Frontier Arithmetic: The Afghan Jezail

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Ibrahiim al Balooshi

There was an interesting question on gun barrels and I think elgood points to areas where they were made . certainly Sinde made barrels and also Persian variants were traded...as would barrels be traded in by Ottoman and other countries. I have a couple of pictures of Sinde guns below... which were almost made on the doorstep and in the manner of traditional twist barrel technology.

Thank you for these great pics! I am always puzzled by the shape of these stocks. I had the idea that Sind examples were straighter, but in some of the reading I have done the Sind guns are noted with 'Afghan' stocks.
So were these guns being made for Afghan sale or trade, or was there really not such a distinct denominator in the preference?

There can be no doubt of the trade diffusion through all these regions which would have carried Persian goods including arms and parts. The Damascus or twisted steel barrels seem to have been traded considerably rather than fully assembled guns in many cases. I think the thing to remember is that typically, whether England, Europe or Middle East, the components of weapons were often if not typically, produced by various vendors.

I was also reading about octagonal barrels, which seem to come up on many of these guns. It suggests that the octagonal shape on steel stock is far easier to complete as a drilled barrel than the round, and if I am understanding correctly better for hunting and range with sturdier (thicker?) structure.
I don't recall if there were specific areas in Sind for guns or barrels, and while there must have been many places, the one that comes to mind in the Khyber is Darra Khel.