|
|
Thread Tools | Search this Thread | Display Modes |
|
26th February 2014, 07:26 PM | #1 | |
Lead Moderator European Armoury
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Portugal
Posts: 9,650
|
Quote:
I tell you something; even if you wished to offer it to me i would have to decline, such would be the cost of sending it over by armoured transport and security guards |
|
27th February 2014, 09:40 AM | #2 | |
(deceased)
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
|
Quote:
Oh Nando, Your witty and well thought out words startled me with the impulse to cope with a new day! Thank you so much for that, my dear friend! 'With a stature like yours' - what used to be my stature has meanwhile crumbled to a humble shadow of my former self. Now I too pity the poor guy who once had to tote and aim this monster. Best, Michl |
|
27th February 2014, 10:02 AM | #3 |
Member
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 494
|
If this is the same piece as the one i was allowed to handle during my visit i begin to imagine that your ancestor has to be a Germanic warlord who defied the Roman empire... that thing was heavy
Do you think it has seen battlefield action? |
27th February 2014, 10:34 AM | #4 |
(deceased)
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
|
Hi Marcus,
Yes, I guess that was one of a few pieces you handled when attending my collection. I don't think these early 'monster muskets' really saw service as the late 1500's and early 1600's were a long period of peace - up to 1618 when the Thirty Years War started. It is unbelievably rare, however, to find such an enormous piece in good condition and retaining its original stock and barrel length as many of them were crudely restocked and cut down from 156 cm to about 140 cm at the end of the Thirty Years War, in the late 1640's when oviously literally anything that would fire was reused. m |
27th February 2014, 12:40 PM | #5 | |
Lead Moderator European Armoury
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Portugal
Posts: 9,650
|
Quote:
|
|
27th February 2014, 03:09 PM | #6 |
(deceased)
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
|
That's right,
Once again Master Fernando won a duel against someone who may way too often think of himself as a great warrior ... By handling those early monsters you also understand why musket rests were indispensable for the musketeer. On the other hand, I have avoided putting a rest next to a musket that obviously did no longer require its support, which is from ca. the 1630's; the Thirty Years Wars had virtually put pat all of Europe from 1618 till 1648. Actually my latest/'youngest' musket that required the support of a rest is dated 1636 on a bone plaque inserted in the stock oposite of the lock, together with the city arms of Regensburg, Bavaria. It is a very remarkable piece as it weighs 9 kgs, at a length of 156 cm and a bore of 19 mm, and the barrel mark IB over a star was attributed by Johan F. Stockel to a Suhl barrelsmith active in ca. 1610. The assigned date is absolutely correct in my eyes, considering the enormous thickness of the barrel walls and the heavily swamped muzzle section which almost revoke the swamping of Late Gothic barrels of ca. 1470-80. Thus, the present stock is not the first made for that barrel, which must have been quite a normal thing in times of war. In those days, they did not painstakingly repair a split or cracked stock as we would in restoration; they just restocked the piece, and maybe the next day it came back to the armory cracked once more. Nevertheless, there are two guns in my collection showing old traces of stock repair done by delicate nails. The lock is of typical Regensburg make and was certainly manufactured by a locksmith working for the armory of the Imperial City (German: Freie Reichsstadt) of Regensburg. It, just like a heavy matchlock wallgun, ca. 1645, in my collection re-using a Gotic barrel of ca. 1490, shows some characteristics that make them easily recognizable. It is displayed on the right to the musket in discussion in my chronological array attached at top. In those years, at the high time of the Thirty Years War when most mass products like the Suhl muskets (which were sold to nearly all the states in Central and Northern Europe) would do with less than half of that thickness of the lock plate, Regensburg could afford to employ double that material. The unique shape of both the serpentine and trigger guard (the latter being just nailed into the stock at the rear!) as well are identical on both guns, at the same time proving what I have stated before: during the 'Great' War, as it was called by its contemporaries, big centers of mass production like Suhl, Thuringia, generally only furnished barrels and (mostly) lock mechanisms; the stocks were made in the respective local armory and differed slightly in style. The historic armory inventories of many towns and cities still record the sums paid for both such furnishings and the jobs of the local or armory stockmakers. Smaller centers like the Zella, a neighboring town of Suhl, mostly furnished complete muskets. Anyway, that huge beast of mine once must have greatly contrasted to the average shorter and lighter muskets of the other musketeers around, using guns of a total length of only 1,41 m and a weight of only 4-5 kgs. I fired my monster in 1985 and I still recall the slow and rather soft recoil it remitted to my shoulder, thanks to its great weight. I will post more on it here soon. Best, Michl Last edited by Matchlock; 27th February 2014 at 03:49 PM. |
27th February 2014, 05:57 PM | #7 |
Member
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 494
|
A bit like the story of David and Goliath.. "modernized" to fit a monstress matchlock gun and probably a Italian stileto.
I would love to see a movie of this monster firing or even better, feel the recoil myself. I have shot a few percussion firearms at a reenactment in France, but it would be dwarfed by such an experience. |
17th March 2014, 08:10 PM | #8 |
(deceased)
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Bavaria, Germany - the center of 15th and 16th century gunmaking
Posts: 4,310
|
Some more close-ups of my heavy Peter Peck matchlock musket from the first posts.
Enjoy the views from different angles. m |
|
|