Charleville

[lt508th]

Charleville Fans; I have a nice Peder Charleville, too. If you guys like Charleys, you would love "Gun-making & Shooting, Selected Treatises, a book translated by Eric Bye & J. Ashby Morton, 2017, Pub. by the NMLRA. The entire first third of the book is Manual on the Fabrication of Military Small Arms, by H. Cotty, 1806. It details manufacture of every single part of the Charleville in a fascinating manner. Even to the ages of the various teenagers who specialized in particular parts, the craftsmen, the inspection of the arms, their expected longevity, and more, for 134 pages. This Cotty guy was a Major in the Imperial Artillery Corps. Want to know about fabrication of swords & scabbards? Bayonets? It's all here for the Charley geek. Tempering, steels, please look into this book if you are a Charley Head! (NMLRA website has books for sale). Wanna know how many muzzle bands or ramrods a craftsman was expected to make per day? It's all here, including crating the finished product up for shipping. They were just as precise back then with the technology they had as we are expected to be at work today. BTW, Mr. Morton should get a medal for translating all this from the French!

Thanks for sharing this information with everyone springfield art! It's always helpful to share a book report with others so they know what to expect when considering a purchase like this. Sounds like it's a book that definitely should be added to my reference library!

 

[springfield art]

They had guys who were Barrel Straightener, of course, and the book has the exact specs for Gun Flints, in centimeters. That would be, of course, French Gun Flints! A Charleville was expected to last, with proper maintenance, about 25 years, if my memory serves; I don't have the book right at hand as I use the library's system, which is pretty good in my county. Probably the majority of Charlies never got anywhere near that mark! BTW, my repro is a Japan-made, so I assume it's Miroku. Got it at auction several years ago at about half-retail price, exc. cond. Many muzzleloaders I see at auction are near exc. cond.; any musket used by a re-enactor is going to most likely wind up being sold to another re-enactor in his unit, just an opinion.