Sealing guns.

[Pukka Bundook]

Guns for seal -hunting I mean in the above title gents.
Does anyone have pictures or information?

I gather Hudson Bay used to sell such guns, and they were used on sleds and such like for shooting seals on the ice.
I have a terrible old lock that May have been fitted to one of these.   By the 'W' on the lock plate, it May be a Ketland.
It looks rather older than it is, as it is a flint -lock with at one time a dog catch, but by the vertical sear, it is not a 17th century lock.

Anyway boys, any info or photos of these odd pieces would be most welcome.    I looked on -line, but found more or less nothing.

Best regards,
Richard.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Years ago, my old boss and friend the late Don Robinson showed my several sealing guns he had in his collection.  They were all percussion, were massive, and very roughly made.  They had bores well over an inch in diameter and very long barrels.  I suspect he sold them before he died.

[Daryl]

This, from "THE SPORTING RIFLE AND ITS PROJECTILES" page 82.

"In "Gunnery" in 1858, W. Greener wrote:
  For other purposes than war, rifles will continue to be constructed on the polygroove principle, and with spherical bullets.  The perfect destruction of various
animals is dependent generally on two causes - the penetration into the body, and the shock to the system during that act of penetration.  No doubt exists that
a spherical bullet would combine these two qualities best.  The 25 bore, the 32 and 50 hexagonal bore would be, practically speaking, useless for the killing of
elephants, tigers, etc.
   The effectual and instant killing of seals on ice is an illustration; failing to kill a seal dead, he will, to a certainty, reach his hole in the ice, and disappear,
to the shooters serious disappointment. Small bore elongated bullets were very rapidly adopted, and as rapidly abandoned. The did not kill dead; the spherical
ball did this better.  It would be wise to pause and consider whether a good military rifle is a good game-shooting rifle or not; whether the hole in the beast be
wide enough, I am inclined to think the reduction to a bore of 25 (.577"), too small for this purpose."

All hail rifles pf decent bore size!

[Elnathan]

The Newfoundland Sealing Guns are a bit of a school unto themselves, I believe. There is one pictures in Boarders Away!, vol 2, and two are pictured in Hanson's Firearms of the Fur Trade . I don't have that volume of Boarders Away, but I do have a scan of Hanson's book showing the sealing guns, and one of them, fitted with a post 1813 barrel, has a three-screw lock on it that looks like an old Queen Anne style lock (it must be enormous!) and sounds much like you describe, though without any provision for a dog.

One of the distinctive things about Newfoundland Guns is that they were made without triggerguards. The two in Hanson's book share other similarities as well - both have sort of generic 19th century shotgun buttstocks, long, big bored barrels (the flintlock has one 54" bored .88 cal and the percussion 52" bored at .82), and have bands rather than pins holding the barrel in the stock. Not very refined looking guns.

I think the Newfoundland guns were stocked up by the locals, rather than being imported - they certainly have some unique features. IIRC, Boarders Away remarks that they typically show the use of recycled barrels and other parts.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Your description of these unique firearms is exactly as I remember.

[Pukka Bundook]

Thanks to all for your valuable replies.
Any pictures or photos would be appreciated  as well.

ElNathan,
Huge lock, yes, in this case.    The hammer (frizzen) spring is pretty well the size of the mainspring on a Brown Bess lock.  :-)
It needs a good deal of work to get it working, but the interesting part to me, is that I know little about these.  Thanks Taylor and Daryl, for filling in a few details!
Most appreciated !

This is the only photo I have of the overall lock. The other lock mounted to woodworm, is an EIC Henshaw lock, of 1797.

[Hudnut]

I have one.  Will take some photos tomorrow.  Large single shot full stock smoothbore.
Many of these guns had a hole through the butt.  A loop would be worked through it, and connected by a line to the gunwale of the dory.  Snubbed tight, it would help absorb some recoil - and keep the gun from being lost overboard.
I, too, have heard that these were stocked up on this side of the Atlantic.
I will say that mine was professionally stocked up, even though it is basic.  Maybe there was a gunsmith in St. Johns who assembled guns for the Water Street merchants.  Maybe it cost less to have the guns set up in Newfoundland using Birmingham metal parts than to buy complete guns from Birmingham.
 The barrel is retained by the tang screw and a worked copper band.
Back in the '60s, I worked with a Newfoundlander who had grown up in an outport.  He referred to the muzzle loading guns as "three quarters" and "seven eighths".  A three quarters was a double gun, probably 12 bore.  A seven eighths was the large single shot, say 8 bore.
These guns were still in use.  The load for the big gun was a fired 12ga shell of powder, wadding of oakum, a fired 12ga shell of shot, and more oakum.  That would be a heavy kicking load.
It was a tradition to use these muzzle loading guns to fire salutes at weddings.

[Notchy Bob]

Pukka Bundook,

There was an article about sealing guns in the Canadian Journal of Arms Collecting, Vol. 4, No. 1 (February 1966).  You can buy a copy for five bucks from Joe Salter Antiques.  There was also an article about the sealing industry, with a discussion and a couple of illustrations of guns, in a back issue of the Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly, but I'll have to look through my collection to find which one.

Joe Salter also has at least one antique sealer's powder horn:  Seal Hunter's Powder Horn.  These, I understand, were usually quite large, had base plugs of cork, and the bases were frequently painted with a blue-green paint.  This is one of many views of the horn on Joe Salter's website:



I think someone posted images of a sealer's horn on this forum some time within the past year.  A search may find it.

Good luck!

Notchy Bob

[Hudnut]

Here are some images of the gun.  It is a fairly typical specimen.  Barrel is close to 4 feet long, pull is some 15 inches; it is a big gun.  Note that the lock originally had a dog catch.  Pilot hole for  loop through the buttstock, never opened out.  The ramrod tip is a long express rifle cartridge case.

[Pukka Bundook]

Hudnut,

Thank you for your  very informative contributions to this thread!
Very good and new to me information.    Can I ask how long your lock is, and what it is stamped with?
That charge would be  serious alright!
For some reason, it never dawned on me they would be using shot.

Notchy Bob,
Great photo and information on what Joe has!  Thank you for that.  I suppose these horns would hav eto be pretty large, if used throwing the charges  Hudnut mentions.
Again Very interesting info chaps.  Thank you!

Merry Christmas to you !!
Richard.

PS, I have a Thomas Bannister barrel, but only about 14 bore. (late 17th /early 18th C.) it is 53 inches long.    I doubt it could look right with the grerat big lock I have though!
I will post about this lock after Christmas, as it has some very interesting repairs.

[Hudnut]

The lock is 6 1/8" long.  I cannot decipher what is stamped on it.  The gun, while basically intact and functional, has been rode hard and put way wet.
These guns were also used for shooting rafted seabirds, punt gun style.  "Terrs" aka mures, etc.
As far as using shot for seal hunting, a friend's favourite gun for hunting seals from a boat was a Cooey 12ga 3" Magnum with 36" barrel, loaded with AAA (No. 4) buckshot.  Imagine being in a moving boat, shooting at a bobbing target the size of a grapefruit.
Incidentally, it is my understanding that these guns are now more often encountered outside Newfoundland than on the rock.  Tourists and antique dealers have bought up many of them.
They aren't particularly plentiful, but do turn up from time to time.  I bought this one at an auction.  I don't think anybody recognized it for what it was; bids were low.  It was catalogued as an "unknown percussion gun".

[Notchy Bob]

Pukka Bundook,

I found there was an entire issue of The Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly devoted to seal hunting, with two featured articles.  This was Vol. 35, No. 1, Spring 1999.  It is still available from the Museum of the Fur Trade as a single issue.  The articles were "Artifacts of the Seal Hunters," which is well illustrated and includes full-length lock-side views and close-up views of the locks of one flintlock and one percussion sealing gun.  These are probably the same two guns mentioned by Elnathan in his post, above.  The text indicates this flint lock is "7-5/8 inches in length." It has a reinforced or double-throated cock with a little notch for a dog catch, but no dog.  Both the lock plate and the cock are flat and utterly plain, with no visible ornamentation or engraving.  There is a pan bridle, however.

Evidently the fractional designations mentioned by Hudnut refer to the actual, if approximate, bore size, i.e. 7/8 = 0.875", and 3/4 = 0.750".

One additional reference which may be of interest is S. James Gooding's Trade Guns of the Hudson's Bay Company 1670-1970, pp. 85-86.  He illustrates a classic flintlock Newfoundland sealing gun, but discusses the similarity of these arms to earlier "Buccaneer guns."  I suspect a few may have been misidentified.

Regarding powder horns, I recall there was another article in a different back issue of The Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly devoted to Canadian powder horns, with a pretty good discussion of those used by the seal hunters.  Finding that article will be a project for another day, though.

Here is one more horn to admire.  This one was sold some years ago by River Junction Trade Co., of all places, and was identified as a "Maritime Horn."  It shows all the classic features of a seal hunter's horn, though, including the cork base and painted butt:








There was a previous thread on the "Antique Accoutrements" forum about a seal hunter's horn, right here:  An Original "Catalina" Newfoundland Powder Horn.  The discussion was interesting and initially a little misguided, but our ALR team kept on it until the horn was properly identified.

Best regards,

Notchy Bob

[Hudnut]

I wonder what the blue coating on the cork bases of the horns is.  A paint with a preferred colour, or a waterproofing/sealing material that happens to be blue?

[Daryl]

A 2 1/2" 12 bore shell holds about 215gr. of 2F GOEX. The standard load for an 8 bore round ball gun was 10 drams, or 273gr.
I used to shoot 190gr. in my 12 bore gun for 1,550fps with a 14 bore ball, a "cupped" wad to keep the ball centered. Shot very well
but did have 'some' recoil.

[Pukka Bundook]

Thanks to all for the links, info and all your replies!   Very good of you blokes to help out like you do So often!

Best regards,
Richard.

PS,
I'll put the lock up in another thread in appropriate section,as soon as I can get at it.

[Hudnut]

Here is a lock that I assembled many years ago.  I was thinking in terms of a late 17th century musket at the time, but it would probably wouldn't be inappropriate on one of the sealing guns.

[Pukka Bundook]

It looks just about right, Hudnut!

Mine is a bit too big unless a pretty big  barrel was used. Lock is 9 inches long.  Yours seems about perfect!...big, as they were but not Too big.

[Hudnut]

What are you considering to use for a barrel?

[Pukka Bundook]

I don't have anything suitable at present Hudnut.
In this thread, I was more or less asking  what these guns looked like, for sometime down the road, And to see if the lock I have possibly came from one of these.
Lock was found at a sale in England, BTW.

[Hudnut]

I suspect that the lock in your photo is from a wall gun.  Which isn't all that different from a sealing gun.  Other sealing guns I've seen have locks about the size of Brown Bess locks.  The gun trade would have had access to large generic musket locks which could have been used to set up plain, large bore working guns.