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GG Osborne
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 Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 6:11 pm Post subject: Just a teaser...Scottish pistols in the works! |
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I am not at liberty to divulge the markers name, but here is a picture to a matching set of all-steel Scottish Heart-butt pistols in the works. These are obviously scratch built and may very well be the only such pistols to have been made in the last 200 years. There will be brass bands on the barrel and on the grip and, as you can see, there will be quite an eye-full when completed - as well as unique. The over-all length is 13" so they will be very close to originals in size and weight. Should be able to see the final product in 6-7 months as you can see the locks have not been started. Enjoy the eye candy!
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"Those who live by the sword...will usually die with a huge, unpaid credit card balance!"
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Tim Lison
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| Posted: Sun 11 Mar, 2012 11:24 pm Post subject: |
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I'm a sucker for this type of pistol! These look really good. Will they fire?
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Dan Howard
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| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2012 1:03 am Post subject: |
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Looking good so far. I'd love to see progress photos all the way through.
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Lin Robinson
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| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2012 5:52 am Post subject: |
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Wow! Heart butts!
OK - I cannot tell from the photos. Is he shaping the iron over a form or machining them to shape?
Looking good Glen and they will be unique. I doubt that a heart butt pistol has been made in the last 300 years. Please keep us informed.
For anyone who has not seen heart butt pistols before I have attached a photo of three which are in the Glasgow Museum. This photo has appeared in forum posts before but not in this context.
Lin
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Lin Robinson
"The best thing in life is to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women." Conan the Barbarian, 1982
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GG Osborne
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| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2012 12:16 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, they will be fireable but since I don't have any intention or motivation for proofing them they will only be used for blank charges. The frame is formed over a mandrel and it not machined. The middle pistol in Lin's pictures is the one used for the model for these reproductions.
I will post updates as they may become available. Thanks for the comments, but of course, the kudos must go to the smith! I'm just the lowly client.
"Those who live by the sword...will usually die with a huge, unpaid credit card balance!"
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Perry L. Goss
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| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2012 4:32 pm Post subject: pistols |
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GG:
Very nice. Personally the heart shaped are a bit late in time period, but...can not wait to see more pics.
I had two early wood stocked snaphaunce made with TRS and Ed Rayl parts but the locks were so finicky that I sold them to a major house parts supplier a couple of years ago. .62 caliber. I intended them to shoot both shot and round ball as back up for my long arm for deer and boar but...given their lack of reliability...no.
Mr. Osborne are you going to have them engraved? I love those muzzles on those pistols!
Currently...I have a flintlock steel scroll butt in the works, but will take about another year.
Please, post pictures of these as they progress forward!
Thank you
Scottish: Ballentine, Black, Cameron, Chisholm, Cunningham, Crawford, Grant, Jaffray, MacFarlane, MacGillivray, MacKay-Reay/Strathnaver, Munro, Robertson, Sinclair, Wallace
Irish/Welsh: Bodkin, Mendenhall, Hackworth
Swiss: Goss von Rothenfluh, Naff von Zurich und Solland von Appenzel
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GG Osborne
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| Posted: Mon 12 Mar, 2012 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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Perry, actually the heart-butts are about 1680-1710 and are considered "Lowland" pistols with the rams-butt being a product of the more famout Doune and Glasgow shops. The heart butts generall had a French lock, or if they operated on a horizontal sear, it engaged a slot at the back of the cock rather than in front of the cock as far as I can tell. Some of these pistols also had a safety detent in the sear as well. These pistols also seem to have been inlaid rather than engraved with brass, silver and gold specimins extant. Also a high porportion are brass barrelled. Thought about that but opted for steel with brass inlays. I have even seen some -perhaps baseless - speculation that the heart butt was actually a Williamite statement as the butt roughly resembled a Dutch tulip.
"Those who live by the sword...will usually die with a huge, unpaid credit card balance!"
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Christopher Treichel
Location: Metro D.C. Joined: 14 Jan 2010
Posts: 268
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Perry L. Goss
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| Posted: Tue 13 Mar, 2012 4:32 am Post subject: provenance of heart pistols |
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| GG Osborne wrote: | | Perry, actually the heart-butts are about 1680-1710 and are considered "Lowland" pistols with the rams-butt being a product of the more famout Doune and Glasgow shops. The heart butts generall had a French lock, or if they operated on a horizontal sear, it engaged a slot at the back of the cock rather than in front of the cock as far as I can tell. Some of these pistols also had a safety detent in the sear as well. These pistols also seem to have been inlaid rather than engraved with brass, silver and gold specimins extant. Also a high porportion are brass barrelled. Thought about that but opted for steel with brass inlays. I have even seen some -perhaps baseless - speculation that the heart butt was actually a Williamite statement as the butt roughly resembled a Dutch tulip. |
Well, learn something everyday. Did not know that, or at least missed it about them being lowland [Not that this matters I suppose], nor French lock either. 
Had read about the safety feature.
Inlays are nice too.
Thank you Sir.
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Lin Robinson
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| Posted: Tue 13 Mar, 2012 11:11 am Post subject: |
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| Christopher Treichel wrote: | | Sir, very lovely pistols I am sure will do you proud... just an FYI shooting blank charges expends just as much preassure on a pistol barrel as a live load. |
Christopher...
As someone who has owned and fired black powder firearms of all sorts over the last 44 years, I find your statement regarding pressure from blank loads being equal to that with live loads a bit hard to swallow. Can you enlighten us with where you got your information?
A poorly made barrel, perhaps containing major flaws in the iron or steel from which it is made, could conceivably rupture from a blank charge. But that would be a function of poor design or manufacture and not chamber pressure. Pressure is created by the gasses behind a bullet, the force from which expels the bullet from the bore of the gun. When you are firing a blank charge with perhaps some wadding or nothing at all, then pressure does not build in the chamber. That is why a blank charge sounds different to a spectator and feels different to the shooter.
If you have seen the movie Last of the Mohicans, which was filmed not too far from where I sit, you will remember the ambush scene where the Indians attacked the British who had surrendered Fort William Henry. The sound from the guns in that scene was recorded on site and it was easy to tell - if you didn't already know it - that everyone was firing blanks.
Any way, I will be interested to hear about your reference.
Lin Robinson
"The best thing in life is to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women." Conan the Barbarian, 1982
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Lin Robinson
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| Posted: Tue 13 Mar, 2012 2:23 pm Post subject: |
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| GG Osborne wrote: | | I have even seen some -perhaps baseless - speculation that the heart butt was actually a Williamite statement as the butt roughly resembled a Dutch tulip. |
I agree that the support for William of Orange is not the reason for the heart shaped butt. I have heard that it represents the "heart of Bruce" but that is iffy as well, although the heart does figure prominently in Scottish decorative art. I think that instead it simply makes an empty pistol into a good bludgeon. Alternately, the heart butt allows a firm grip on the pistol and keeps it from slipping forward in the hand.
Lin Robinson
"The best thing in life is to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women." Conan the Barbarian, 1982
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Jean Thibodeau
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| Posted: Wed 14 Mar, 2012 2:44 am Post subject: |
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| Lin Robinson wrote: |
I agree that the support for William of Orange is not the reason for the heart shaped butt. I have heard that it represents the "heart of Bruce" but that is iffy as well, although the heart does figure prominently in Scottish decorative art. I think that instead it simply makes an empty pistol into a good bludgeon. Alternately, the heart butt allows a firm grip on the pistol and keeps it from slipping forward in the hand. |
Heart, probably, but it sort of reminds me of " kidney dagger " being really a bullock dagger and some of those Heart Butts look suspiciously like " Buttocks " to me in some of the pics of period pieces in an above comment.
Not saying that this is true, but one of those Heart Butts look like a really " Cute Butt ".
You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back!
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Christopher Treichel
Location: Metro D.C. Joined: 14 Jan 2010
Posts: 268
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| Posted: Wed 14 Mar, 2012 4:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Lin Robinson wrote: |
Christopher...
As someone who has owned and fired black powder firearms of all sorts over the last 44 years, I find your statement regarding pressure from blank loads being equal to that with live loads a bit hard to swallow. Can you enlighten us with where you got your information?
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Ok, yes, its not going to be the same as if there was a bullet in the barrel... so why is it that even if you are shooting a blank you can't just pour powder down and have at it?
Black powder's burn rate is much slower than that of smokeless powder. So if you look at it as if the powder that is not yet burnt is your projectile add this into these lovely calculations... http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/ballistics.htm you keep upping the amount of the powder in the barrel at some point there will be enough preassure to blow the barrel.
I am a reenactor, do a lot of shooting with and without projectiles in the barrel and I have read the reports of muzzle loading accidents. I am familiar with at least two cases of barrels that blew with no projectiles and both looked like fowling clogged the barrel to the point where they blew. In one of the cases I am pretty sure the incident was caused by lack of cleaning and in the other by a very small bore allowing fowling to clog the barrel very rapidly after only a few shots.
Point being... even though you are only shooting blanks... you have to know what you are doing. These look like lovely specimens that should be shot correctly and not just blow powder willy nilly.
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Lin Robinson
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| Posted: Thu 15 Mar, 2012 4:32 am Post subject: |
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OK...
The scenario you outline above is not the same as shooting a few blanks from time to time. I agree that if you fire enough blanks without cleaning fouling can conceivably build up to the point that it may clog the barrel sufficiently to cause a rupture. However, I also believe that is an unlikely situation, with the exception of a very small caliber barrel as you mentioned. Most reenactors, at least the ones with whom I am familiar - I used to be one, by the way - may fire 14 - 15 shots in a mock engagement. Assuming we are talking about a smoothbore or even a rifled musket, the amount of fouling buildup in that number of shots is not sufficient to clog a barrel. Your earlier statement, taken outside of any context dealing with a fouled barrel, was that firing blank charges exerts as much pressure on a barrel as firing a live round. I don't believe that is what you meant but in point of fact, that is not correct.
Lin Robinson
"The best thing in life is to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women." Conan the Barbarian, 1982
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Christopher Treichel
Location: Metro D.C. Joined: 14 Jan 2010
Posts: 268
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| Posted: Thu 15 Mar, 2012 4:51 am Post subject: |
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I just cringe when I see folks talking about shooting a little powder because they think their firearm might not stand up to a full load.
Always measure your powder.
A good reference point for almost any blackpowder firearm is 1 grain per caliber for long arms and half that for pistols no matter if you are shooting blanks or live loads.
OK, lets not sully these beautiful pistols with banter back and forth.
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