india hand pistol firearm ?? smoothbore bayonet canon

[phil.reid]

Hello chaps ,
just picked this up and guessing its from the subcontinent, no idea of age and maybe its a tourist piece but quite like it. Smooth bore barrel 13.2cm(mouth .08cm wide caliber)with a 2.5cm thread (but to what?)eith touch hole/ percussion nipple. Barrel wrapped with reinforced (india?) styled barrel with 17.2cm dagger bayonet shallow curved blade. Certainly has me scratching my head and past owner was no better enlightened.
Any help appeciated

[kronckew]

First thought is the threads are to attach to a spear pole. Interesting 'sights' ;)

[thinreadline]

Very interesting , I like it ... could this not simply be the barrel of an Indian 'turn off' pistol ? What concerns me is that normally on Indian pieces the bayonet blade is hinged and folds under the barrel , locked into place with a catch of the type found on the nasal guard of a khula khud . It would be very impractical to have a permanently fixed bayonet on any type of firearm ( however it is not unheard of in Indian weaponry ... see pic below ) . When you encounter these 'impractical' types of weapons from India , they are often hybrids ,grafted together from unrelated pieces . The bayonet blade looks like the tip of a British Pattern 1853 socket bayonet ... which are very commonly encountered in India.
Some Indian bayonets which are designed to be permanently attached to firearms :

Pic 1 ( middle horizontal bayonet ) showing the half cylindical part which fits under the barrel , the blade is a folding type as described above.
Pic 2 showing the hinge and locking device of an Indian bayonet
Pic 3 a permanently attached Indian bayonet .

[rickystl]

Hi Phil

What an interesting item. Maybe South India ? I notice the percussion nipple just behind the threaded portion. This makes me think there was a longer portion of pole which also contained the trigger and hammer assembly. Too bad that portion is missing.
Possibly made for hunting wild boar from horseback ala European style (?)

Rick

[thinreadline]

Hi Phil

What an interesting item. Maybe South India ? I notice the percussion nipple just behind the threaded portion. This makes me think there was a longer portion of pole which also contained the trigger and hammer assembly. Too bad that portion is missing.
Possibly made for hunting wild boar from horseback ala European style (?)

Rick

that's a real possibility Rick .... in my picture No 3 above I illustrate the muzzle of an Indian musket which also features a permanently fixed bayonet . This weapon I believe to be for hunting boar too. The curious aspect of it is that the bayonet is linked by a rod to the trigger , when the bayonet is 'thrust' into anything it causes the gun to be discharged .... thus anything 'stuck' with the bayonet will also be shot with the gun , simultaneously .

[fernando]

~

Pic 1 ( middle horizontal bayonet ) showing the half cylindical part which fits under the barrel , the blade is a folding type as described above.
Pic 2 showing the hinge and locking device of an Indian bayonet
Pic 3 a permanently attached Indian bayonet .

Not to forget the SANGIN version, a bayonet provided with extensions that are lashed with rattan or rawhide to the barrel.


.

[fernando]

This makes me think there was a longer portion of pole which also contained the trigger and hammer assembly. Some kind of fancy stock ...

[rickystl]

The percussion firing mechanism I was thinking about might be similar to the walking cane guns made during the mid-19th Century.

Rick

[kronckew]

A hollow pole, internal spring-loaded long rod as a 'firing pin' to hit the cap, L shaped slot for a 'bolt handle' that can be pulled back against the spring, pushed into the base of the L, and flipped with a finger sideways to release the 'pin' would be simple and reasonably easy to make.

[rickystl]

Exactly what I was thinking. That's how the cane guns worked.

[Philip]

Hello chaps ,
Smooth bore barrel 13.2cm(mouth .08cm wide caliber)
Any help appeciated

Hmm, that works out to 8 mm caliber, the same bore diameter as a World War II German army rifle which was and is a perfectly serviceable thing. But in the context of black-powder smoothbore muzzle-loaders firing round balls, this wouldn't pack much "oomph" especially out of pistol-length barrel. I'm trying to think of hunting firearms of the pre-industrial age in that caliber range, and I can think only of Pennsylvania-Kentucky "squirrel" rifles, or the wheellock "birding rifles" of Central Europe (notably Silesia) which were by definition intended for small game.

Boar hunting was mentioned a couple times above.

Now consider Wilbur's wild tusked cousin living out in the woods -- a thick-skinned, big-boned beast with an impressive amount of muscle mass and an evil temper when he knows someone's out to kill him. I have a hard time thinking that Mr Piggy is going to be intimidated or subdued with this.

Also look at the blade attached to this thing, and compare it with any European boar (or bear) spear from the 15th-19th centuries... Or those Spanish "lance" heads of ace-of-spade shape which I think were intended for boar hunts from horseback (as still practiced in Spain today).