Trade gun barrels

[Shovelbuck]

Thinking about building a short trade gun and am wondering if any were built using all round barrels instead of octagon to round.

[Hungry Horse]

I would suspect that if they did build any all round barrels, they would have been percussion. Even the late percussion trade guns from Hollis and son, and the many Belgium built versions with British names on them seem to all be OTR.

 Hungry Horse

[Seth Isaacson]

I suppose that depends on how loosely you define "trade gun." I've never seen a Northwest Gun with anything but an octagon to round barrel, including really late 19th century/early 20th century guns with percussion breech plugs and Enfield rifle-musket style locks.

[rich pierce]

Thinking about building a short trade gun and am wondering if any were built using all round barrels instead of octagon to round.

A cool short, round barreled gun is a military cavalry carbine. Several are shown in Jim Mullins’ book Of Sorts for Provincials. Usually large bore though. 12-16 gauge.

[54ball]

 I have seen quite a few round barreled guns on mostly rifle styled stocks. They were not trade guns... not even Smooth rifles or fowling guns...they were just simple flint round barreled guns...general purpose, maybe militia or farm guns, some being rather late. None had what I would call a short barrel.

Trade guns tend to have oct-round with the wedding band. Just about all had long barrels in original form.

 You can build what you want.... from a simple generic round barred gun... to a specific type of trade gun. Do some research and find what you want.

[redheart]

The book "For Trade & Treaty"  Firearms of the American Indians. pg.175 shows a Northwest gun circa 1841 made by Tryon, Son & Co. for a government contract using a .69 cal. tapered round barrel of  military surplus origin bearing U.S. Government  Military Proofs.

[Shovelbuck]

Thanks everyone. While the guns I build are "PC", that's "personally correct", I do like them to at least have a little historical context.  I've got a couple 12 gauge, tapered round barrels, looks like one might get used for this build.

[RichG]

The Fuller collection at the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National military park in Georgia has an Indian musket with a full round tapered barrel. english scroll guard flint and .56 cal. neat looking gun. Evidently made for gov. trade with the Indians.