Id rifle
 

Please need some info . Is it balkan? Looks like shishana but dont think it is..

LOVE the damascus barrel and the MOP inlays. I would say that this looks Ottoman Turkish - not sure about Balkan, but I'll let others correct me.

agree with you. I also think Ottoman-Turkish.
Why?
Some typical characteristics:

the tulip like decoration, which is typical Turkish and Ottoman Turkish.
Next to the repetitive decorations in Sufi-like style which you also can find in Turkey and Ottoman Turkey.

Although sufism is well spread in the Balkans, specially Albania and Hercegova and also Bosnia...you do not see this kind of decoration there but rather other repetitive types.
But never exclude the odd exception...

The tulip decoration is typical for the Ottoman Empire - it was the home of all the tulips we know today. Its lock is very interesting!

The chunky butt-stock made me think Turkish as well.

I've seen this rifle posted somewhere before, I recall the very strange "hammer". I imagine it must be a replacement and appears to be one piece, no way to separate the jaws to replace the flint. My guess is that it was made to replace a missing cock, with some kind of material stuffed in the crevice to allow it to spark for show.
The forend of the stock is strange to me as it is angular, like the butt. The lock also seems rather large and the triggerguard doesn't quite match the style and may be a replacement as well.

I would put this as late 17th / early 18th century Turkish. Elgood's "Arms of Greece & Her Balkan Neighbors in the Ottoman Period" has some similar examples, aside from the hammer/cock of course.

Percussion conversion?

no bolster, drum, or nipple visible and the frizzen still intact.

As you say there is no way to separate the jaws BUT there looks to be a screw on the top of the "jaw" which could well secure a new flint.
Stu

Where? Take a look at the third photo, I dont see anything to secure

One of the early options was a tube containing fulminate that was stuck in the vent. The Hapsburg Empire went a long way down that road as it looked like an easy conversion from Flintlocks. Read all about it here.https://capandball.com/the-story-of-...nition-system/

Very interesting. Austria-Hungary may well have Turkish flintlocks they converted. Seems the problem was NOT with the tubes, but with keeping them together with the paper cartridges.


First rule of explosives is 'keep the explosives and the primers/caps/fuses separate until JUST before use.;)

I was thinking more along the lines of a "local" adopting and adapting the tube fire system as an easy to do and easy to reverse upgrade to the gun he has.