Traditional Firearms > Flintlock Long Guns

NW Guns

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tg:
On another forum a pic from the book "Trade Guns of the Hudson Bay Company" by Gooding shows an early circa 1740-1750 NW gun, with a Williams lock,the earliest use of that term (NW Gun) I can find is in 1761 also the serpentine sideplate on this gun which was said to have been restocked in the 1760-70 period with the original furniture is identical to one Hamilton puts as the final evolution of this side plate and dates to the late 18th century. any thoughts by those who are familiar with this gun? something seems odd to me.

Sir Michael:
The thing that jumped out at me reading the 1760 paragraph reference in Gooding's book was the way the Armourer from York Factory made the reference.  He was requesting a Breech Pug tap and die "of the same thrd (thread) as the NW Barrels"  

To me, this says that by 1760 the design of the North West Gun (what ever that was) was so well established and standardized that asking for a tap and die for breeching barrels of "North West Guns" was all the information he had to provide to get a tap and die of the requisite diameter and thread pitch.  Also the his reference to "NW Barrels" indicates to me that "North West" in reference to guns, barrels, etc. had to be a firmly established product that was well defined and considered to be "common knowledge" at the time.

The remainder of the paragraph in Gooding's book goes on to identify an order in 1753 for North West Barrels.  This says to me again that in 1753 the definition of what a North West Barrel and be inference gun had to be clearly established and standardized or the maker could not be held to any standard.

The question I have is how long did (not does today but rather then) it take for a product to become so well defined that referring to it by name would get the requester exactly what he wanted, 10 years, 20 years I don't know.

To construct a gun much different than that currently established as a "North West Gun" I believe that the information contained in the Appendix I of Gooding's book would make a good guide using the descriptions of the weapons ordered for building an earlier design.

Prior to 1740 the trade guns apparently were much heavier than we look for today and had smaller trigger guards, since that is when an order for guns from Fort Albany requested that the guns be made with lighter more slender stocks and larger trigger guards to accommodate the Indian's propensity to use two fingers to pull the trigger.  An earlier gun stock also may have contained at least small knots since it was requested that they not have knots.  Barrel lengths in 1729 were ordered in 3ft and 3 1/2 ft lengths.  As for side plates, exactly how far back the serpent goes Gooding can't nail down.  He believes that references to 30 odd years of orders including the requirement that the side plates be polished referrers to serpent side plates seems odd to me.  If the side plates needed to be polished and not delivered straight from the mold I would lean toward a flat plate of some sort since the molds for the serpent side plates would have to have enough detail in them that polishing wouldn't be all that necessary unless the polishing reference was to remove excess flash from the serpent side plate (but that is just a guess on my part).

I've probably babbled on too long and still didn't hit your topic but maybe this will help a bit. :hey-hey

tg:
Good post, with good points, the evolution of the sepentine plate is shown as Hamilton sees it thru his research, if accurate then there is a problem with the dateing of the gun from Goodings book I have tossed this out on a couple of forums and e-mailed a friend, I manly researched the early French guns and did not get into a lot of detail on the early English as theone I had fit my thing at the time (post 1800, thanks for the reply. it is a good question as to how long something must be "as so" to be recogbizable by name, and it could still have small changes in furniture and such as time went on, thus a way to date the guns if the various changes were recorded.

Sir Michael:
Regarding the Serpent Side Plate.  I was thinking about it while in the woods this morning and I began to wonder if somewhere in the London Archives there is a request from one of the Factories or Forts requesting that the Scroll Side Plate be modified to look like a Snake.  

Regarding the dating of the Wilson Gun, from my reading of Gooding's Book it is based primarily on the number 51 stamped on the lock which is presumed to be 1751.  As for the side plate dating it latter, his tracking of side plate development shows that comparable Serpent Side Plates go back as far as 1676.

For anything as utilitarian as an Indian Trade Gun to have survived in any form for over 200 years is amazing no matter what you think of it.

tg:
I got a lot of answers on a couple of other forums, the Wilson guns used that plate from 1751 thru the 180'0s, the NW gun evolved in the north via orders and specs from the companies, the Carolina gun died out due to the revolution in the south or something to that general effect.

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