Traditional M/L Guns from Afghanistan

[rickystl]

PICS OF THE BARREL...

 

[Pukka Bundook]

That barrel looks like it was ancient when used on this gun, Rick!

 

[SOLANCO]

For hunting, I'd sooner the Afghan hounds than the Afghan guns. Mongols hunt with eagles. I wonder if any Afghans still do?

 

[Pukka Bundook]

I have a DVD of a Mongolian girl learning to hunt with her eagle..

 

[rickystl]

That barrel looks like it was ancient when used on this gun, Rick!

LOL !! I agree. The barrel is what attracted me to a must have. LOL.

Rick

 

[rickystl]

Here is a typical powder flask associated for use with the Jezaails. This style of flask must have been popular with the locals as there are many still remaining today in a variety of condition. It's a wood body covered with tooled leather. An iron spout with a simple wood cut-off. I thought I would post this example since it's in very good condition and still usable today. And shows the finer details well.

Rick

 

[hectorintca]

AFTER:View attachment 191534View attachment 191535View attachment 191536View attachment 191537View attachment 191538View attachment 191539View attachment 191541

Mr. Rick;
Outstanding work!
Hector

 

[Rudyard]

This sniping down Company Soldiers as they returned from the Cabool Garrison under terms, But the wogs ignore terms and snipped any way untill only Doctor Brydon reached the garrison at Jalalabad . The Garrison at Herat & Kandahar held & later the Company made it juicy for the wogs . Cant make an ommlet without breaking eggs .
Rudyard.s take on the matter . I went up to Cabool in 1969 was a King then & calm ish but they said come sundown your on your own (All I fought was jynormous bed bugs . They won I retired to the flat roof )

 

[Felonious]

I have a DVD of a Mongolian girl learning to hunt with her eagle..

I've seen that video, or one like it. That eagle is more consistent with bringing back a meal than a gun would be. They don't make kids like they used to.

Hunting small game WITH raptors is a bucket list item for me.

 

[cyten]

Some more period photos

More photo evidence these stocks are shouldered and not under the armpit

 

[rickystl]

Thanks Cyten !! Some very cool original photos. Again, I've never believed the jazails were "designed" to shoot from under the arm pit. Otherwise, there would be no need for front and rear sights. But the curve of the butt stock under the arm pit for carry is quite comfortable.
In your Post #70, the second photo down, notice the leather, gord - style powder/shot flasks suspended from his belt. Many collectors have thought this style originated from Arabia. They continued to make these for tourists for many years after the common use.

Rick

 

[Felonious]

Some more period photos


View attachment 242779View attachment 242780View attachment 242782View attachment 242783
View attachment 242784

More photo evidence these stocks are shouldered and not under the armpit
View attachment 242796

That had to have been an amazing time and place to have been alive.

 

[cyten]

Here is another Jezail with a very nice barrel in a private collection in Europe
Manton lock dated 1800
Barrel text translates to: Lord Barkat Ali Hassan Babar

 

[Rudyard]

I saw a video on YT, where the host, a former special ops sniper, opined that the unusual stock shape was ideal for shooting downhill at a 45-degree angle or so.

In past history, that’s how the Afghans slaughtered the British walking through that valley … firing rifles down from the hills as the Brits marched in formation … with Brown Bess muskets no less!

Maybe the Khyber Pass, lol???!

No question it likely was the Kyber Pass You are probably thinking of the E .I. Company force ,Obliged to abandon the Garrison At Kabul . a logistics problem. So Terms where agreed That the Company forces could retire back down the Pass. But being tribesmen they snipped at the troops all the way down the pass (A pass I went through in 1969) only Doctor Bryden reached the garrison at Jalalabad . If some troops were ransomed . The levies & the large' camp followers ' got' absorbed' or killed . Though I think the Garrison at Kandahar & Herat held till an expeditionary force Sorted the Kabool tribesmen out .' Cant make an Omlette with out breaking Eggs ' .69 pre Russian grab some tribal King . All I fought was big bedbugs in a Kabul Doss house They won I retired to the roof nice view of the Town though .

300 hundred pounds per annum spent on making brain & body Meeter .
For all the murderous intent,comprized in villainous saltpeter , And after ,?ask the Youvzugies What comes of all our Oligee's '
A scrimmage on a border station a canter down some dark defile 200 thousand pounds of education drops to a ten rupee jezail - The Crammers boast the Squadron's pride ,Shot like a rabbit in a ride. Rudyard

From Kipling's' Arithmetic on the frontier '.

 

[sportster73hp]

Here is another Jezail with a very nice barrel in a private collection in Europe
Manton lock dated 1800
Barrel text translates to: Lord Barkat Ali Hassan Babar

View attachment 307187View attachment 307188View attachment 307189View attachment 307190View attachment 307191View attachment 307192View attachment 307193

Forgive my ignorance, is that lock of the brown bess pattern or size or is it smaller?

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Forgive my ignorance, is that lock of the brown bess pattern or size or is it smaller?

It looks "smaller" because it's from a "3rd Model" or "India Pattern" being a British East India Company Bess (the engraving on the back of the lock shows it is from the BEIC) and it was smaller than the lock on the Second Land Pattern Bess, and both were smaller than the 1st Land Pattern Bess locks.

LD

 

[rickystl]

Cyten: Thanks for the photos. A very nice example. Note, in this case, we have a decorated barrel mounted to a basically plain, undecorated stock. That could indicate an earlier barrel repurposed for this Jazail. Would not be unusual for these guns.

Rick

 

[Rudyard]

Cyten: Thanks for the photos. A very nice example. Note, in this case, we have a decorated barrel mounted to a basically plain, undecorated stock. That could indicate an earlier barrel repurposed for this Jazail. Would not be unusual for these guns.

Rick

Fantastic barrel' Wow ,'the Manton lock is plain Company style ,re sizes , I don't think their locks differ from Ordnance their where Carbine locks same style but shorter scale .Twigg & Nock where big names who made arms in quantity Because the E .I .Company paid up . The Fine Clent ell had fine guns but where notably poor payers (Joe Manton went bankrupt with these un paid book depts that and legal wranglings ).That lock might be John Manton who had a good head for business . I have David Harding's 4 volumes on the " Small arms of the United East India Company ' but you have the date it might render the size of Manton's Order but it isn't too relevant . Nice barrel that's what makes it . I knocked one up with an old barrel but Bakers Series lock' Ug Lee ' but an example if you really really want a pic Ile see if my daughter will take one ime not good at E gajets When in Cabool (old spelling but there just Wogs ' Oh 'Wogs 'is "Westernized Oriental Gentlemen ". viz 'Wogs' They may be' Tribesmen' Herat had an old mud fort said to be built by Alexander the Great forces most of Afghanistan was sun burnt rocks & rubbish .Was pleased to cross into Persia There in a neat Tent city we had to stop three days to ensure we didn't have Cholera , Suited us overlanders a coach that had taken a load of Japanese to Madras was coming back to UK empty the drivers said "The only sights we want to see are the White cliffs of Dover " he like us had to stay and a dozen or so of use availed of a ride .I was still frail from Blackwater fever up in Kathmandu for two months Suited me just fine one slept the other drove and we stopped just for a Karzy and food went through Tehra ran. Istanbul. & Vienna at night arrive Dover grey dawn Customs bod says "Anything to declare ?" No body said a Dicky bird . And that was up till we reach London( Ide hitched out to Karachi from Milan to Bombay on 16 pounds Ide had a rough trip in Turkey but Persia had cheap buses in 1966 so took the southern route into Baluchistan & a Steam Pilgrim ship Karachi to Bombay Deck passage. No border bod wanted onward or what funds we had Just play the' dirt encrusted Sahib .'Those were the days .
'Rambling Rudyard

 

[rickystl]

REF: Post #78

Hi Rudyard. Great story. You've lived a life few of us could have imagined. LOL

I have 4 Jazails in my collection. All 4 have genuine EIC regulation locks. But from 4 different makers. Still, they are all built similar.

Congratulations for owning the 4-volumn set of books from Harding's. Those sets are quite rare today and usually bring a very good price at auctions - in any condition. Let me know if the day comes and you want to sell/trade for the set. LOL

Rick

 

[Rudyard]

REF: Post #78

Hi Rudyard. Great story. You've lived a life few of us could have imagined. LOL

I have 4 Jazails in my collection. All 4 have genuine EIC regulation locks. But from 4 different makers. Still, they are all built similar.

Congratulations for owning the 4-volumn set of books from Harding's. Those sets are quite rare today and usually bring a very good price at auctions - in any condition. Let me know if the day comes and you want to sell/trade for the set. LOL

Rick

Dear Rick I do seem to have had a good run in life Started in a well Bombed Low rent district of Sheffield 1944 a sickly child due to the industrial smog but was good at geography & history I was quite eager to find some warmer climate So by 20 year old I set off on a pushbike to South Africa ,Well Stanford's General map of Africa showed roads that are just' Pistes' tracks in the sand plus Mauritania Closed its border to Morrocco . So I itch up Casablanca trying the post for ships No go so hitch to Alger get a visa for Mali & hitch down to Adrar after being invited to a wedding ? festivity at small Oasis great people. After a week in Adrar two trucks form convoy & I ride the top of one to Gao in Mali 7 days across the Sahara first two in Sandstorms boil by day & freeze by night .from Gao Timbuctoo is only 140 miles or so But I hitched all day one car came by (there is no paved road just rutted' Pistes' . but got sick so return to Gao & ride a overloaded cattle truck two pain full days to Mopti also on the Niger river .By then sicker than any sea side Donkey . But survived .& twas then an ambling trail of cramped Mille Kilos Red dusty roads through Ivory Coast Liberia, Sierra Leone , The White mans grave !.Back threw getting hassled by Liberian security ordered to leave but picked up a job for a timber company anyway ..Cross Ivory Coast get into great 'palaver' one night nr Grand Bassam the useual I MUST be a spy (Not fitting the normal Ex pat Missionary or Firestone rep. normal people shouted " Johnny Walker " some nit stirred the village up. armed troops roll up search bag ect I had a flint lock & a horn of gunpower (Naturally I was a Muzzle loader after all )and Ide made one Bedouin very happy by giving him two flints for his Snaphance Kabyle earlier ) but no James Bond stuff it looked tense a sort of " Now what they do" But I made a joke gave them an' out ' & That broke up that diffoolgalty .But next day I cross the river in a dug out to Half assini fine row of smartly dressed Ghanaian Police on the jetty their wide short s so crisp their legs moved but the shorts didnt bit like some plastic toy cows Woolworths used to sell. Border hassle . I end in in house arrest at a school with some PCV & Cuso & VSO teachers so was OK .ere they take me to Accra who reasoned I Cant be a Carpenter I know to much of the world ! Yup . So ime to be deported to Nigeria at 7 pounds fare .They wont pay ,Not on your Nelly I sure as hell wont pay , So we settle on a Mammy wagon to Togo :Land for ten shillings .plus a box of cigs to bribe the border bods the High commission gave me .Then the Maliaria strook but I didnt know what it was so hitch to Nigeria via Dahomey .Where at the PCV Hostel their Doctor said it was 104 degrees Malaria no fun when you have to kip in Victoria beach to save the now dwindleing funds That was an education it was a small concrete hovel where the locals went to gamble one bloke was Coffing his mate explained it was yellow fever .Hmmm . Anyway a cop raids the gamblers they explode out the door Ime laying there on a piece of plastic all ide got by then too hot for my long since ditched sleeping bag I just waited till they looked inside but they didn't .Anyway I hitch up to Benin thence the Asaba Oneita ferry cross the now huge Niger river to Enugu Met a fellow Yorkshire man good company thence travel through the Cameroons via Victoria then Duala war in Congo ( nothing much changed !) so took a old Dakata to Fernando Poo .then Spanish ( Francos Spain ) hopeing for a Portugues ship to Angola via Soa Tome but wasn't to be so worked putting a tin roof over oil drum stores for a whole 100 peseta's a day! near the Equator . Talk about cat on a hot tin roof ! Oh well it gave me the price of quarters & tucker Till the Supply ship" Ciudad de Toledo " gave me passage to Cadiz via Lagos ,Monrovia , & the Canaries hitch across Spain to Irun thence hitch up to Boulogne I think from memory . My poo at the time small & covered in green stuff ( You don't wish to know this !)Had Just enough for the ferry to Dover kip in a golf links Cold after the months in the tropics & no blanket
But no mail so I hitch up home with a whole 7 / 6 pence left.. Thats a very condensed version of course . But big phew &' Finished with engines ' So you see after that the run to Ceylon following year was a comparative' doddle' & I never stopped wandering . Stewart Island (NZ)To Dawson City in the Yukon down through to Puerta Cortez in Honduras .All over Australia . worked later Zululand 1970 then down to Cape town & hitched up to Nairobi . The world was my oyster , its any ones who wants it to be. but times now, have about stuffed that caper ..Anyway big cheese ? maybe but it made 79 but cant see me going away much except up or down wards ? .Regards Rudyard