Re: The oldest known handgun in existence, ca. 1400-10

Ed · 21st October 2008, 02:52 PM

This thread has gotten me to thinking.

I wonder how bad the recoil was for these little guns.

Lets think about it a bit together.

- The actual charge of black powder was limited. Filling a barrel all the way might not result in greater velocity/force for the projectile than filling it 1/8 of the way. This is directly related to recoil.

- there was not a fine ball to bore fit, couldn't be. This would result in lowered velocity and recoil.

- it isn't clear that using modern powders for testing is appropriate.

These are sorta random thoughts that bear on the basic question of the reality of using vey early handguns.

If there were a way to really duplicate the performance I could run some live tests out back.

21st October 2008, 02:52 PM	#10
Ed Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 260	This thread has gotten me to thinking. I wonder how bad the recoil was for these little guns. Lets think about it a bit together. - The actual charge of black powder was limited. Filling a barrel all the way might not result in greater velocity/force for the projectile than filling it 1/8 of the way. This is directly related to recoil. - there was not a fine ball to bore fit, couldn't be. This would result in lowered velocity and recoil. - it isn't clear that using modern powders for testing is appropriate. These are sorta random thoughts that bear on the basic question of the reality of using vey early handguns. If there were a way to really duplicate the performance I could run some live tests out back.