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Originally Posted by RDGAC
Right, maybe a pointless or silly question ahoy.
As I always do, when I got this musket I had a prod down the bore with a long dowel (the ramrod being absent), and theorised that the process of spiking/stopping the barrel up had left a blockage which resulted in the dowel stopping around 1in short of where it probably should, based on the position of the spoked touch-hole/channel hole.
However, further checks have made me more cautious; I now suspect that there may be a charge and/or projectile remaining in the barrel. With that in mind, I wondered if anyone knows roughly how long a fairly typical load for a .50in musket such as this would be, i.e., how much of the bore's volume would it fill? A charge with a "length" of one inch - or, if there's a 0.5in projectile atop it, 0.5in - seems fairly small to me, but I've very little experience to go from. My first jezail (c. 1870, 20 bore/0.6in) was loaded with a charge with a length of around 1.5-1.75in, as I recall; that's about all I have to go on.
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Salaams RDGAC ~ As it happens I was having a cup of tea just this morning only 75 yards down the road where there is a little workshop that fixes guns mainly semi modern stuff post 1940ish. The chap on the floor cushion was hammering away at a new butt and stock arrangement and I asked him about guns ( he is Pakistani from Peshawer ) These people on both sides of the border can make reasonable 303 carbines out of a load of scrap and their forefathers made fake Martini Henrys etc. Their work given a modicum of workshop facilities is excellent. He reckons work like your rifle is conducted regularly but more by the junior workers. The big fake marker is the poorly made trigger guard. Any weapon that has an obviously home made trigger guard is likely to be further played with. It is another trick to stick genuine gun parts and copied parts all together to try to pass off the item as original. Often the butt plate is real or even the barrel. Where there is a band of copper or usually brass around the woodwork it is often split...common behind the trigger where the woodwork is thinner. Sometimes the wood splits because too much powder was used. On other occasions the barrel can blow often at the first weld about a foot from the cannon end..dodgy indeed.
As David points out... You have to consider a charge and a projectile are wedged in the barrel.
You are not the first to take on a largely copied job. I've got one which makes yours look absolutely genuine ! A complete pile of junk ... with everything wrong with it.
Perhaps we need a rogues gallery where all the garbage can be safely lodged and people can go there to check on what not to choose and why.
Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.