Cavalry muskets and carbines featured a sidebar with running ring on the off-side. This ring was hooked onto a clip suspended from a bandolier which simplified loading by safely supporting the gun.
I have seen several examples of these clips and have two questions to experienced re-enactors using this.
1. Why is there no swivel in this connection?
2. How simple/complicated is únhooking from the springloaded clip? as this seems to be a thréé handed job....

Thanks,

Peter

Depends on the period. From the Revoilutionary Period foward (at least) the sling clips did have swivels.

Except the downside of any percussion revolver is its occasionally unfortunate perchant to chainfire (all cylinders going off at once.) This applied to the Colt revolving carbine as well. Many seasoned cavalrymen actually carried multiple, pre-loaded cylinders and just switched out the cylinders rather than reload or carry 4 pistols (2 holstered and 2 on the saddle.)

Peter;

I've seen illustrations of the carbine snap-hook with a swivel attached to it as early as 1616, in Walhausen's "Krieigkunst zu Pferde", so I suspect that they came up with the idea that the whole thing needs to be as flexible as possible pretty early on. I'm not exactly sure when shoulder belts for holding carbines came into general use though. Might have been late-16th Century, might have been very early-17th Century, but they were in use by the second decade, for certain. (Most of the illustrations I've seen from the 16th Century actually show pommel holsters for the carbines/harquebuses, thus my being rather unsure as to the general adoption of the shoulder sling for carbines and harquebuses).

As Lafayette suggests, most of the time the early carbines were simply held to the side when riding at anything more than a walk. I have yet to see any sort of bucket to hold the muzzle (or butt for that matter, as later on they were carried inverted, at least for the longer carbines of the late-17th/early-18th Centuries) and keep it from bouncing around, which of course it will do at a gait higher than a walk. When anticipating combat, or when riding into a town, of for inspections and reviews, the carbine was to be held just above the lock with the right hand, with the butt resting on the right thigh.

Here's a US ca. 1860's carbine sling, which as far as I can tell is identical in all major respects to one made in the 17th Century:

[ Linked Image ]

I have one that is virtually identical with this one, other than having an extra link between the swivel and the snap-hook, which was made during the ACW and I use with my own carbines. Reproductions that I have seen (and own) are also identical to one or the other of these.
[ Linked Image ]

Here's an English Harquebusier from the ECW (Royal Armouries Collection), with his carbine slung, using a swivel-snap hook remarkably like the later ACW version as well, the primary difference being the width of the sling;
[ Linked Image ]

Something that might be of interest to you also is the use of a chain and toggle, rather than a snap-hook, during the 18th Century. A very simple chain with a toggle, much as used for logging or to hold a snaffle bit in place on a halter, is threaded through the carbine's sliding ring, and the other end of the chain is fixed to a sliding bar on the shoulder belt. A rather ingenious method, and I'm surprized that it didn't stay longer in use. Sadly I cannot find an illustration of one to post, but I'll keep looking.

Here's an illustration of the use of a carbine bucket to hold the muzzle in place, with a strap from the near side of the pommel which wraps around the wrist of the stock, holding it nicely in place resting on the right thigh, from the early 19th Century:
[ Linked Image ]

I hope that this is of some service to you,

Cheers,

Gordon

Gordon....a nice set of illustrations showing dragoons carrying shortened (not "carbines" but possibly carbine bore .65-.69 caliber) muskets in boots (butt down) can be found in the Duke of Cumberland's Clothing Book with illustrations by David Morier. I think this set of drawings was made circa 1747. The illustrations show the butt in the boot attached to the stirrup leathers and the musket carried under the right arm - a right clumsey arrangement but perhaps indicative that dragoons were originally mounted infantry, not light cavalty as they almost immediately became in the Seven Years War Period.

GG;

I've seen the illustrations, but sadly I couldn't find them on the web (though I may well have easily overlooked them). It's a fairly comfortable way to carry a heavier, weapon than the carbine method illustrated, I imagine. I've used the carbine method when reenacting 1840's-era US Dragoons, using a Hall's Carbine with the Grimsley equipments. I find that far more comfortable than the later style used by US forces with the McClellan Equipments, which is simply dropping the carbine by the belt/snap-hook arrangement, and keeping it in place via the leather socket fixed to the saddle's cinch ring.

Presently, I just carry my carbine dropped, for to the best of my knowledge, there were no such sockets or boots in use during the early decades of the 17th Century (or before, of course).

Cheers!

Gordon

:eek: ¡Wow!

Now we are talking some prácticle info indeed.

The chain&toggle is simplt briljant Gordon. Simple, effective and efficient. If needed you could make it fit to go trhough the chain shackles to create a loop even. The easiest and cheapest thing to produce too. A hook-loop-swivel is incompairably more complex and expensive. Strange as usualy armies are quite keen on exactly thát.

I guess we need to identify three different applications
1. travelling
2. battle readiness
3. fighting

Concerning 1. and 3. the situation dicates the solution.
When actually fighting the weapon will be in hands as much as possible, only 'supporting' it for reloading.
When travelling the rider will need to have the weight of the weapon supported and his hands and posture free.

If the gun is supported by a bucket on the stirrup and against the body there is indeed no way the troop can exploit the speed availeabe to a cavalry unit....

I am a bit surprsied at all the solutions I encounter and you so helpfully explain and illustrate. An arquebus or musket is a lóng tool and thus extremely akward on a horse. No way around that. Carbines (blunderbuss) however cán be carried without hampering the essential speed and flexibility of cavalry as hunters nowadays show.

The solutions wére known. The pommel holster for a arquebus/musket Gordon mentions and too the chain&cshackle again he suggests (one on the waist and one on the pommel) would seem ideal.

I suspect that at least Í am stuck with my idea of a speedy light cavalry unit whereas much of the mounted units were mounted infantry that did not nééd practicle '2. battle readiness' in the saddle as they where 1. and then 3. got off....
Maybe that is why the chain&toggle was not more popular.

Very informative this! Thank you.

Peter

Right, as stated eralier for me pérsonally this interesting thread leads to more than one answer. Like I talked about with Gordon some time ago a european gentlemen rider around ther turn of ther 17th-18th century would be rather flexible in his choice of weapons. From miltairy type doglock to fine wheellock, from blunderbuss to german long hunting gun.
His 'set' of psitols and gun might have been the examples on which the german gunsmiths in Kentucky based the arms bearing this name.

As how he would have 'carried' the arms is open to variation too.

How common was it for private users to adapt weapons to personal taste and/or requirements? Did they per example add sling buckles/loops or slinding ring bas to non-militairy weapons?
Slings were just about standard on blunderbuss used by the 'bandoleros' in our region and I can well imagine that a running ring would have been very usefull too.

As to the chain&toggle, those could be leather or rope and wood too in stead of metal?!

Peter

Peter;

I've seen photo's of various sorts of carbine/blunderbus with sling-bars fitted to the left sides, as well as large belt-hooks. Such belt-hooks seem to have been particularly popular among Catalan-made escopeta's and blunderbusses (and of course on pistols as well). These style arms were very common on the Northern Frontier of New Spain (present-day Mexico and the US SW) and are found fairly frequently in museums here.

The so-called "Catalan" style escopeta is sort of semi-military, in that they were definitely used by Spanish forces, particularly in colonial circumstances, but usually aren't exactly to a specific "pattern" like other Spanish military arms. Thus they would be of a sort that an Iberian gentleman may well have carried on a day-to-day basis for hunting, pleasure or protection from brigands.

Anyway, it seems as though the Iberians were pretty flexible insofar as how they carried their firearms, be it via a belt-hook, slung from a carbine sling, slung from a musket-type sling, or stuffed into holsters on the pommel of the saddle. You have a pretty wide range of choices!

Cheers!

Gordon

There is a gentleman in north Georgia who has and is making very nice reproductions of trhe Escopeta. I have a heavy militray model on order now for early 2008 delivery and he has the parts for a lighter militia type model. The lighter model I have held and examined has a nice belthook as descbibed before. Price is about $2K. If you are interested, please PM and I will supply the makers information. The one I have on order is similar to the style provided by Spain in the 1709 and 1745 Jacobite rebellions and is illustrated by Stuart Reid in the Osprey book on "Highland Warriors."