Dating Earliest Barrels: the Importance of the Position of the Touch Hole

Matchlock · 17th January 2014, 07:07 PM

Hi 'Nando,

You're right, this a revisit to the Aljubarrota topic, and I have a copy of Prestige de l'armurerie portugaise. La part de Liege in my library.

I also guess I mentioned before that that b/w photo depicted an original round Aljubarrota barrel wrought of wound band iron, but with another barrel, of later, octagonal shape, forced into its muzzle!

I have seen other instances of that kind of curiosity; seems like some hoaxter drove some barrels into each other, partly resulting in seemingly having two touch holes!

I do believe that hand firearms were employed in the Aljubarrota battle; after all, we have records of light firearms for foot soldiers from the City of Perugia in the 1350's.
In any case, barrels stopped being made of band iron in around 1400. In the Musée de l'Armée Paris I photographed a huge wrought-iron cannon barrel of wound band iron (imagine the toil the gunsmiths of that period had!), now standing upright to emphasize its shape, which of course was inspired by architectural columns. It was stylistically identical to the Aljubarrota barrels and featured the same swamped reinforcement of the muzzle area!
It was correctly dated 'ca. 1350' by the museum.

Best,
m

17th January 2014, 07:07 PM	#9
Matchlock (deceased) Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking Posts: 4,310	Hi 'Nando, You're right, this a revisit to the Aljubarrota topic, and I have a copy of Prestige de l'armurerie portugaise. La part de Liege in my library. I also guess I mentioned before that that b/w photo depicted an original round Aljubarrota barrel wrought of wound band iron, but with another barrel, of later, octagonal shape, forced into its muzzle! I have seen other instances of that kind of curiosity; seems like some hoaxter drove some barrels into each other, partly resulting in seemingly having two touch holes! I do believe that hand firearms were employed in the Aljubarrota battle; after all, we have records of light firearms for foot soldiers from the City of Perugia in the 1350's. In any case, barrels stopped being made of band iron in around 1400. In the Musée de l'Armée Paris I photographed a huge wrought-iron cannon barrel of wound band iron (imagine the toil the gunsmiths of that period had!), now standing upright to emphasize its shape, which of course was inspired by architectural columns. It was stylistically identical to the Aljubarrota barrels and featured the same swamped reinforcement of the muzzle area! It was correctly dated 'ca. 1350' by the museum. Best, m Attached Images