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Old 30th September 2009, 03:14 AM   #15
fahnenschmied
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 12
Default A few thousand words....

Managed to get some photos of the relic in question. The camera made manifest some details that were impossible to see my first time with it...it does look as if there is a head of some sort on the shaft. Similar to but not exactly like the Kalthoff marks shown above...
The barrel is has a tapering octagonal breech section that terminates in a ring that is 17 1/2 inches from the breech. At present it only has about 12 1/4 more inches to the muzzle. There is a seat for a rear sight about 9 1/2 inches from the breech - whether it is original to it I cannot say, but many earlier 18th century fowlers do have rear sights on them.
Barrel is 1 3/16 (about 3cm) wide at the breech...bore seems to be right at .62. Even where it is cut off the tube is very thin, about a millimeter wall thickness.
Some question was made about the small bore of these "fowlers" - while it is true that a 12 bore throws a much better shot pattern, the lightness of the ammunition and the lightness of the gun made these smaller bores very popular, at least with the natives of this country. Just as the 19th century Northwest guns were about 24 bore, @ 58 caliber - most of the archaeologically recovered guns found in native sites here measure something from .54 to .62
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