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

Matchlock · 24th January 2014, 04:50 PM

This is in the private collection of a friend of mine.

Octagonal, slightly tapering towards the muzzle, this barrel is remarkable for having an earlier touch hole nailed up and a new one, with a surrounding funnel shaped trough, pierced on what now seems to be the top flat.
Originally, this item, too, would have been fixed by two iron bands to a wooden stock. There is a high probability why there are still so many similar early barrels around. My theory is that most of them were part of multibarrel organs or devices:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...t+iron+barrels

Attached please find an illustration by Konrad Kyeser, Eichstätt, Bavaria, from his work Bellifortis (The Strong One at War), 1405, depicting such a rotating multibarrel device, and two samples of the earliest shape of a rectangularly curved igniting iron:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...igniting+irons

m

24th January 2014, 04:50 PM	#27
Matchlock (deceased) Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking Posts: 4,310	Another Wrought-iron 15th C. Barrel This is in the private collection of a friend of mine. Octagonal, slightly tapering towards the muzzle, this barrel is remarkable for having an earlier touch hole nailed up and a new one, with a surrounding funnel shaped trough, pierced on what now seems to be the top flat. Originally, this item, too, would have been fixed by two iron bands to a wooden stock. There is a high probability why there are still so many similar early barrels around. My theory is that most of them were part of multibarrel organs or devices: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...t+iron+barrels Attached please find an illustration by Konrad Kyeser, Eichstätt, Bavaria, from his work Bellifortis (The Strong One at War), 1405, depicting such a rotating multibarrel device, and two samples of the earliest shape of a rectangularly curved igniting iron: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...igniting+irons m Attached Images Last edited by Matchlock; 24th January 2014 at 05:11 PM.