[Matchlock]

Originally Posted by cornelistromp

Hi Michael,

thanks for your explanations and clarifications regarding this very interesting weapons
re: Nail in pan
I did not mean the pivot nail, There is also a similar nail hammered inside the pan you can see it on the picture. Do you maybe know its function?

VBW,
jasper

Hi Jasper,


I'm sorry for not getting the point,
and thanks for pointing me at a small detail I would otherwise have overlooked.

Marcus is absolutely right:
the pan was rusted through, and nailing was the easiest way to fill that hole, just like spiking a burnt-out touch hole.

Rust holes in pans can sometimes be oberserved on 500 year-old haquebut barrels which saw hard service for most of their long working life, especially during the Thirty Years War.
The reason being that those large wall guns were always kept right there in the same place - loaded and primed, and ready to be fired any moment. Thus the bottom of their pans kept rusting heavily from the priming powder they always held, and after centuries, they sometimes failed to hold it any more.

E.g., in the author's collection there is a heavy Late Gothic haquebut barrel that was wrought in ca. 1490 -1500, and restocked with a matchlock at the Regensburg City Arsenal during the 1640's, the most roaring latter years of the Thirty Years War; its pan, too, is rusted through - from holding the priming powder most if the time, and with no oiling done for centuries.
Its beechwood butt stock is branded with the Regensburg City arms, two crossed keys, and the letters ZG for Zeughaus (arsenal).
Photos of that 16 kg monster attached - Marcus, you doubtlessly remember handling it!
I also took images of the hole in the pan but my computer refuses to receive them from the camera ...


Best as ever to both of you,
Michael/Michl