So what is a Blunderbuss?

[Commodore Swab]

The first is a series of discussions. Its easy to tell the difference between a smoothbore and a rifle right? Is it really? What happens when you have a flintlock pistol small enough to fit in your hand that's rifled? Anybody today would look at you for being nuts calling any pistol a rifle yet they may very well call a musket a rifle.

In your words just what is a blunderbuss? What differentiates it from a trabuco, an espignol a musketoon, a carbine? If a blunderbuss is simply a flared barrel the why isn't a swamped barrel a blunderbuss? Can a blunderbuss be a small boxlock or must if be fired from the shoulder? If a blunderbuss is a large bore with a smaller breech when does a blunderbuss become a mortar? Is a barrel that was flared for ease of loading a blunderbuss? Must the projectile be shot, ball, or??

 

[Claude Mathis]

"The blunderbuss is a muzzleloading firearm with a short, large caliber barrel, which is flared at the muzzle and frequently throughout the entire bore, and used with shot and other projectiles of relevant quantity and/or caliber. The blunderbuss could be considered to be an early form of shotgun, which was often adapted to military and defensive use. It was effective at short ranges, but lacked accuracy for targets at long range. The term dragon was used to describe a blunderbuss in handgun form, and it is from this that the term dragoon evolved." :wink:

 

[Billnpatti]

This is a quote regarding the blunderbus from the Sitting Fox website "These big bore shoulder guns were popular for self-defense or as coach guns. They were great as military guns used for boarding ships or for crowd control. They were loud and obnoxious and shot a lot of flame, so they were perfect for signaling other ships too.

The large flared muzzle made them very quick and easy to load, but had no effect on shot pattern other than being short and lethal."

Here is a photo of the Sitting Fox blunderbuss kit
http://sittingfoxmuzzleloaders.com/k-4/

I am not necessarily recommending it, I am just using it for illustrative purposes.

I'd love to own a blunderbuss but I just can't justify the cost for something that would actually be totally useless to me other than just a toy. :td:

 

[Britsmoothy]

Where does the name originate from?

B.

 

[Billnpatti]

In your words just what is a blunderbuss? What differentiates it from a trabuco, an espignol a musketoon, a carbine? If a blunderbuss is simply a flared barrel the why isn't a swamped barrel a blunderbuss? Can a blunderbuss be a small boxlock or must if be fired from the shoulder? If a blunderbuss is a large bore with a smaller breech when does a blunderbuss become a mortar? Is a barrel that was flared for ease of loading a blunderbuss? Must the projectile be shot, ball, or??

So, a bit more to your original question: When examining a blunderbuss and reading the definition of a blunderbus, it is obvious that it is not just a swamped barrel nor is it a rifle of any kind. Neither a trabuco, an espignol nor a musketoon can be considered a blunderbuss by its very definition. Even though it comes closest to being a carbine since it has a shortened barrel, a carbine is a short rifle while the blunderbuss is a smoothbore weapon. In reality, you cannot split hairs to arrive at a definition of a blunderbuss because a blunderbuss is not a varient of any other weapon, a blunderbuss is simply a blunderbuss. Splitting hairs to arrive at a blunderbuss is analogous to attempting to split hairs to arrive at where a rifle becomes a cannon via a canoe gun.

Note some of these canoe guns by Ken Netting appear not to be intended to be fired from the shoulder....large bore, not fired from the shoulder...can this be a step on the path from a rifle to a cannon? I think that path does not exist any more than a path between the weapons that you have mentioned and a blunderbuss.
http://www.bing.com/images/search/...1614E4B7438C4E1E0BAAAEB94FE2DB0AD&FORM=BRQONH

 

[Billnpatti]

Where does the name originate from? B.

I found this online:

Origin of blunderbuss
by folk etymology from obsolete Dutch donderbus, from Dutch donder thunder + obsolete Dutch bus gun
+

 

[Coot]

Where does the name originate from?

B.

The two books that I have on the subject, "Blunderbusses" by D.R. Baxter, and "The Blunderbuss 1500-1900" by James Forman, are largely in agreement that the English word "blunderbuss" is derived from the German or Flemish "donder" or "dunder" (thunder) and "buchse" (gun).

 

[Artificer]

Perhaps one of, if not the most important features of use of the Blunderbuss is not normally mentioned in the description of the gun. This gun was a weapon of Intimidation in the hands of the Just and a weapon of Terror in the hands Pirates, Thieves and other Evil Doers.

Whether the barrel bore was flared at the mouth or the bore size remained consistent, but the barrel was made to resemble the mouth of a cannon; the huge size of the muzzle no doubt caused more intimidation in the one it was pointed at than other guns, just from the size alone.

Gus

 

[Britsmoothy]

Thanks for the info gents :hatsoff:

B.

 

[Commodore Swab]

As listed by Tortuga Trading Company . . .

A pistol blunderbuss http://tortugatrading.com/collecti...el-flintlock-blunderbuss-pistol-3036-firearms


A brass barrel blunderbuss http://tortugatrading.com/collecti...-barrel-flintlock-blunderbuss-by-twigg-London


A swivel blunderbuss http://tortugatrading.com/collecti...british-brass-barrel-ships-swivel-blunderbuss


A musketoon blunderbuss http://tortugatrading.com/collecti...flintlock-musketoon-blunderbuss-3126-firearms


A flintlock swivel cannon (espignol) http://tortugatrading.com/collecti...on-espingole-m-rle-tulle-arsenal-550-firearms


A musketoon http://tortugatrading.com/collecti...e-flintlock-musketoon-by-j-hall-2060-firearms

Lest we not forget about the small boxlock's as well

Nor the shorted "knee guns"

Of course there is also the "carbine-blunderbuss or Trabuco" in Spanish Military Weapons

:youcrazy: It would seem that no matter how a Blunderbuss is described there are considerable exceptions to every definition. And I didn't even bring up any wheellock . . .

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Well for a starter, a blunderbuss is a shoulder fired weapon...., so a swivel gun is not, and a pistol is not.

(Tortuga Trading bears no penalties for mislabeling a firearm....and they appear to be the source of your questions.....)

Second, the characteristic of the blunderbuss muzzle is that the walls of the barrel flare, giving a larger interior and exterior diameter at the edge of the muzzle, than the main bore.

Which is why a swamped barrel, which maintains it's internal diameter to the muzzle, isn't a blunderbuss. It's also why a smooth bore carbine or a cut down musket, when neither have a flared barrel at the muzzle, are not blunderbuss. It is also why a barrel with the externals shaped like the nose of a cannon are not blunderbuss, because like the swamped barrel, the flare of the outside diameter without a corresponding flare of the inside diameter means not a blunderbuss.

The flare is for ease of loading of the firearm, when the loader is on unstable platforms when moving..., so horseback, on a coach, on the fighting decks and the rigging of a ship, AND the shooter expects to engage a target a close range...such as at a highwayman robbing a coach or to stop enemies from swinging over from their ship to yours during a boarding-action.

The flare at the muzzle is not somehow reserved only for the blunderbus, so a gunmaker could incorporate the easier loading feature into a different gun...maybe because it was needed...., maybe because it helped to sell the gun..., maybe because the person who ordered it wanted it so.

LD

 

[tenngun]

As mentioned the name come from German / Dutch. People were not as picky when they named a thing back then. Local variants were all just that, short cannon mouth 'sawed off shot guns', close range man-killers.
Washington might have said 'rifle' a Brit might say 'Anerican rifie' . None would have known a early transitional from a Virginia or southern mountain.
A bess doesn't look like a charle, but they are both muskets. Today we try to make divisions that did not exist back then.

 

[Capt. Jas.]

And to add more confusion, many 18th century fowling pieces had muzzles with flared muzzles, both inside and outside whereas fuzees had a cylinder bore. :thumbsup:

 

[Commodore Swab]

No they are not a source of any questions of mine and the questions posed were more to stimulate a talk on blunderbusses rather than to have direct questions answered. As far as Tortuga Trading goes there are many listed that I did not mention and some that appear the same are labeled differently which is what I was attempting to unclearly show. Why would they list on piece as a swivel blunderbuss, another as a musketoon blunderbuss, and yet another as a musketoon? If it were one person listing on piece I could understand mislabeling much better.

LD I appreciate your opinion of what a blunderbuss is in that it is a shoulder fired piece.

Personally my opinion would be that a blunderbuss is a piece that has a flared barrel (interior and exterior) that may or may not have a smaller breech depending on the bore diameter.

Unfortunatly here is an early Dutch blunderbuss circa 1625 that blows both of our deffinitions out of the water. Defined as a blunderbuss by Hoff in Dutch Firearms.

 

[tenngun]

Keep in mind also that what something was called at one point in time wasn't true for fifty or a hundred years later.
Musket started out as a large two man gun deployed on the flanks serving the position of light artillery or todays saw (with a much slower rate of fire :grin: ) Then it became the main gun for the troops. Lastly ending up as the rifled piece of the 1840-70.
Frigate or third rate made similar changes over the years.

 

[Artificer]

And to add more confusion, many 18th century fowling pieces had muzzles with flared muzzles, both inside and outside whereas fuzees had a cylinder bore. :thumbsup:

Was such flaring on fowlers done primarily to ease in starting the wads/cards? If so or not, was there any common amount of flaring done?

Gus

 

[Wes/Tex]

Never have seen any consistency or commonality in flaring of muzzles. You will see both the wide, bell type to the straight bore but heavily rounded cannon type muzzle. back in the late 60's our merry little band of mutants did some extensive testing of blunderbuss types. Then, about 4 or 5 types of repos were being made and two originals tossed in for good measure. Besides being generally fun to play with, they're just short range, sawed off shotguns when it comes to function.Intimidating but fairly useless for hunting except for very short range. The muzzle flare does nothing to 'spread' the pattern as some claim. We sacrificed one of the repos to prove this point. Hacksawed off behind the flair, the pattern is identical in size, though a little blown from about a 9 inch barrel length.

https://cdn.globalauctionplatform....803da-0ac9-4b65-da32-5321eed6e065/540x360.jpg
http://www.kahnfineantiques.com/images/img/12-4-12 008.jpg

Couple originals with engraved muzzle rings!

 

[Commodore Swab]

I can't quite make out what the first says. I have the same picture for the second. And I'll raise you my current project and another original (Hand mortar though) muzzle rings . . .

 

[coloradoclyde]

Keep in mind also that what something was called at one point in time wasn't true for fifty or a hundred years later.

Very true.....
For example the word "car" goes back to 1300's and was a 2 wheeled Celtic war chariot...Hardly the definition we would give it today......Today a 2 wheeled war chariot might be called a motorcycle.... :hmm: :haha:

Things change over time and so does their usage....

 

[Pete G]

And just to add a little more confusing terminology; by the time the War between the States came around there were rifled muskets.