In the Tenth Park Lane Arms Fair catalog (1992), Robert Woosnam-Savage describes the sole surviving Scottish long gun made between 1703-1745 in pp 24-32. This unique weapon is illustrated in 'Swords and Sorrows' and 'Scottish Firearms' published by Parks Canada. Do any of your Forumites happen to have this catalog in your collection and might I improinge on your good and helpful nature to make a copy for me? I am very interested in having a replica of this long gun made but have no idea what the eschtcheon plate, sideplate, or buttplate look like. This is a verbal description of the lock being marked ' John Stuart' and '1703' but no details on placements, etc. I can tell the barrel is 1/3 octagon tapering to round (without wedding bands) but that is about all. I would really appreciate some help from you guys, especially if the article contains (I hope, I hope!) some pictures.

In advance many grateful thanks!

George

Bump....doesn't anybody have a copy of this catalog? Help! Please!

I think this is the one? Barrel looks octagonal to me though...........

There is also the Breadalbane gun from 1599. It bears the initials and coat of arms of Sir Duncan Campbell of Glenorchy made by Patrick Ramsay of Dundee. It's octagonal all the way.

here is a portrait of Lord Mungo Murray painted by John Wright sometime in the 1680s. note the long gun

both of those last two are from Fitzroy MacLean's book on the Highland Clans which I bought on bookcloseouts.com for a song. the history writeup in it is a bit ad-hoc, I detect a bit of anti-Campbell in there (the author is afterall a MacLean) but it has a few treasures in there in terms of pics of items that are in private hands, or in museums where you can't take pictures yourself. e.g. there is a picture of the sword given to the Earl of Montrose by Charles I that Montrose used on the campaign trail of 1645 against the covenanters. that sword had been in Walter Scott's care and I believe is now in private hands. <?> I would love to get better pictures of it.

The painting of Mungo Murray has always interested me partly because he has his long gun in addition to his dirk pistol and sword, but it is not clear to me or anyone I have asked as to why the background figure exists in the painting, nor who (or what) that background figure represents

Well...unless someone has a better picture or eyesight than mine...

I vote for full octagon to round with no distinct transition.

If you refer [only one source] to "The Fusil de Tulle" by R. Bouchard of Historical Arms one can see on page24 where he discusses the common French fowling smoothbore barrel that does just that.

Oct to rnd w/o a distinct transition. Distinct transition came to be after 1720. Ergo, that fits time wise this gun? 1691 to 1720 was the indistinct transition phase at least in French barrels. And given the connections between the Scots and the French...

???

Would be nice to have some real stats on it.

Thank you!

Octagon to round barrels on fowlers are very common throughout Europe and North America. Even the inexpensive trade guns sold to Indians by the Hudson's Bay company had barrels in that configuration. The transition without a "Wedding Band" was not so common.

Perry...

The only two photos I have are from The Sword and the Sorrows and Blair and Woosnam-Savage's book. After I read your post, I looked at the photo in The Sword and the Sorrows and, in my opinion, the transition from octagonal to round may not be quite as smooth as it appears, which is to say there may be a sort of wedding ring at the juncture. Also, and this is common, the octagonal portion of the barrel tapers from breech toward the muzzle. There is clearly a wedding ring on Mungo's fowler.

I guess I have got to go back to Scotland soon and have another look at some of these guns.