Muskets and boomsticks!!!

[Rats]

Finding myself in the middle of a Fred and Barney scheme for pistol, blade (and blunderbuss???), I start to wonder about a longarm.

I would hope to use said boomer for GAoP. but also if possible for F&I or even Rev war if I ever get involved.

Though I wanted one the second I saw the Doglock Blunderbuss, possibly the better investment would be to go with a longarm???

Now comes the question which and why...... :)

I've fount these two from Loyalist:

1728 1st model brown bess:

http://www.loyalistarms.freeservers.com/fi...fantry1728.html

Doglock musket

http://www.loyalistarms.freeservers.com/do...oglockmusk.html

Any advice?

Anyone own one?

God I luv starting a new timeline! Feels like X-mas!!!

Here's to ye all!

Rats!

[Captain Jim]

The Bess is out of our time period. Go with a doglock to cover the entire period or a Fusil de Tulle to cover from mid period to the end.

Some Tulle examples and kits can be found at Track of the Wolf.

Of course you could opt for a blunderbuss...Smaller and easier to carry if you don't actually plan to shoot at anything with any accuracy.

[Rats]

I plan to pick up one of the new doglock busses. But I was also thinking about a long arm for cross over to Rev and or F&I.

The Fusils were the imported trade guns right??

Rats!!

[Story]

Rats,

Go with the Doglock then - that'll allow you to portray militia through the French & Indian War and up until the Revolution. What corner of the US are you in? That makes it easier to put up links to groups using/allowing the doglock.

eg

http://www.angelfire.com/va3/virginiaregim...nt/1754kit.html

http://www.snowshoemen.com/equipment.htm

[Captain Jim]

Aye, the Fusil de Tulle was the imported French trade gun and came in several grades from plain-Jane to finely engraved. Note also that the barrels were longer than most you will encounter. I have seen references to barrels as long as 60 inches! The minimum seems to be somewhere in the area of 48 inches. Most KY/Penn rifles top out at 44 inches. Big, long gun.

The doglock 'buss is definately shipboard and early and can carry you over to the late GaOP. Easier to carry.

I think I'll get one too, come to think of it...

[Red Cat Jenny]

While you're on this subject, I rather like the one BlackJohn is carrying in his profile pic. Anyone know what it is? How heavy in weight are these? I assume a lot more than a modern rifle?

[Story]

While you're on this subject, I rather like the one BlackJohn is carrying in his profile pic. Anyone know what it is? How heavy in weight are these? I assume a lot more than a modern rifle?

8 to 10 lbs, depending. French muskets were generally lighter.

If you visit a RevWar event in NY, chances are you'll see a wide selection of Bess' and earlier muskets. Ask nicely, the owners will probably let you heft the various weapons.

[Rats]

I'm in Wisconsin.

I'm just considering the cross over and the practicality. I want one of the dog locks! But perhaps it would be more practical to pick up a musket before.

I plan to go with a pistol very soon, but the next purchase is up in the air.

Thanks again

Rats

[Story]

Rats,

You just missed an event these guys had in WI

http://www.3nydubois.org/

[Red Cat Jenny]

I'm in Wisconsin.

I'm just considering the cross over and the practicality. I want one of the dog locks! But perhaps it would be more practical to pick up a musket before.

I plan to go with a pistol very soon, but the next purchase is up in the air.

Thanks again

Rats

Do you know what the one in Black John's pic is?

[kass]

I think Vera is a doglock blunderbuss.

[Captain Jim]

*Heavy Scots accent* This 'ere be mah gonne Vera; Verra Loud.

Wish I'd thought of that one...

[Story]

Do you know what the one in Black John's pic is?

http://www.middlesexvillagetrading.com/MDBB.shtml

[Rats]

Had no idea there was as many revwar events in the Wisco territories

Maybe I should get that musket after all!

Anyone have one already??

Rats!

[HarborMaster]

Anyone have one already??

The Buss or the Musket?

That would be a Yes. 2 both.

Doglocks no., I have Flintlocks. I prefer them after all they were an improvement. Bridled frizzens? yes again improvement. They may not all be historically correct for this year or that to within a mili second of the right place at the right time to this event or that., however all my guns are regular shooters and therefore I like state of the art flinters .

Most wouldnt know a flinter from a doglock anyway or for that matera "HorseLock" yes they had them too after the "WheelLock".

If going early to cover your butt is the point .,then I should have gotten a Hand Gonne.,and perhaps then worked up to an Arquebuse.

I got this from www.historyworld.net ...., please read on.

The most significant development in the story of warfare is the use of gunpowder to propel a missile. There has been much debate as to where the first experiments are made. Inconclusive and sometimes mistranslated references from early documents appear to give the priority variously to the Chinese, the Hindus, the Arabs and the Turks.

It is likely that the matter can never be resolved. The earliest incontrovertible evidence of artillery is a drawing of a crude form of cannon in a manuscript dated 1327 (now in the library of Christ Church, Oxford). There is a reference to a gun mounted on a ship in 1336, and the possibility of cannon of some kind in use at Crécy and Calais in 1346-7.

The problem confronting early makers of artillery is how to construct a tube strong enough to contain an explosion which will propel a missile out of one end (or, in other words, how to make a gun rather than a bomb). An early solution gives us our word 'barrel'. The tube is built up of metal strips welded to each other along their straight edges - just as a barrel is constructed of similar strips of wood. This rather fragile structure is given greater strength by being encased in a series of tightly fitting metal rings.

With luck, a round stone (or later a ball of cast iron) will hurtle from the open end of this tube when gunpowder is ignited behind it.

The laborious loading and firing of such weapons limits their effective use to sieges - either inside a castle defending an entrance, or outside lobbing heavy objects at the walls. The size of the missile rather than its speed is the crucial factor. A breakthrough in this respect, in the late 14th century, is the discovery of how to cast gun barrels from molten iron.

Cannon, during the next two centuries, become progressively larger. There are some impressive surviving examples. Mons Meg, dating from the 15th century and now in Edinburgh castle, could hurl an iron ball, 18 inches in diameter, as far as a mile. The even larger Tsar Cannon in Moscow, cast in 1586 with a bore of 3 feet, weighs nearly 40 tons. Mobility is not one of its features.

One of the most remarkable of early cannon is a proud possession of Mehmed, the Turkish conqueror of Constantinople. Before his final attack in 1453 he terrifies the inhabitants by trundling close to their city a massive 19-ton bombard of cast iron. It requires 16 oxen and 200 men to manoeuvre it into its firing position. Once there, it settles down to a slow but devastating bombardment. A stone weighing as much as 600 pounds can be lobbed against the great city walls. The rate of fire is seven stones a day.

In this same same year, at Castillon in France, another potential of gun power is demonstrated - in the effect of light artillery on the battlefield.

Hand guns: 14th - 17th century AD

Portable guns are developed shortly after the first cannons. When first mentioned, in the 1360s, such a gun is like a small version of a cannon. A metal tube, up to a foot long, is attached to the end of a pole about six feet in length - an early and very basic version of the barrel and stock of a rifle.

The gunner has to apply a glowing coal or a red-hot wire to a touchhole in the loaded barrel, and then somehow get far enough away from the explosion. There is clearly not much opportunity for rapid aiming. Most such weapons are probably fired by two men, or are carried to a new position and fixed there before being loaded and ignited by one.

Refinements follow surprisingly fast. During the 15th century the barrel of such weapons is lengthened, giving more reliable aim. The wooden stock acquires a curve, so that the recoil raises the barrel rather than driving backwards with full force. A length of rope known as a 'match' replaces the hot coal or wire for igniting the charge in the touchhole; it is soaked in a substance which causes it to burn with a steady glow.

And a device called a 'lock' is developed - a curving arm of metal which holds the glowing match and will plunge it into the touchhole, when a pull on a trigger releases a spring. The 'matchlock' becomes the standard form of musket until the arrival of the flintlock in the 17th century.

The flintlock: 16th - 18th century AD

From the middle of the 16th century there are attempts to ignite the powder in the pan of a musket by means of a spark rather than from an already burning match. The flintlock is poised to replace the matchlock.

In a flintlock the spark is created by striking a sharp flint obliquely against a surface of slightly roughened steel (the device is already in domestic use in the tinderbox). Just as the trigger in a matchlock brings down the smouldering match, so it now uses the same action to strike the flint down sharply above the pan with its charge of gunpowder.

European countries develop their own differing versions of the flintlock. The one which eventually becomes standard is designed in France in about 1610 - possibly by Marin Le Bourgeoys, whose name is on a flintlock in the private collection of Louis XIII.

The French flintlock has the advantage of a halfcock position (with the gun ready to fire but safe), and its method of directing the spark into the pan proves reliable. By the 18th century it is the standard musket throughout most of Europe and in the American colonies. Spanish armies are the only ones to retain their own variety of flintlock, known as the miquelet.

Cartridges: 17th - 19th century AD

The efficiency of the flintlock mechanism is accompanied by a similar improvement in the loading of a musket. In the early years of hand-guns the soldier carries a powder flask, from which he tips a small charge of gunpowder into the pan of the gun and then a larger quantity down the barrel - following it with a round metal ball and sufficient wadding to hold it in place, before ramming the whole charge tight with his ramrod.

During the 17th century time is saved by providing the soldier with the correct charge, together with the ball, wrapped in a paper tube - the whole package being called a cartridge.

On the battlefield the soldier bites off the end of the paper tube, tips a small amount of powder into the pan of his flintlock and then pours the rest down the barrel, following it with the remains of the cartridge (the ball and the paper) which he rams tightly home.

This remains the standard procedure on the battlefield as long as muzzle-loading muskets are in use. Only in the 19th-century does it finally become obsolete, supplanted by breech-loading guns and metal cartridges with internal percussion caps.

[Rats]

Well then HM let's hear about it??

Here's my three choices again so far

http://www.loyalistarms.freeservers.com/br...t1778model.html

http://www.loyalistarms.freeservers.com/dogblund.html

http://www.loyalistarms.freeservers.com/do...oglockmusk.html

Here's to ya!

Rats!!

[HarborMaster]

Well sir I purchased Military Heritages Buss in a shorty and in Brass., I am REALLY HAPPY !

Also we purchased

Middlesex Trading Villages Ships Carbine (This one) It is not here yet and should be soon.

I will post a few pics of these as soon as the ships carbine come in., I am really looking forward to this.,as it is alot shorter to carry (I look pretty ridiculous at 5"7" standing next to a Brown Bess taller than me)

This gun http://www.loyalistarms.freeservers.com/br...t1778model.html Looks awesome to me and would be nexton my list if I can get the wife to believe I need it.

[blackjohn]

Do you know what the one in Black John's pic is?

Vera... she's a brass barrel doglock from Loyalist.

http://www.loyalistarms.freeservers.com/dogblund.html

I'd say Story is right about the weight. She's a hefty one she is.

[blackjohn]

Now comes the question which and why...... :)

I've fount these two from Loyalist:

1728 1st model brown bess:

http://www.loyalistarms.freeservers.com/fi...fantry1728.html

Doglock musket

http://www.loyalistarms.freeservers.com/do...oglockmusk.html

Any advice?

Anyone own one?

I believe one of the guys in the Pirate Brethren has the doglock musket. If I'm not mistaken, he wrote a small account of it on our forum.

[Red Cat Jenny]

Do you know what the one in Black John's pic is?

http://www.middlesexvillagetrading.com/MDBB.shtml

Ah! Thank ye quite kindly, 'Tis a thing "o" beauty!!

[kass]

Yeah. She has a pretty "voice" too.

[Rats]

Doglock account on PB forum?

I'll be taking a look then!

Thanks to all!

Rats!!

[HarborMaster]

Here is a Military Heritage Blunderbuss in a 15" Brass barrel. I am impressed., the Barrel is THICK., I took the breach out to drill the vent and grind a v into the plug..., yea its heavy duty I am happy.

And this of course is new too ., but will Rev War for ya., Its a Middlesex Trading Village Ships Carbine at .75 Caliber and belongs too Swifty Morgan.

ALL Middlesex's Rifles come with strap., and bayonet., except of course the Buss's

Myself I think I will be going for Middlesexs Original Land Bess based on the 1728 model. I know still 2 new....., I thought about their new and upcoming Arquebus (SlowMatch) and that still may be the ticket for me.

[John_Flint]

That is truly a thing of beauty.

Just seeing it almost made me tear up...

Where can I get one?

[McBarnacle]

This is our crew's big boomstick in operation:-

and this is one of our crew going through his musket drill with one of our captain's muskets:-

and this is our quartemaster and our purser going through drill again with the captain's musket and pistol:-