In its better days this was a M 1842 Austrian Infantry gun. Then in the 1870s, when many European governments sold their surplus muzzleloader arms to mostly Belgium dealers and gunmakers in order to gain money for a new series of urgently needed breechloader weapons, its Augustin system was replaced by a normal percussion system with a French cock. These converted guns then have been sold to the colonies and third-world-countries around the globe - what was a really big deal at that time.
|