screw, hammer missing, trigger gaurd and trigger missing/broken off.

It appeared to me that maybe someone in the old days had one gun with a good stock and bad barrel and another gun with a bad stock and good barrel and just put the two together.

He wanted $20.00 for it. He sold it just a few minutes before I was going to go get it.
It would have made an interesting wall hanger.

One of those situations where I would have felt stupid for buying it, but I also feel stupid for not buying it. Oh well, live and learn.

 

[musketman]

I wonder if it was still loaded? :hmm:

 

[scroggwe]

About 20 years ago I also bought a similar old smoothbore. It was originally a M1863 Springfield that had been cut down and bored out to a shotgun. It was also missing the hammer and the mainspring. The nipple had been beat flat from dry firing it. I paid $10.00 for it. When I got it home I ran a cleaning rod down the barrel. It was loaded with a bunch of small pebbles and about 60 grains of powder. I touched off the powder on a tin plate in the back yard to see if it was still good and it was! No telling how long that thing had been loaded. I still have the lock, trigger guard & trigger and the lower barrel band from that old gun.

 

[Trot]

I have one made from a Brazilian light minie rifle. It had a load of shot in it, the wadding was a piece of newspaper with a 1939 date on it. The powder burned like new after I unloaded it. To top it off, the previous owner thought it would look better with a ramrod and made one out of a dowel, the tip of the ramrod was a .38 special casing with a LIVE primer. Just imagine if someone thumped it down briskly!

 

[madstone]

In the 70's I bought a used batch of once fired 357 brass and about 50 of the 1000 had live primers firmly seated UPSIDE DOWN !! God really loved "this chile" :thumbsup:

 

Never thought about the old gun still being loaded :shocked2: I will have to tell my friend to tell the person he sold it to, that they should check it!
I was told a couple of similar stories when I took hunters ed.

One time some people found a cash of old confederate muskets in a hollow tree, they put on fresh caps and fired them off after 100 years.

Another tale was that a business man bought an old flintlock pistol to keep on his desk. Whenever something "bad" would happen he would make a "joke" of saying "I'm going to end it all"
He would then put the flintlock to his head and spark it off. Turns out there was an old load in it and one day one of those sparks found its way to the powder and he did "end it all".

Whether these are urban legend or true I don't know. But they do serve their purpose.

Don't do anything stupid with any gun! Even if or maybe ESPECIALLY if it is old!

By the way, when I examined the gun I did make sure of which way it was pointed. AWAY FROM EVERYBODY!!!