[Philip]

I did read an account by a British observer of Chinese soldiers at drill firing volley salutes, they dispensed with the ramrod and merely gave the butt a smart rap on the ground after pouring their powder, and went on to prime and adjust the match before presenting and firing. A local reenactment group that does Thirty Years War drill with muskets and cannon does basically the same thing at their demonstrations, they aren't seating any bullets and don't want a forgotten ramrod to launch over the audience like a javelin. So the powder will ignite with a bang even if not actually compressed.

I discussed the lack of ramrods on these tribal guns with one of the club members and he said that a loosely fitting slug will slide down there on top of the powder without ramming if the bore wasn't too fouled. Of course the ballistics won't match that of a patched ball pushed onto the charge with a rod, but at close range it can still be deadly. Considering that these SE Asian and Taiwan tribes lived in dense mountainous rainforests where game was taken at close range, it was probably good enough for them. Stalking and ambush in shooting-stands along trails probably solved the distance problem rather well for them. Much like American Indians, whose bows had limited range.

Regarding the technical aspect of fitting a ramrod in a stock, I've disassembled a lot of Oriental guns and have found that since the overwhelming majority have barrels attached with bands and not mortises, there was no need to drill a long hole for the entire rod. The drilled hole only extends a few inches at the end, and this to keep the end of the rod separate from the bottom of the barrel. The rest is a carefully chiseled trough at the bottom of the barrel channel, just wide enough for the rod. Under the breech, the trough is cut so that the end of the rod nests tightly against the bottom of the barrel so it doesn't slide out. Easy! I've also noticed this construction on a fair number of earlier European long guns as well. This groove approach doesn't require the equipment that deep bore drilling does. A small saw with a radiused blade, and a very narrow chisel, are all you need.

I think that these tribal guns did away with rods is that they tend to have half stocks, and unless you have ramrod pipes attached to the bottom of your barrel, that could be an issue. Hill tribesmen tended to be good carvers, but the ability to make precisely formed small tubes of metal and solder them to the barrel might have been beyond them.