Hello guys, a few weeks ago Karl of Inrange on YouTube posted a video of a cool medieval handgonne replica. I learned that a new company called American Hasta has recently started production of these and they’re made in the USA and are sold through Veteran Arms. I have been wanting a handgonne for a long time and figured the price of $399 was reasonable enough. Here is the gonne:
It came very quickly from Veteran Arms, shipped the next day. It was well packaged and came with a simple printed manual with a very nice historical treatise as well as loading and safety information. Initial impressions were very good. The .75 caliber barrel is nicely crowned and finished in a dark black paint of some kind. The bore measures exactly .750” and is 10” to the back of the breech. The barrel is made of a monolithic turned piece of 4140 steel and features a small priming pan and touchhole.
The hardwood stock (properly called a tiller) is nicely finished smooth with an octagonal appearance and handsome brown stain. One minor issue that I addressed before firing the gun was that there was a slight amount of wobble between the metal barrel and the wood tiller. I used a little 2-part epoxy to mate the two pieces and it’s now rock solid. Not a big deal and the only real fit and finish issue I had with it.
The gonne ships with a serpentine lever secured to the tiller via a wood screw with a leather washer providing proper tension. I experimented with making matchcord with the 1/4” cotton cord available on the Veteran Arms website. I found the cord to not be ideal as it frayed badly and I must’ve not got the proportion of black powder to water correct as the match didn’t smolder very well. From my research hemp cord works better for this task. I elected to remove the serpentine lever for later use when I can obtain or make better slow match.
What I used this afternoon was the 2mm hobby cannon fuse (also available through Veteran Arms) and that worked very nicely with perfect ignition over 15 shots fired. Original handgonnes were not fired with fuses such as this, but the early serpentine type black powder would burn in a very similar way to a fuse when it was placed in the pan of the gonne, so it gives much the same shooting experience while allowing us to use today’s safer more reliable black powder. I fired cast .735” round balls and hemp tow wadding greased with mink oil tallow.
Aiming this handgonne can done either by tucking it under the arm and aiming it intuitively (think point shooting) or my using an over the shoulder method aiming down the stock and barrel. I found this later method to be a little easier to hit with but shooting with the under the arm method was quite fun. One should be careful to place the hands well in front of the face when holding on the shoulder as there is no butt to absorb the recoil. I fired 60 grain charges mostly and once or twice with the maximum recommend load of 100 grains using 2Fg Graf’s black powder. The full house load was very impressive.
The experience of lighting the fuse and quickly aiming, waiting for the boom, was very exciting and challenging. I didn’t shoot for groups today but the weapon seems to be easily capable of hitting a man sized target at some distance. I fired at an old dead stump. It was a very unique shooting experience and really neat! Back at the shop, cleanup was quick and easy since there’s no lock to worry about and it’s just a short length of large caliber bore to clean as well as the touchhole.
Overall, this a very nice weapon and it’s a lot of fun and I think it’s worth the price considering it made in America from all U.S. sourced components. I’m glad I bought it and if you’re interested in shooting the earliest practical firearm in European history, this is a great option.
-Smokey
It came very quickly from Veteran Arms, shipped the next day. It was well packaged and came with a simple printed manual with a very nice historical treatise as well as loading and safety information. Initial impressions were very good. The .75 caliber barrel is nicely crowned and finished in a dark black paint of some kind. The bore measures exactly .750” and is 10” to the back of the breech. The barrel is made of a monolithic turned piece of 4140 steel and features a small priming pan and touchhole.
The hardwood stock (properly called a tiller) is nicely finished smooth with an octagonal appearance and handsome brown stain. One minor issue that I addressed before firing the gun was that there was a slight amount of wobble between the metal barrel and the wood tiller. I used a little 2-part epoxy to mate the two pieces and it’s now rock solid. Not a big deal and the only real fit and finish issue I had with it.
The gonne ships with a serpentine lever secured to the tiller via a wood screw with a leather washer providing proper tension. I experimented with making matchcord with the 1/4” cotton cord available on the Veteran Arms website. I found the cord to not be ideal as it frayed badly and I must’ve not got the proportion of black powder to water correct as the match didn’t smolder very well. From my research hemp cord works better for this task. I elected to remove the serpentine lever for later use when I can obtain or make better slow match.
What I used this afternoon was the 2mm hobby cannon fuse (also available through Veteran Arms) and that worked very nicely with perfect ignition over 15 shots fired. Original handgonnes were not fired with fuses such as this, but the early serpentine type black powder would burn in a very similar way to a fuse when it was placed in the pan of the gonne, so it gives much the same shooting experience while allowing us to use today’s safer more reliable black powder. I fired cast .735” round balls and hemp tow wadding greased with mink oil tallow.
Aiming this handgonne can done either by tucking it under the arm and aiming it intuitively (think point shooting) or my using an over the shoulder method aiming down the stock and barrel. I found this later method to be a little easier to hit with but shooting with the under the arm method was quite fun. One should be careful to place the hands well in front of the face when holding on the shoulder as there is no butt to absorb the recoil. I fired 60 grain charges mostly and once or twice with the maximum recommend load of 100 grains using 2Fg Graf’s black powder. The full house load was very impressive.
The experience of lighting the fuse and quickly aiming, waiting for the boom, was very exciting and challenging. I didn’t shoot for groups today but the weapon seems to be easily capable of hitting a man sized target at some distance. I fired at an old dead stump. It was a very unique shooting experience and really neat! Back at the shop, cleanup was quick and easy since there’s no lock to worry about and it’s just a short length of large caliber bore to clean as well as the touchhole.
Overall, this a very nice weapon and it’s a lot of fun and I think it’s worth the price considering it made in America from all U.S. sourced components. I’m glad I bought it and if you’re interested in shooting the earliest practical firearm in European history, this is a great option.
-Smokey
