A tiny cannon
 

I have shown this piece the other day, together with another one in bronze, pictured from the seller's website.
Now i have acquired this one, which reduced dimensions are worthy of note ... i think :o .
Also worthy of note is the cared groove in the bottom ( hard to picture), making path for the match cord ... again i think :o .
The fire hole is placed very low in the rim, so that such groove has a 'natural' horizontal alignment.
I maintain the option to call it a cannon and not a noise mortar, following previous apreciation had by Michael, which i humbly subscribe.
Further coments and teachings will be so much welcome.
Fernando

.

Hi Fernando,

No teaching here, just a comment.

I am glad to finally have found a very good and doubtlessly geniune piece which resembles much your cannon or handgun barrel. This I photographed at the Firearms Museum in Suhl, Thuringia, which had acquired it directly from the ruined tower of a nearby castle.

It is highly important for retaining its original oakwood full stock. The recoil absorbing ring hook drawn over the barrel at the same time fixes the latter to the stock. The piece is preserved in original 'untouched' condition overall, the bore is about 20 mm and much the same size as yours. The stock is drilled thru in two places. We know from other handguns, e.g. two pieces preserved at the Royal Armouries Leeds and a third at the Vienna Armory, all of which I posted in earlier threads, that the rear hole in the buttstock was for suspension of these guns in the armory, comparable to the stirrup of a Gothic crossbow. The forward hole may have served to receive an iron axis to adjust the piece vertically.

The overall length is estimated to be 60-70 cm, the length of the barrel ca. 10 cm.

On a formal basis marked by the hook drawn over the barrel, and by comparison to my earliest complete handgun made in about 1400-10 and modernized by adding a hook and firing mechanism during its working of ca. 1430-40 - posted here earlier - I should suggest a date of ca. 1430-50 both for the Suhl gun and your barrel. That was the period when hooks first appeared, and as I showed before, all of the earliest known hooks were not fire welded to the underside of the barrel but drawn over it.

Again, congratulations to your cannon barrel, Fernando.

I am afraid I cannot really explain for the groove in the bottom of your barrel though; you may be right in guessing that it sort of marked the way of the red hot igniting iron down into the touchhole.

Best wishes,
Michael

So ... just a comment ... He, he, he :eek:

Here i go, swallow all the fantastic lecture and the material provided.

Danksche, mein freund :) .

Fernando

Sure, Fernando, my dear friend,

That's just the way it goes:

You present 'the real stuff' and next Michael comes commenting on and adding to it from his experience.

Didn't I do well ?! :) :D

Best, my brilliant pal:
m

Obviously you did super, my dear Michael :) :cool:

One thing is confusing me, though :confused: .
The recoil hook being simultaniously the barrel embracing ring. How 'rationaly' is it holding the barrel?
When you shoot the thing, with the hook stuck on the wall (or similar) the impact is in a direction that tends to cause the dismounting of the hook ... if i make myself understood?
Fernando

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Another cannon Fernando :cool: :) I think you should have a new nickname ....pouco canhão ;)

All the best
David

Now you're getting into deep waters...

: )

Sure, I often wondered about that phenomenon as well. Does not seem too logical right away...

On the other hand, if you look closely at how tight the ring fits the barrel, as well as consider the fact that the ring was drawn over when red hot and naturally had to shrink when cooling down I do not think it would have been moved considerably by the kick back. On my contemporary handgun the ring is riveted so hard that, although having been in use for quite some time, will not move even most minimally.

Additionally, the pronunced muzzle ring both on your hand cannon barrel and the one in Suhl would certainly have prevented the hook from slipping off.

Best,
Michael

Fernando,

I should like to add that your short and cute barrel may well have been wrought as early as the second half of the 14th century. The hook of the Suhl piece is certainly a working time addition and the stock is most probably not the first. The Suhl Museum dates the barrel 'late 14th century'.

The criteria are:

1. The barrel is very short and stout - cf. 14th century barrels in the Berne Museum and in both your and my collections.

2. Note the formal similarity between the Loshult barrel (copper alloy, ca. 1330-50) and your barrels and the Suhl gun! See the rounded Romanesque rear ends, the tiny touch holes and the muzzle rings? :) :cool:

Best,
Michael

Ah, Katana Jones, you Brit; making fun of my humble catches :mad: .
Now, where did you get that pouco canhão name? :confused: . Let me guess; probably you meant to call me something else and the translating machine tricked you :eek: .
You see, the term 'little' translates into two different words in portuguese, whether we speak of 'size' or of 'quantity'. Tou say pouco canhão sounds a bit funny; it would mean something like a bit of cannon, as 'pouco' is little for quantity. Probably you meant to call me little (small, tiny) cannon which, in such case, should be pequeno canhão or, more coloquially, canhãozinho.
I am not sure if i am on the rigt track ... but i thank you for the fondly visit :) .
Fernando

Hi Michael,
Thanks a lot for the reasoning on the ring fixation and for the hint on dating my barrel, which i duly took note.
... and also many thanks for the (allways) clarifying pictures.
Concerning the ring, obviously the wondering on how logicaly it was fixed, was only a 'reflective reaction'; naturaly the thing worked, otherwise the user should have, in due time, modified it. You're right in that the ring must have been hot welded in a such a manner that it became embodied to the barrel.

Danksche,
Fernando

Ah, Manolo.
... and you just popped in to help sinking me :shrug:

Fernando ... Nando ... canhãozinho :eek:

My good friend Fernando,
you are correct 'Babelfish' did indeed 'let me down' ......and I thought I was being 'clever' :o ;) Now if everyone spoke English we wouldn't get these mis-interpretations ;) :p :D

Another fine addition to your Armoury....are you going to get a stock made for this one ?

Kind Regards David

PS canhãozinho ???........Cannon ?????

You're dead rigt :shrug: .


Mmm ... don't know yet.


Cheers
Fernando

Don't blame me, consider that if you'd just let go of your cannon, then you won't sink.

:D

OTOH, just floating around weaponless would be so boring, not to mention, you wouldn't be able to defend yerself from pirate attacks!

Nasty buggers, those pirates...


:eek:

Back to the topic, folks: :)

Please note how rugged the upper end of the oakwood forestock of the famos Berne gun (ca. 1400) is from pulling over the two iron barrel bands; see image below.

Fernando, if I were you I would not try restocking your cute little barrel. You would have to restore the hook as well which, in my opinion, would harm the barrel surface.

Maybe you will consider exhibiting it together with an image of the Suhl gun. I feel that that would be more convincing from both the curatorial and the collector's point of view.

Best,
Michael

Duly noted; however if i did it, it would be some digestive set up, made by the handy carpenter around the corner ... no qualified restoring but also no atempt to reproduce that complex hook. Just a raw stock and a simple iron sheet strap holding the barrel ... no agression to the barrel surface.
But your advice will surely be on for a long sedimentation period. :cool:

Danksche
Fernando

Grrrr, here is the Berne gun finally :(

The hook, as I noted several times, is a working amendment of ca. 1430-40.

Michael

How Early 15th Century Handguns Like the Berne Gun Were Aimed
 

Three illustrations from a book on warfare by Johann Hartlieb, 1436, showing tiller handguns being aimed by the support of small targes (Austrian State Library Vienna, Cod. 3062).

Ignition is still done manually, by the use of small igniting irons and sometimes by another man, and the short barrel guns do not yet have recoil hooks. This sort of backs up my thesis that hooks did not seem to have appeared before ca. the 1430's-40's.

I owe the images to Ed - thanks, my friend!

Michael

EXCELENT PICTURES :cool: