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

[Matchlock]

On we go with attachments to post #1:


- my highly important historical Passau/Munich barrel dated 1481, with the oldest known fully developed block rear sight, and struck with the earliest known Munich town mark, the Münchner Kindl, according to Erasmus Grasser's design of 1477; underneath a black coat of 17th or 18th c. arsenal lacquer this, like all three of my Passau barrels, retains its original Gothic red lead minium paint! Please note the bell-mouthed muzzle.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...highlight=1481

What is most interesting about this and two other historical pieces bearing the same date and still preserved in Passau: together with others (a fourth barrel struck with the date 1481 is preserved in the arsenal of the Fortress Coburg, Northern Bavaria), they were bought by the Passau arsenal in the Fortress Oberhaus, situated high above the city of Passau and never taken, in 1481 when two rivaling candidates, Georg von Hessler and Friedrich Mauerkircher, ran on the Passau prince-archbishopship. In 1482, these haquebuts saw service when parts of the city of Passau lay under heavy fire from the Fortress Oberhaus! And one of them is in my collection 533 years later - imagine!