Pop quiz

BornToKill

Hey everyone, here's a real test for you! A guy I know has this firearm and he's wondering what it is and what kind of age it is too. He'd sell it but doesn't know what to ask for it. By the way, I am not trying to sell it for him just to find out what it is.

I only took a few pics with the mobile as that is all I had on me but I can do better ones with the camera maybe next week. There's some evidence of a past woodworm problem but it was treated - you probably won't see that given the poor quality of the photos. The wood carving is magnificent though.

Well? ...

BornToKill

Anyone? Not even a guess?

Cass

Enfield, expanding ball musket, circa 1850????????? Probably custom with the engraving.

johngalway

I know!

It's the new rimfire CZ have been talking about

rrpc

Not sure it's the Enfield, it doesn't have the bands around the foreend and the woodwork ends much farther from the muzzle.



The shape is quite different also. Most importantly is the shape of the metalwork behind the hammer which is more oblate on the Enfield then on the one BTK posted photos of.

It's obviously a percussion cap firearm, but is it a smoothbore or a rifle?

Grizzly 45

Looks European in origin going by the wood carving.Could be a BB that was customised?Only way to find out is check it for proof marks or a makers name on it.

deerhunter1

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Looks European in origin going by the wood carving.Could be a BB that was customised?Only way to find out is check it for proof marks or a makers name on it.

Agree looks european by the engraving if the ram rod is wood instead of brass it may be a Naval weapon rather than infantry (if it is military) due to salt corosion. Give me a few days and i wll check some books. (Ill be back):rolleyes:

Cass

rrpc wrote: »

Not sure it's the Enfield, it doesn't have the bands around the foreend and the woodwork ends much farther from the muzzle.

Yeah noticed that too. Each different model from different years had various amounts of barrel bands. Was checking through different models and two things stood out. The first, as you pointed out was the barrel bands which most Enfields if not all had. The second was the lenght of the barrel in relation to the stock. From the picture you posted you can see the stock ends a couple of inches from the muzzle but in the picture posted by BTK the stock ends 8 inches from the muzzle. Thats a guess as there is nothing in the original picture to act as a scale.

Maybe someone with a knowledge of history could shine some light on the matter. I'm guessing the gun is made in one of three countries, England, Spain or France.

rrpc

Just from the woodwork, I'm hazarding a guess that it's a smoothbore wild fowler.

Probably completely wrong, but I doubt if anybody's going to go to all that trouble on a military firearm.

Some sort of proofing marks would be a help and whather it's rifled or not.

Grizzly 45

More than likely a musket of some sort. Third pic of the hammer looking down ,there is a rearsight,so it would suggest somthing that fired ball ammo.

rrpc

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

More than likely a musket of some sort. Third pic of the hammer looking down ,there is a rearsight,so it would suggest somthing that fired ball ammo.

It's very rudimentary though, there were ramp backsights manufactured at the time (the Enfield had one) so surely it would have had one?