The top one is a paddle-butt Dutch-style wheellock carbine that Dale made WAY back when for himself (I have a photo my sister-in-law took of him at a rendezvous carrying it in 1975...). I bought it from him some 20 years ago, but foolishly allowed a friend to beg me out of it. Finally got it back last year!
It's a .50" caliber, with a rifled barrel. The lock isn't exactly right, as Dale was experimenting with his "1630 Pistol" lock then, and it has a weird stirrup-bar inside the lock rather then the much more proper (and much more efficient) bicycle-style chain. But it works, so I'm not complaining! It's got a healthy barrel, and so ought to be able to take a pretty good sized charge with no problems. I've yet to fire it for a real accuracy test, but it shoots pretty well from my just messing around with it.
The lower carbine is more French-style (though both butt-types could be found in the Netherlands or in France), but fitted with a French-lock, rather than the wheellock of the upper carbine. But as you can tell, stylistically it's still shaped like a wheellock, with the belly in both the lockplate and the stock itself. It's an archaic-style French-lock, an early form of the "true" Flintlock, modeled after several in the Visser Collection in the Netherlands.
I commissioned Dale to make this little carbine for my wife, so that she would have a nice little carbine to carry while we rode and did reenactments together. It's VERY light, with a .62" caliber barrel (20-gauge). She can hold it up and fire it with one hand if need be, though it is designed to be fired from the shoulder. It takes a .600" round ball, with a light charge of about 50 grains (pretty much a heavy pistol load). Nice, serviceable little carbine!
Here are the particulars:
Wheellock Carbine:
Over-all length: 44&1/2"
Barrel length: 28"
Caliber: .50"
Weight: 7&1/2 pounds
Flintlock Carbine:
Over-all length: 40&3/4"
Barrel lengh: 26&1/8th"
Weight: 5 pounds
Sorry for the poor quality of the photo's, but I'll try to get some better pictues up one of these days, Hopefully these will suffice for now..
Cheers!
Gordon
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