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Odd matchlock

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This looks to be a poor arrangement. I wonder if the artist didn't misconstrue the function of the tube? Perhaps it was an early form of peep sight. It seems that the matchcord would block the sight-line down the barrel and there doesn't appear to be an advantage to having the cord up there--in fact it strikes me as being a disadvantage.
 
thats what i thought when i saw it at this site,
http://www.angelfire.com/ga4/guilmartin.com/Weapons.html
the author and artist is considered a intelligent historiean, and is a history professor as well.

but the gun in the drawing is supposed to be an illustration of actual originals in a spanish museum. and i dont see why the spanish infantry man of that era would have needed that complication of either a tube holder for match or a tube sight. musket drills dont include "now aim your piece" only point in the general direction and fire for standard line of fire.
but oh well, might be nice if it was sighted in with rear tube and front sights. and pan cover would be good.

did you notice the huge pan? looks like a 3 inch long by .5 inche wide and .5 inch deep pile of powder. talk about consumption of powder.
 
Tube sights were somewhat common on matchlocks, as a number of my sources show. I'm afraid the illustrator got a bit carried away with his subject. Extra matchcord was carried in the left hand during reloading and firing. I illustrated a book several years ago called "Texas Smoke: Muzzleloaders On The Frontier" written by a pal, C.F. Eckhardt. Although he jokingly said the Spanish soldiers tossed the match over their shoulder while loading, it was joke to get to the part where thye danced around and set their drawers alight! Looks like whatever he used for a sample had lost it's pan cover and the sight tube got misconstrued!! :shake: :eek:
 
Yup. The tube sight was an early development. Tried a jury rigged one on my fowler once and it worked fine--just like a peep sight in fact. But it was only held on with two-sided tape and recoil knocked it off with every shot!
 
He may have seen one with a tube sight and thought it was intended to hold the match so it wouldn't blow out and fall onto the wet grass or mud (probably a more useful function than for aimed fire :: ).

Don't know about that pan, though.
Looks like you could feed the pigs in it...
 
Guilmartin said he drew it from "sketches made of sixteenth-century Spanish infantry muskets in the Museo del Ejercito, Madrid". So I'll bet the original artist got it wrong. Besides, when you are priming, you want that match well away from there.
 
Aha, the old "Match Tube? Or Rear Sight?" Controversy! I think that this is yet another example of some "historian" who hasn't the first clue as to how things actually work pontificating via his chapeau. Those funny tubes over the barrel are in fact what any shooter would think it was, a sight. And as pointed out above, just leaving the match smouldering there while you were trying to reload would be a poor idea indeed. Guaranteed to set off the priming at just the time you put the rammer down the spout, I would imagine!

Robert Held has this same basic illustration in his "Age of Firearms", and some years ago I recall some discussion of it, but even he retracted his opinion that it was some sort of a "match guide" but was indeed a rear sight. That's the trouble with things in print, you can't retract them under the force of new information! ::

Cheers,

Gordon
 
I just stumbled upon this post and decided to add my 2 cents..I too have seen a few illustrations of the match through the tube.

There is a local builder of matchlock's here in the SF Bay area, George Silva, who is a retired carpenter who built replica weapons for props at Paramount Studios; he has studied originals in museums around the globe and has spent countless hours conducting research. He told me that he believes that someone, somewhere, made a poor assumption that the site tube was for the match cord, and that this mistake has been perpetuated because some "expert" said that it was so. He also mentioned that he examined original weapons at the Metropolitan Museum in NY a few decades ago, and that they had one on display with a replica slow match in the tube because "a book showed it that way."
 
Nice cartoon, but don't you think that there is a little artistic expression going on. First the person who drew this probably never shot a matchock. Are you going to sacrifice the only hold on this gun by wrapping your cord around it in the thumb hole? Are you going to limit the throw of your tiller by having your cord in the way? No doubt the hole was originally for the match, then turned out to be an awesome sight. I have no historical references to support this, just a couple hundred feet of burnt cord to my name.
 
seen it before
completely bogus... :nono:

copy of a poor drawing done by some 19th century illustrator who didn't know anything about guns or was being fed bogus information by an armchair expert...

Illustrations like this are the reason it took me 10 years to work out how the sear on a wheel lock works!
 
Hey Coehorne Boy! Do you have contact information on Mr. Silva? The group I belong to, the Renaissance Military Society (neighbors to him, being based out of the SF Bay Area) is always looking for new sources for matchlocks and other period firearms.

Cheers!

Gordon
 
coehornboy said:
I just stumbled upon this post and decided to add my 2 cents..I too have seen a few illustrations of the match through the tube.

There is a local builder of matchlock's here in the SF Bay area, George Silva, who is a retired carpenter who built replica weapons for props at Paramount Studios; he has studied originals in museums around the globe and has spent countless hours conducting research. He told me that he believes that someone, somewhere, made a poor assumption that the site tube was for the match cord, and that this mistake has been perpetuated because some "expert" said that it was so. He also mentioned that he examined original weapons at the Metropolitan Museum in NY a few decades ago, and that they had one on display with a replica slow match in the tube because "a book showed it that way."

Don't get me started on institutional bookworms. UGH! I would like to add Mr. Silva's info to our builders file.

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