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Old 15th July 2013, 01:59 PM   #17
fernando
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Portugal
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We all know that the term trabuco comes from the Provençal "trabuc" and was originaly attributed to stone throwing siege war machines.
I have for me that the later use of the term in Spain for firearms was applied to the same typology as the blunderbuss in english, the specific design of each variant being independent from the generic name.
Athough the term trabuco is familiar to the portuguese, we more often use "bacamarte", which also has its etymologic roots.
The flare of the muzzle depending either in artistic freedom, mechanical possibilities or arsenal design, often connotated with better projectile spread and or more impressive look towards the (human) target, serves basicaly the purpose of facilitating the loading, be it single ball or lots of varied junk.
While arsenal barrels may have a more elaborated design ... bell, trumpet, duck beak ... home made examples, those often made of salvaged musket barrels shortened for the purpose, are restrained to the simple swelling of the muzzle ending. I was once told that the (one) system used, is heating the barrel muzzle and expand it by hammering in a spinning top.

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