Upgraed or modernised handgonnes
 

Stadtmuseum Wangen im Allgäu, Bavaria, Germany keeps a curios object. The piece is described as Pertinal-Brustkarabiner (breast carbine) with a barrel dating to the late 15th century, the shaft and a French Batterieschloß (flint lock) with double set trigger were added around 1730.

Do you really think this is a genuine object? I feel like we would need to see the breech and barrel tang section. The octagonal barrel with its smooth surface could also be reused from a heavy wheellock or matchlock musket of ca. 1600 and may have been cut down to its present shape.
Also, I do not trust the stock either; the belly butt indicates a style of ca. 1640-50 (not 1730) and additionally is of improper proportions. Moreover, the raised rim running around the lock plate that was characteristic to the stocks of all firearms after the mid-17th c. is missing here.

The mere fact that the gun is in a museum nowadays does not prevent it from being a fake. On the other hand, it might be the crude work of some poacher ...

Best,
Michael

The same Museum keeps an other curious tool described as Wurzelstock-Schießgerät (a tool for blasting off tree stumps). The tool has an approx. 25 cm long barrel with a screw thread on on the open barrel side and a ring on the closed side with a touch hole. Dated to approx. 19th early 20th century. The tool will be filled with black powder and crewed in a tree stump and then lightened with a match. I guess you can imagine the rest....

A similar tool was presented here named as Stockbüchse (treestump gun) from Switzerland http://www.ronmuehle.ch/seite.mv?10-20-00-00

Hello Matchlock! Thanks for your comment on the Brustkarabiner. Actually the piece looks a bit crude and it not seems to be a work of a professional gunmaker or good craftmenship. I am not really sure if this piece has been inspected by an arms and armour specialist or only by a local historian. Even the presentation and the description of this object looks to be as being arranged sometimes before the 1980s.

From my experience so far I am also very aware that not all objects presented in Museums are really original objects and described according to actual scientific knowledge. Descriptions of many object, beside the physical details, are often interpretations of a small team of persons which may be questioned according to other scientific or practical experience or knowledge. I faced it pretty much with some of my main hobbies the Migration period and Merovingian period finds, even in highly reputed museums.

Unfortunately I only had my small pocket camera with me in Wangen which was totally overburdened with the illumination and reflections on the show case. But probably next year I will have an opportunity to visit the museum again in my holiday to make better images.
But here are two further images of the muzzle and the shaft end.

Hi Andi,

Thanks for the close-up of the muzzle slanted. Telling by the thickness of the barrel wall and its relations to the bore, my first guess seems to be right: this is most probably the cut-off remainder of the barrel of a former matchlock or wheellock musket of ca. 1600.

Best,
Michael