Spanish Muskets

[Clark Badgett]

Visited the nice folks at The Rifle Shoppe today and picked up Spanish M1757 musket parts. Anyone here ever build one?

[Clark Badgett]

Wow. There seems to be zero Spanish love here. 

[RichG]

there was a gentleman at the Oregun gunmakers fair a couple of years ago who had a
spanish musket he built. Interesting peice with the mainspring on the outside of the lock plate. Ron Scott might remember who it was.
It's interesting with all the Spanish influence in the S.W. fur trade more Spanish influenced gun aren't found or replicated.

[alacran]

Wow. There seems to be zero Spanish love here. 

Actually I love Spanish guns, specially the Escopetas.
I'll have to go out to the shop and look at the TRS catalog. I don't recall a 1757 musket, but I do like the 1752, with the French lock. I know in 1755 they went to an iron rammer instead of the wooden one the 1752 used.
But I do prefer the 1791, when the Spanish regained their senses and replaced the French lock with a stronger and more dependable Miguelet .

[deepcreekdale]

Just finished one for a customer. Nice collection of parts, no major problems with it. Do watch your barrel though. They use a somewhat generic Colerain barrel, though, it is a  few inches too long and has a wedding band between the octagon and round where it should be a gradual transition. Easily shortened and the transition area is easily fixed with a file and some draw filing.
My friend Guido is right, it is listed in the catalog as a 1752 model, it was changed a little over it's production run, iron vs brass, wood vs steel ramrod. And I whole heartedly agree, the patilla or miquelet lock is far more reliable and stronger than the french/english/german style of lock.

[Clark Badgett]

Wow. There seems to be zero Spanish love here. 

Actually I love Spanish guns, specially the Escopetas.
I'll have to go out to the shop and look at the TRS catalog. I don't recall a 1757 musket, but I do like the 1752, with the French lock. I know in 1755 they went to an iron rammer instead of the wooden one the 1752 used.
But I do prefer the 1791, when the Spanish regained their senses and replaced the French lock with a stronger and more dependable Miguelet .

The 1757 was the 1752 with brass furnishings. How the front sling swivel was mounted seems to have changed over the years but no one seems to know when.

[Clark Badgett]

Dale, I figured you would eventually chime in. Great job on that musket. A couple of questions. Did the Spanish use European walnut like most others or what? And I’ve yet to find any imagery of the molding around the tang area. How did they treat this area?

[Reegee/Flint]

Would like to see some close up pictures of the lock area. Also any Spanish pistol pictures. 

[Water Sheltie]

"It's interesting with all the Spanish influence in the S.W. fur trade more Spanish influenced gun aren't found or replicated."


Spanish Escopetas or parts have showed up all over the place, whether though trade, or theft.
One of the interesting paintings, is of a Trapper carrying a Escopeta with Fort Williams Canada in the back ground. Its based on a medallion stamped around 1700.
The Spanish history in the US is fascinating, not many people realize where and when they explored, and what they established.   

[fahnenschmied]

Friend of mine built a Rifle Shoppe one, with the French type lock.  Neat musket, which blends French, Dutch and Prussian styling.

[Clark Badgett]

Friend of mine built a Rifle Shoppe one, with the French type lock.  Neat musket, which blends French, Dutch and Prussian styling.

I'm not seeing the Dutch or Prussian. French most certainly. In fact they look like a French 1746 and Trade fusil had a baby.

[Goo]

I have an interest in Spanish guns as well and after some thought processing the obvious occurred to me that I was participating in the "American Longrifles Forum" and not the Iberian guns forum.  I have never actually found original Spanish guns to look at even though I am a native Floridian living in my home state.   I have however acquired an original miquelete lock for a musket it was so much more refined than the one i would be a able to produce from the casting set I purchased from one of the countries more prestigious suppliers.   Building a Spanish gun was problematic especially if I wanted it to fall within the realm of reality and not be a fantasy build.     I have Just not found enough information on what was done and how to reproduce one accurately.    Building in the American style is a much more achievable goal because that is the dominant source of info and there is a large group of people supporting the craft.  just my two cents 

[alacran]

There is actually plenty of info on Spanish guns. Though there isn't a lot of measurements to go with it. One must go by photos and scaling them .
I believe there are some Spanish guns at the Castillo San Marcos in St Augustine. Maybe Deepcreek Dale will chime in on other places in FL where you can see Spanish guns.
When George Rogers Clark assaulted Ft Sackville ( Vincennes IN ), his men were using 1752 Spanish muskets. Also their uniforms were made from Spanish cloth, sewn by French seamstresses in Kaskaskia.

[fahnenschmied]

Friend of mine built a Rifle Shoppe one, with the French type lock.  Neat musket, which blends French, Dutch and Prussian styling.

I'm not seeing the Dutch or Prussian. French most certainly. In fact they look like a French 1746 and Trade fusil had a baby.

The large protruding screw heads on the buttplate are often seen on Dutch muskets, and the jaws of the cock are faceted, if I remember right, in the manner of many Prussian weapons.  Buttplate and trigger guard look more French civil, and bands, sort of  French/Austrian in style.
 

[Clark Badgett]

Friend of mine built a Rifle Shoppe one, with the French type lock.  Neat musket, which blends French, Dutch and Prussian styling.

I'm not seeing the Dutch or Prussian. French most certainly. In fact they look like a French 1746 and Trade fusil had a baby.

The large protruding screw heads on the buttplate are often seen on Dutch muskets, and the jaws of the cock are faceted, if I remember right, in the manner of many Prussian weapons.  Buttplate and trigger guard look more French civil, and bands, sort of  French/Austrian in style.
 

The large headed buttplate screws can be found on various French muskets at times, I've always considered the faceted jaws and the ringed jaw screw to be a holdover from the miquolet locks. The Austrians and Spanish copied the banded muskets of the French which were rather advanced for that time. Both seemed to deviate with similar upper bands, but the Austrians didn't adopt it until 2 years after the Spanish.

[Goo]

I read someplace that German or back then would have been Prussian Immigrants to Spain/ Iberian peninsula had the biggest influence on their gun making industry.      Ive been to Castillo San Marcos several times and never seen much on display.   There seems to be an equal amount of information of the British occupation period as anything else.  Perhaps I was disengaged during my visit.

[Clark Badgett]

Goo, if you think about it, there seems to be some stylistic overlap between French and Germanic locks. Sometimes other parts as well. I’ve often wondered if the biggest difference between the two is the presence of rifling and the need to modify parts for such. English style usually screams English, Continental style ain’t always so cut and dried.

[Hungry Horse]

 Although the Southern edges of America are the likely spot to find Spanish influenced guns, it’s not the only place. California had a lot of Spanish speaking peoples, and artifacts. Also you must remember the crowns of Europe were all intermarried. So, Spanish influenced gun can be found in some of the most unlikely places.

Hungry Horse

[Goo]

Although the Southern edges of America are the likely spot to find Spanish influenced guns, it’s not the only place. California had a lot of Spanish speaking peoples, and artifacts. Also you must remember the crowns of Europe were all intermarried. So, Spanish influenced gun can be found in some of the most unlikely places.

Hungry Horse

Quite true! One of my ancestors led the first documented European expedition traveling to what is today the Kansas city area. In another adventure his wife`s dowry was sacrificed to finance an expedition of the California coast up to somewhere near the edge the NW area of the US.   He would have been better off staying in Mexico and building aqueducts and developing technology.

[deepcreekdale]

I read someplace that German or back then would have been Prussian Immigrants to Spain/ Iberian peninsula had the biggest influence on their gun making industry.      Ive been to Castillo San Marcos several times and never seen much on display.   There seems to be an equal amount of information of the British occupation period as anything else.  Perhaps I was disengaged during my visit.

The Spanish had a very well developed arms industry and had breechloading and repeating flintlocks when the Germans and French were trying to perfect matchlocks. In James Lavins book on Spanish arms there are photos of these from the mid 1600's. Spanish arms manufacturing went back to Roman times. Later there were some high end German gunsmiths working for the Spanish Crown but they worked in the Spanish style.
The staff at Castillo San Marcos tends to be reticent about showing their guns, which are all TRS built. Plus, they don't really actually know that much about what they are talking about at times. They said they equipped their volunteers with 1752 muskets because miquelets were "too hard on flints" and unreliable.  Anybody who has worked with miquelet style locks knows that is nonsense. They are easy on flints and with that massive mainspring, if you have no spark you must be using damp wood as a flint.

[Levy]

Often, on a Spanish archaeological site, used flints will be found that have become round in shape.  This is due to the fact that they would rotate the flint in the jaws of the cock and continue using it until it would no longer hold in the jaws.  The strong mainspring on a miquelet lock would usually make any flint spark that could be held in the jaws.  A Trabuco (blunderbuss carbine with a slight muzzle swell) was found on one of the 1715 Plate Fleet wrecks that I was able to work on.  It was set up for horseback use with a long sash hook on the left side.  It was signed on the barrel, "Mexico", "Ramirez", and Anno 1709.  Ramirez and 1709 were repeated on the back of the frizzen.  15 years later, a matching pistol was recovered miles to the north that had the swelled barrel and the same markings.  James D. Lavin's book mentions two firearms in the big arms museum in Spain by the same maker that were dated 1708 and 1710 and they were both repeaters with a long magazine under the barrel (one is pictured in his book).  James Levy

[Clark Badgett]

Great! Another book for me to locate. 

[DavidC]

I think the lack of love for the Spaniards is because I blame them for the wild pig problem. 

[Craig Wilcox]

Quite right on the feral pig problem, but they DO make excellent targets for our muzzle-loading rifles!

[BOB HILL]

I didn't know wild hogs  were a problem. Please pass me another pork chop.
Bob