Thanks for the info guys, I'm intently awaiting pictures and Specs!
I will go the flintlock route because local laws forbid hunting with matchlock and I want to hunt with this Taiwanese style muzzleloader, but I will make it to match the simplicity of the Formosan style.
For "realism", would I want to be using flint held there with gum or pine pitch or birch tar, further tightened with rattan cord or rawhide?
If a Formosan in 1800s were to make a flintlock, would that be how they'd make it? A modification of the existing matchlock they're familiar with?
Ramrod... Now I won't pretend Seediq Bale is a historical source, but in the movie they show Seediq and Bunun braves using and holding ramrods. Was this a mistake or did some Formosans use ramrods? It seems if they did, they carried them instead of carving a groove under the barrel trough... ? I wonder if ramrods were actually nonexistent or just not considered necessary...
Stock, I can make it one piece or two piece and do a good job I think, amateur woodworker here, but I think carving wooden sheaths, knife handles, longbows, and dugout canoe has given me some skills....
If it's one piece and the grain doesn't bend into the grip (quite an extreme angle), I wonder if that's structurally acceptable because the arms bend to accomodate the recoil rather than the harder resistance from a shoulder stock?
Today yuanzhumin in Taiwan CAN hunt legally, they register and can use guns, almost always some primitive homemade firearm, many are making them with shoulder stocks now. However many are unregistered, hunters unlicensed, and hunting unregulated - I guess their ecological and social impact is just not damaging enough to really warrant heavy regulation. Taiwan, as y'all know went through pretty intense disarmament with that last two regimes and hunting is generally illegal for most people...
I live in Mass, I will definitely check out the Peabody museum gun.
|