[Julian Reynolds]

Over here in the UK, live-firing guns (even copies of historical guns) have to be locked away in steel cabinets, and can only really be handled by their owner.

So if, like me, you want to display them or have people handle them, you have to compromise.

For a recent 'show and tell' event and to hang on my wall, I've made myself a couple of medieval handgonnes. The 'barrels' are dummy (ie. turned hardwood with a steel liner for weight/strength), but other than that they are made as if real. Stocks are beech, and all the metalware is forged steel.

The long 'pole' handgonne is copied from an original artifact (see below) but I have slightly scaled it up to a 24" barrel (around 13mm bore). It is around four and a half feet long, and beautifully balanced (I will be getting a live-firing version of this made up, hopefully later in the year). I have also made a 'hot wire' to fire it, with a pear wood handle. It would date from around the turn of the 15thC.

The hackbut would date from the mid 15thC. As it's name implies (hakenbusche or hook gun), it has a fearsome steel spike, used as a recoil/steadying device, and also a weapon of last resort! It is a little over two and a half feet long, with a12" barrel (around 17mm bore) held by forged steel hoops. It sits nicely either on the shoulder (like a crossbow) or under the arm. I carved a serpent linstock for it, from oak.

I hope this shows others in the more restrictive nations out there that it is possible to make near-identical reproductions of these weapons without the associated law enforcement headaches.....

Julian

[José-Manuel Benito]

Hi

I want to have one of those for some time, for events of Late Middle Ages. I don't want it to shoot bullets, only to make noise. But in Spain is hard to find good reproductions and, also, it's need to have a firearm licence.

IMO, your idea of ​​making the barrels with turned hardwood is excellent. The result is magnificent. The details are very well kept and the blued is very realistic. It's like the work of a Luthier.

Congratulations.
José-Manuel

[William P]

hmm in reference to the hook guns spike beng a last ditch weapon,

wouldnt it be possible to use the other kind of handgonne, i.e the tube-on-top-of-a-pole, ones n a similar fashion
be be a fairly good mprovised cudgel, especially since some consst of a nearly 3 foot pole, and a 1 foot i wonder how much they weigh but beng hit in the face with a metal pole thats scalding hot from having just fired a few rounds, would be unpleasent to say the least.

[Kurt Scholz]

I think there was a reason for handgunners being armoured and pushing crossbowmen in the same direction in mixed units. They did close combat fighting and a big heavy club wielded with both hands has always been useful for that sort of thing. Even more so if you are well protected by armour and have a weapon that scares the crap out of your opponent with a bang and a projectile that moves so fast that there's no chance to deflect it(Thalhofer suggests defensive postures against crossbows with the lance on horseback) before you club him.

[Julian Reynolds]

I guess you could use a pole handgonne as a club: it certainly has the heft to do some concussive damage. But I doubt you could kill with it used as such. That's where you would draw your sidearm (a falchion, perhaps?) much as you would if you were a crossbowman coming into close order with your opponent. It would make a great parry weapon, however.

The hackbut is a different thing altogether. You can do some serious damage with that spike (possibly pierce maille or plate, certainly if you hit your opponent's head, it's like an oversize war hammer). It's a really nasty weapon with a lot of momentum and force in the swing.

I can see it being used with a pavise shield: it's short enough to be reloaded whilst crouching behind one, and the hook is designed to steady the weapon on a stable support, and transfer some of the recoil.

Julian

[Johan Gemvik]

This is a great initiative!

I've been tossing around another similar idea on making sword-in-scabbard replicas with high attention to detail that look real but can't be drawn. For use as wall ornamentation in historical pubs and feast halls where you don't want anyone prying loose a real sword off the wall to swing around when drunk.
Or for kids schools and kindergardens (little kids love knights and swords, but it's just not a good idea for them to be too close to real ones). Or ren faires or festivals in places where law enforcement gets upset over knife laws and such.

All this goes for handgonnes too of course.

[Julian Reynolds]

I did a 'Guns through History' demonstration over the weekend and the kids (and adults) at the demo got to play with them. You really can't tell them apart from the real thing, except the pole gun is a little lighter at the business end. The hackbut, however, has a substantial weight to it due to all that metalwork.

The pole gun is pretty long for a kid to handle, and you have to keep an eye on where they swing the barrel/butt. But it was the hackbut that got me a little concerned, because of that spike and the weight.

But nothing bad happened and they were very well received - the general public hardly ever get to see, let alone handle, such early weapons, so they are more than a little curious about how they are held and used.

The more 'modern' stuff (matchlocks, flintlocks and percussion locks) that I brought along were, I suppose, a little more familiar and so seemed a bit less interesting. Besides, kids nowadays have it drummed into them not to 'play' with guns, so I think they may have been more open to 'play' with something that doesn't seem so much like a conventional gun......just a theory, anyway.

Julian

[William P]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhiPCWMdilw&am...JcN7k80%3D

an interesting assertion about the development of early longarms,
this guys claims, the model of one of his guns dates to the 12th century.... he hasnt yet dug up the book that he uses to source that claim.
but he says " Yes the early wall gun made of brass or iron was used at around 1189 AD in France I have three sources let me know if you want them… (this one is a modern rep that was made several years ago) "

umm forgive me for going what the F....

12th century.. is there ANYTHING that might possibly support his claim.. since ive seen or heard nothing of such a statement ever, before this..

[Romulus Stoica]

[William P]

thats what i thought as well...

IIRC the chinese themselves only just started using gunpowder for weapons in the 11th century, and apparently one of the earliest references to the use of fire lances is around 1132 or so.
according to wikipedia anyway..

[Julian Reynolds]

Back to the history books.....

Although there is an Arabic claim to the title, it is generally accepted that gunpowder was first discovered by the Chinese around the eighth century AD. It was certainly used by 908AD to 'scare the horses' and blow up buildings.

The first recorded use of a gun (not a fire-lance but a bamboo gun firing a solid projectile) is in 1132AD, under the auspices of General Ch'en Gui, commander of the garrison at Anlu, Hopei Province, China.

It is completely unbelievable that a metal gun could have been developed, used, or even conceived a mere 50-odd years, in France, after this first recorded use.

After all, it took another 200 years for the Chinese to fully develop a metal version of these early bamboo guns.

The gun that is being demonstrated is, indeed, a hackbut, which post-dates the 'pole' handgonne style of gun.

I, too, would also like to see the references for an 1189 date (as, I am sure, would many others interested in early handgonnes.....).

Julian

[Kurt Scholz]

[Timo Nieminen]

We see reports of iron Chinese guns being used in 1232 (in the Song/Jin/Mongol wars). Not a contemporary source (the source we have is apparently published 1581), but still a report of an iron gun. The oldest surviving (Chinese) guns are metal, and date to about 1300 (bronze or iron, I don't recall).

Perhaps 200 years from the first use of guns to go from bamboo to iron and bronze, but not 200 years from the oldest surviving record of the use of guns.

We can find (at least) four lines of argument about the invention of guns:

(a) The gun was invented in Europe, by Europeans. I haven't seen any good justification of this argument.

(b) The gun was invented in China, with early development driven by the wars between Song, Jin, Mongols, and others for the control of China. This leads to two paths for spread to the West: Mongol armies, and trade. The "The Mongols made the modern world" school of thought usually favours the former, but the extent of trade westwards from China makes an earlier spread of the technology likely.

(c) The gun was invented by Arabs. (See preceding discussion of possible invention of gunpowder by Arabs.)

(d) The gun was invented by Indians in antiquity. I don't know what this is based on, but it doesn't seem to be supported by archaeology.

The problems are that the key events happened when our sources are scanty, that the same words were sometimes used for firearms and earlier mechanical (non-gunpowder) artillery, and the difficulty of distinguishing between guns and various incendiary weapons (and catapults, and catapult launched incendiaries). So it's easy for partisans of one school of thought to ignore the evidence that supports the others.

In addition, the spread of gunpowder might have been earlier and independent of the spread of guns. We have a relatively large number of mentions/recipes/descriptions of gunpowder in the 13th century, so if gunpowder didn't arrive before guns, it was written about a lot, and quickly.

The transmission of guns from Arab/Islamic users to European users seems to have been rapid. Also rapid spread from Mongol use to SE Asia (if they didn't get it earlier from the Chinese).

[Randall Moffett]

I honestly have a hard time with much of what is often said about gunpowder weapons and their development in general whether in China or Europe. People want so bad to have something earlier than some one else that something that with one eye closed and the other mostly closed looks gun like passes. Evidence is 'stretched' and critical vetting of the proof is watered down.

I spent a few months looking at all the evidence I could find that people are using for early Chinese guns for the 13th and earlier to get familiar with most of the current academics on it. I kept a few of the better articles from ILL office but most really were somewhat fluffy I saw little need to keep them. Those I kept I think are relatively useful whether as good research or wishful thinking. Many are based on artwork which is high speculative. Some of the artwork looks like it could be a range of things from martial to non-martial, but they simply assume it must be a gun or cannon. That said I am limited to translations to the languages I can read but that said most of the more recent ones incorporate sections of work from all over the world from the last hundreds of years. The use of documents from 50 or 100 is sometimes needed but dangerous, in the 100s of years or later seems even more so, rather curious and highly suspect, just as it is with western development. How did someone in the late 16th century witness or have solid information of what was happening in the early to mid 13th?

The idea gunpowder and certain weapons that used it spread through the 12th and 13th centuries westward seems plausible and likely. I tend to think the development was even slower than in Europe for them to begin widespread use of any gunpowder weapons from gunpowders inception over anywhere it was and as Bert Hall points out the formulas in use during this period were not optimal for projection. This would have had a major effect on development and use and a plethora of alternative uses outside of guns and cannons. I think the Mongol concept makes some sense but considering the lack of hard evidence I think is pushed further than I would go as many accounts of 'proof' seem just as likely if not more so to be traditional weapons. Sort of Like Edward I's use of 'firearms', where a real examination of the account seems to be some type of flammable projectile- which is not a cannon.

The fact that even into relatively modern times in many of these places used traditional weapons and for battle and siege primarily is another factor to consider for practicality and commonality.

RPM

[Julian Reynolds]

I wish I had your certainty, Kurt, that the use of gunpowder as an explosive was an Arabic invention. That they used the component parts of gunpowder, in varying quantities and combinations for various uses is undoubted. But as a weapon in war, call me old fashioned, I still subscribe to the theory that the Chinese invented it, used it (maybe not in 'guns' but in projectiles and for shock effect) against the Mongols, who in turn used it against the Eastern Europeans, who in turn used it amongst themselves.

I don't doubt that the Arabs, astute as ever about these things, picked it up along the way (or may even have come up with it independently), undoubtedly before it arrived in Europe, but I don't believe they were the true originators.

Whatever you (or I) believe, one thing is certain; an 1189 French handgonne is unlikely.....

Julian

[William P]

well just in time hes responded and listed one of the books he uses as a source on early firearms
L'Armeria Del Museo Civico Medievale Di Bolonga Coppyright 1911 Busto Arizio good luck everybody who wants to find the passage indicating a 12th century wall gun >.>;

[José-Manuel Benito]

Hello

I'd like to know about primary sources showing that the gunpowder was used as a weapon in Europe before the 1300s.

thanks

[Kurt Scholz]

[Eric S]

I ran into this ten shot pole handgonne awhile back, I have no idea were it originated but its interesting.

Here is an quote on the subject from Firearms: A Global History to 1700, Kenneth Warren Chase http://books.google.com/books?id=esnWJkYRCJ4C...mp;f=false

[Kurt Scholz]