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Old 11th August 2019, 05:24 PM   #32
rickystl
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: St. Louis, MO area.
Posts: 1,621
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Hi Jim.

Congratulations. It looks like a nice - and genuine Jazail from the photos. My thoughts:
STOCK: The intricate brass piercing decoration along with the pearl is in a manner much better than a tourist example in my opinion.
BARREL: The long, damascus barrel with traces of gold inlay, heavy breech area, and rear sight arrangement are all typical of the genuine working guns. Even the design of the brass barrel bands are of a style commonly seen on these guns.
LOCK: From the one photo the lock appears to be a genuine EIC lock with the hammer and frizzen screws replaced with pins sometime during it's working life. (This would not be unusual as the Afghan locals seemed to avoid making threaded screws whenever possible. Probably due to a lack of hand dies to make threads. I've seen lock plate screw threads that looked more like early 17th Century versus early 19th Century. While others utilized the lock plate screws directly from the British EIC muskets.)
Close up photos of both the outside and inside of the lock would confirm a genuine EIC lock or a locally made copy. But at the moment, from the somewhat distant photo, it appears to be genuine.

The locally made copies of the EIC locks I've examined vary greatly in quality. Occasionally you will find a copy that functions almost as well as the British original. While others are made so crudely that the locks would likely require constant maintenance/repair. The spurious marks (prancing lion, heart, and date) on the locally made locks run the range of very close to very crude. These spurious marks were probably added by the gunsmith to give a perspective buyer an imaginary added value thinking the lock was of British origin. Likely the local tribesmen could not read/write their own language much less a foreign one. As mentioned, many of the locks were re-used from captured British muskets. But many of the genuine EIC locks were sold/traded to the locals either legitimately or not.
The barrels were made in both rifled and smoothbore variations. While the smoothbores would shoot as far and equal range as the rifled barrels, the ball would start to vere side to side after about 75 yards. So the rifled barrels would be much more accurate, especially at longer ranges. But the smoothbores would be faster to reload and easier to clean. So those were the trade offs. The barrels are typically long and front heavy. The likely anticipation of shooting the gun while resting on the rock cliffs or other type of rest. Some of these guns were even made with adjustable stands built into the forearm of the stock.

I'll post some photos of some of the Jazails and locks I have in my collection.
These Jazails certainly have a colorful history. Harding's books are likely the best reference source for EIC lock markings. But I've never exhibited the courage to cough up the astronomical price for a set - when available. LOL

Rick
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