A Fabulous & Incredibly Impressive, Historical, Large American Revolutionary Period Flintlock Sea Service Blunderbuss

Bronze gun-metal two stage cannon barrel, early banana form lock predominantly used in the early to mid 18th century. Hand carved hand-rail stock, with superb natural age patina, also with typical and distinctive 18th century naval sea service flat butt plate, as to be usually seen on all the sea-service Brown Bess and blunderbusses at the time.

All the metal apart from the lock is made of gun-metal bronze, a higher copper content than the more common brass barrel blunderbuss. A most rarely seen type of blunderbuss, used in the American Revolutionary War, possibly made in America itself as it is devoid of the usual top of the barrel proof marks as American gunsmiths no proof marks. Although potentially made in America it could still have been used in the Royal Navy at the time, for ships of the line were always re-stocked with provisions, and often re-armed, at their port of destination when required. The Blunderbuss (born of the Dutch word "Donderbus", appropriately meaning "Thunder Pipe" or "Thunder Gun") came to prominence in the early part of the 18th Century (1701-1800) and was more akin to the modern day shotgun than a "long gun" musket or heavy pistol of the time. As such, she excelled in close-in fighting, be it within the confines of naval warfare or walled nature of the urban environment, where her spread of shot could inflict maximum damage to targets at close ranges. Its manageable size, coupled with its spread shot, ensured some level of accuracy for even the novice user and its appearance was rather intimidating to those unfortunate enough to be staring down the business end. As with modern firearms, the Blunderbuss also made for an excellent security-minded weapon and soon found popularity amongst all matter of operators - military, civilian and, of course, criminal parties - by the middle of the 1700s. Even George Washington championed the Blunderbuss for Continental Army "Dragoon" units of the burgeoning American military as opposed to the carbine this being nothing more than a full-featured long gun of lesser overall length, proving suitable for horse-mounted handling. In fact, the short-form version of the Blunderbuss came to be known as the "Dragon", giving rise to the term "Dragoon" for such gun-wielding cavalrymen. Dragoons went on to form specialized units of mounted infantrymen within their respective armies during the end of the 17th Century and into the middle of the 18th Century - in a way, becoming an evolutionary step of the fabled mounted knight of the Middle Ages. Their use of Dragons soon gave way to the widely-accepted carbine musket. The Blunderbuss was also known as the "Blunderbuss" As with all our antique guns no license is required as they are all unrestricted antique collectables. Overall 33.5 inches long, barrell length 18 inches.

Code: 23168