POST MEDIEVAL MUSKET

1800

Copper alloy and iron gun fragment. Cast hammer, kindly identified by the finder as coming from a flintlock musket or similar weapon. There is no provision for this to grip a flint, so the mechanism may have been adapted to fire a percussion cap to ignite the propellant charge. The striking platform of the hammer is a solid iron cylinder which is tightly fitted into a grooved and collared socket; it has a slightly concave striking surface. Behind this, the object narrows to a thickness of c.4mm, with uneven triangular spurs above and below. Above this is a bi-lobed handle for drawing back or cocking the mechanism, and this in its turn rises from a curved socket of diameter 23.8mm which would have turned on a pin of diameter 6mm. All surfaces of the handle are smoothed by wear. The outer face at this pivoting point is smooth, though slightly proud of the cocking handle, but the inner side (against the gun and other parts of its firing mechanism) comprises a socket standing proud of a gutter of width c.5mm. The lower side of the gutter, as viewed when in use, is open. Suggested date: Post-Medieval, 1800-1830.Height: 53.5mm, Length: 48mm, Diameter (at hammer): 13mm, Thickness (at socket): 6.9mm, Weight: 42.23gms.