What blows me away...

[Hiverano]

What blows me away is the amount of technology derived from the design and production of firearms.

When we as visitors of the past are always amazed at what has been done in design and production.

 

[saculmot]

What i am trying to ask is how did they incorporate a flintlock and pan and lock plate into one piece as part of the barrel? I understand that the pan area was made as part of the barrel. but cripes... how did they do it?

I suspect the engineers that built the pyramids migrated to Europe when they were done.

 

[Dale Lilly]

Don't forget chariot wheels, the sword that beheaded Goliath, the trading ships ... a lot of stuff we do not, and will probably never, know.

 

[maillemaker]

The longer I study history the more convinced I am that man has always been of about the same relative intelligence through all of recorded history. There were very smart people thousands of years ago, and they were only limited by the state of the art of technology of their era. But for any given era, there were smart and talented people who were able to maximize the technology available to them at that time.

A man with talent and basic tools and time can build astonishing things.

And manufacturing back in the day was upside-down from today. Today labor is minimized while machinery is maximized. Back then, machinery was minimized and labor was maximized. Today labor is expensive but back then labor was cheap.

 

[GREENSWLDE]

Screw threads of old were reproduced easily. Start by filing the first screw out of crucible steel. a developed hardenable alloy of iron. make a driving sqware at one end & file a taper at the other.
file the body into a sqware leaving full section. harden and lightly temper to leave you with a cutter.
Use to cut a thread in a piece of the same type of steel. Cut three or four groove the length of the threaded hole. Harden and lightly temper and you have a die to cut lots more threads.Easy when
ya know ow. Still have a number of different sizes from roughly 1/4" to 3/4" in my old family tool box from the1750's. Even have wire drawing Dies down to 0.008" to draw silver wire.Thin silver strip wrapped round a copper rod for embroidery wire. Plated wire. Very O.D.

 

[Mexicangringo]

Is that i have a pedersoli Queen Anne. It,s a good shooter with some work on it. for what it is worth. What really ties me up is the originals...it boggles my mind that back then they could make such a thing nary coming close to the tooling we have today. One piece barrel and Flint lock...and hand made screws with no standard threading.. how in heck did they do it? And such circumstances whereas they had to supply Militia,s ? And in addition they were works of art. I guess this is what draws us to this stuff....

What blows me away is when I learned Lewis and Clark used air rifles. Had no idea that technology existed back then. I believe the Austrian army used them aswell for some time

 

[Hiverano]

Air guns represent the oldest pneumatic technology. The oldest existing mechanical air gun, dates back to about 1580, and is in the Livrustkammaren Museum in Stockholm. This is approximately when most historians recognize as the beginning of the modern air gun.

Throughout 17th to 19th century, air guns in .30 to .51 calibers were used to hunt big-game, deer and wild boar. These air rifles were charged using a pump to fill an air reservoir and gave velocities from 650 to 1,000 ft/s (200 to 300 m/s). They were also used in warfare, the most recognized example being the Girandoni air rifle.

At that time, they had compelling advantages over the primitive firearms of the day. For example, air guns could be discharged in wet weather and rain (unlike both matchlock and flintlock muskets), and discharged much faster than muzzle-loading guns.[1] Moreover, they were quieter than a firearm of a similar caliber, had no muzzle flash, and were smokeless. Thus, they did not disclose the shooter's position or obscure the shooter's view, unlike the black powder muskets of the 18th and 19th centuries.

 

[CaptainVane]

Air gun fan here. Mine is Umarex Colt Defender. It rocks. Google Umarex Hammer.
.50 puts down Cape Buffalo. Almost zero recoil. Its the future guys. Like going from arrows to firearms. Its the next generation.

 

[Boston Bill]

At Martin Station, I camped next to a gunmaker of Colonial Williamsburg who makes EVERY SINGLE PIECE of a gun by hand using fairly simple tools. He was telling several of us how he does it and we were amazed.

I am amazed at the cathedrals in Europe. How did they build them so high? How did they get the pointy things up onto the roof that was already so hi?

 

[Bill M.]

"The longer I study history the more convinced I am that man has always been of about the same relative intelligence through all of recorded history."

Right now every time I turn on the TV or look at the internet I think that mankind has dumbed down a bit lately.

 

[Jaeger]

"The longer I study history the more convinced I am that man has always been of about the same relative intelligence through all of recorded history."

Right now every time I turn on the TV or look at the internet I think that mankind has dumbed down a bit lately.

We can kid ourselves, but when I Iook around at some of the things people believe, it's obvious that we are still in the Dark Ages.

 

[Sean E Bug]

I think another part of the story is peoples modern perception of tolerances. things made with machines often hold tolerances greater than .01 of an inch. and that is necessary for things to fit together properly because they are assembled by someone else with parts off of another machine. but if everything is hand made and fitted each pat does not need to be that precise of a copy. the makers probably used patterns to try and keep things somewhat uniform but the person making the part could easily make something a little larger or smaller to fit the particular gun.

 

[Daveboone]

I am always surprised that folks nowadays seem to think folks two hundred years ago were not as intelligent as today....that what we think of couldnt have been thought of before. Labor was cheap....subsistence level. Learned frequently from young childhood until you dropped in old age. Also, many parts in many trades were made by specialized craftsman when mass produced numbers were required....be it stocks, barrels, screws, etc.....particularly with military arms (the old Brown Bess was manufactured over close to 100 years in different variations, if i remember correctly....many parts interchangeable). I too appreciate the fine craftsmanship in many older arms, and respect the hands on skill level required.

 

[Daveboone]

...but that is not to say that there were not....there were.....gunsmiths /blacksmiths who could produce firearms from the blanks of iron rod/plates, to the finished product. It was a matter of economy, and advancing technology continuing to today.

 

[LME]

Is that i have a pedersoli Queen Anne. It,s a good shooter with some work on it. for what it is worth. What really ties me up is the originals...it boggles my mind that back then they could make such a thing nary coming close to the tooling we have today. One piece barrel and Flint lock...and hand made screws with no standard threading.. how in heck did they do it? And such circumstances whereas they had to supply Militia,s ? And in addition they were works of art. I guess this is what draws us to this stuff....

I don't know if they still do this but in Williamsburg they have a fellow making long guns . He is in period clothes using period machinery. It will surprise you.

 

[Hiverano]

Air gun fan here. Mine is Umarex Colt Defender. It rocks. Google Umarex Hammer.
.50 puts down Cape Buffalo. Almost zero recoil. Its the future guys. Like going from arrows to firearms. Its the next generation.

That's pretty neat, have been a fan of air guns since I was a little kid. Many, many years ago ...

Many of the early European leaders (Napoleon and others) had rules (never followed) about air rifles and crossbows, you would get put down if caught with one. They were afraid of the silent killers out of Austria.

 

[M. De Land]

That's pretty neat, have been a fan of air guns since I was a little kid. Many, many years ago ...

I have two in .177 cal. One of them has a scope on it and I keep it in the shop to take out unwanted ,hole making red squirrels when my wife isn't looking. Been temped to wack a neighbors lousy cat that keeps trying for the birds on the feeder in my back yard.
I keep hearing one cannot expect the neighbor to keep their cat out of my yard because of a cats nature but then they should also expect that I can't alloy them to kill the song birds either.
I won't wack it but certainly have considering a tail bobbing that should change a cats attitude about where it prowls.
I sure get amazed at some folks sense of entitlement on certain issues !
I wonder how those same folks would feel about me letting my dog (if I had one) drop a load in their front yard every morning ?
" But sir, it's just his nature" !

 

[Hiverano]

I have two in .177 cal. One of them has a scope on it and I keep it in the shop to take out unwanted hole making red squirrels when my wife isn't looking.
...................
I sure get amazed at some folks sense of entitlement on certain issues !

Red squirrels even gray ones can be troublemakers, have put many of those little bastards down over the years.

I had a comp gun in .177 that I sold a few weeks ago, now need to replace it with a less expensive one. Hindsight can bite you when you're busy ....

 

[tenngun]

I would imagine after trial and error, it was just custom hand work.

They weren’t cheap. These were gentleman’s guns and built by craftsmen who were all masters.
Once a gunmaker or watch maker ect made his screw plates they fit to all their work.

 

[oldschoolhunter55]

I don't know if they still do this but in Williamsburg they have a fellow making long guns . He is in period clothes using period machinery. It will surprise you.

i would enjoy watching him