I am commissioning a near copy of the famous Breadalbane long fowling gun. As there are only 28 surviving specimens of this particular type of shoulder arm, illustrations are hard to come by. I have a question for some of you students of Scottish weapons. Was the characteristic fluting of the butt stock of the piece also found on the reverse (cheek) side? I cannot find a single illustration showing the cheek side!

Thanks as always for your kind assistance.

Glenn...as far as I know, the fluting is on both sides of the stock. It would make sense for that to be the case.

Who's doing your Breadalbane gun? Will it have that extremely long barrel of the original. Please post pics when you get it.

if you like I can probably negotiate to get access to it to take detailed measurements, photography, and similar data.

feel free to get in touch and I'll work out what can be done.

Yes, it is frustrating - and it's not just photos that show only the lock side of Scottish long guns, the way they are displayed in museums is the same, and in cases/cabinets against a wall or with a solid back board. However, all is not lost. Figure 31 in Blair & Woosnam-Savage's booklet 'Scottish Firearms',1995, is a photo of the Breadalbane gun taken from above, looking along the barrel to the butt, angled slightly to show the left/cheek side of the butt. It is not perfectly clear but you can make out 3 flutes along the side corresponding to those on the lock side.
That said, I too would like to see decent photos of the 'other' side and any other information that JG can glean from the museum.
Neil

I'll see what I can do - generally, they tend to restrict distribution of study photography (all my other items I've studied, I've had to sign photography licensing agreements which prohibit distribution.) , but I'll try to wrangle an exemption for 3-4 shots which will have to be watermarked with the NMS' copyright.

Here's hoping they'll be able to arrange access to it. I must admit, I do worry it might be considered just too large an object to conveniently move for study, even when compared to the assorted swords I've studied in there previously.