Just returned from Munyamadzi in the Luangwa having spent a very pleasant few days with Thor Kirchner. During our stay his anti poaching unit busted a camp of ivory poachers and whilst no arrests the team collected a couple of guns and one in particular was a very substantial black powder muzzleloader which was bought back loaded! Having deactivated it we took a few pictures of the rifle and assorted ammunitions of this oversized gun which was surprising well constructed.

But why no arrest Andrew..?

Out of curiosity was it homemade or did it have some makers mark on it?

quote:

Originally posted by Cougarz:
Out of curiosity was it homemade or did it have some makers mark on it?

Homemade and looks like a copy of some flintlock?

Where do they get caps from?

quote:

Originally posted by BenKK:
Where do they get caps from?

Probably modified from s shotgun cartridge or some sort of cup that hold a match head?

If you look closely there are two caps stuck to the inside of the trigger guard with some sort of sticky tar. The padding at the rear of the guard I presume is to protect the knuckle from recoil?

I don't think I would want to try elephant hunting with a TC big boar muzzleloader in .58 caliber.
Any guess on caliber of this one?

Thanks, Andrew. Fascinating. It'd be terrifying getting close enough for it to have a hope.

I can't really tell from the one photo of the lock area, but my guess is that the gun was assembled from a bunch of old parts. Building its breechplug/tang/nipple combination is beyond the capabilities of someone with a crude forge, a drill and a couple of files.

As for the lock, I made a percussion lock from scratch years ago, so it can be done. It took three or four tries at annealing, shaping and hardening before I had a mainspring that didn't break the first time I cocked it. Indenting the hammer's nose so it would strike caps squarely was just as difficult.

It would be interesting to know that gun's full history.

Bill Quimby

Wow!
Can't tell for sure, is it a smooth bore or does it have rifling?
I second that question, What caliber?
Looks bigger than the .72 I have.

Quite the slugs too.

Thanks for sharing Andrew, that's collectors items for sure.

George

quote:

Originally posted by georgeld:
Wow!
Can't tell for sure, is it a smooth bore or does it have rifling?
I second that question, What caliber?
Looks bigger than the .72 I have.

Quite the slugs too.

Thanks for sharing Andrew, that's collectors items for sure.

George

Hi George,

Smooth bore and the diameter was about an inch. Thor could put his thumb down the barrel.

In the old days the Portuguese left a lot of rifles such as these which they traded for ivory. I presume it is a copy or is using some of the original parts? I would say that this gun has seen the demise of many elephant and buffalo in its time.

Sadly it has to be surrendered to the Wildlife Department.

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
Hi George,

Smooth bore and the diameter was about an inch. Thor could put his thumb down the barrel.

In the old days the Portuguese left a lot of rifles such as these which they traded for ivory. I presume it is a copy or is using some of the original parts? I would say that this gun has seen the demise of many elephant and buffalo in its time..

.. Not to mention a few poachers when it didn't get the job done!

There were a lot of companies back a few years that put together these old junk muzzleloaders and called them "TRADE GUNS" used to trade to the locals for ivory! many of the blew up on the first shot.

....................................................................

Andrew;

Could this be the type of weapon that was used to poach the elephants we found?

Regards, Darin

What's the chance of you talking them out of it for a keepsake?

Inch, that would be close to a 4bore wouldn't it? Can you measure some of the slugs that fit well? Half looks like roller bearings from here. They lead or steel? Ha!
Cheers!

George

quote:

Originally posted by georgeld:
What's the chance of you talking them out of it for a keepsake?

Inch, that would be close to a 4bore wouldn't it? Can you measure some of the slugs that fit well? Half looks like roller bearings from here. They lead or steel? Ha!
Cheers!

George

Hi George,

It is a long process mate. Normally they pile and burn them. I have seen such guns with octagonal barrels and in relatively good shape. At one time I tried to approach the relevant department to deactivate them and sell them as antiques.

Most projectiles are tempered steel rod or as you have correctly identified the roller out of a large bearing. There were some lead balls which were for another lesser rifle that was confiscated.

Unfortunately I did not measure them and they are now in the hands of the Police.

Cheers

Andrew

quote:

Originally posted by D. Nelson:
Andrew;

Could this be the type of weapon that was used to poach the elephants we found?

Regards, Darin

No Darin and those elephant were shot a few paces apart from each others. Such weapons are cumbersome to reload and the hunter/poacher always goes for a lung shot and then follows up the animal.

It appears to be a Tower Musket in .577. British regiments in South Africa would upgrade to weapons like Syderstone and then their old Tower muskets would get into the system as trade guns.

I bought one many years ago and brought in a couple of Minie moulds and shot it for years before relegating it to a place on rhe wall.

There were no visible markings on mine apart from "Tower" and "1858" but underneath, hidden by the fore end was inscribed "John Clive" (not to be confused with "Clive of India") who was probably the maker.

I pulled off the breach plug and had the barrel inspected by a gunsmith prior to firing it. There were the vestiges of two lands and two grooves.

A brass but plate was affixed, which bore the erial number 12/99 crudely stamped in. This was apparently the regimental number. Indicating it was the 12th musket issued to the 99th Lanarkshire Regiment of Foot (I might be a little rusty on rhe actual numbers - it's been a number of years and I no longer have it). The 99th left South Africa in 1865.

Snyder. Butt-plate. Is it now considered hate speech to wish to desecrate the graves of all the ancestors of the thing that created spell-check?

Used to see bales of such things in the Offisi ya Mali Asili in Tanzania - though the preponderance of poachers weapons seemed to be Greener Jungle Carbines - 12 bore GP Martini actions with very substantial 20 inch smoothbore barrels. Doctored 12 gauge shells could be filled with pretty much anything to obtain meat.

I doubt though that such weapons were ever used against elephant but just to satisfy the ever present craving for meat. Though I too have found chipped out ele skulls in the bush... so who knows? I imagine most poachers now use the ubiquitous AK47/74 or the G3?

(As an aside, having tired many times of doing the 400 metres through the bush after guinea fowl I gave up and several times gave my ancient AYA to Hasani the game scout with two shells. He puts one in the right barrel and the other in his pocket "kwa bado" and uses the slow and careful technique on the kanga. Took eight with one shot one time... What happened bado? Was I supporting poaching - with Holland & Holland shotgun shells?)

(As another nearly unrelated aside about 5 years ago when working in Kuwait I went on a day trip to Failaka Island in the Gulf - near the Shat al Arab channel and very close to Iran. It was left pretty much undisturbed after the invasion and in amongst the dead T54s and drifts of spent cases is a small "museum" (bit of an overstatement) composed from the Sheiks old palace - very homely. Anyway as there were no other "tourists" we got chatting to the guide and he let me rake through the piles of old weapons - a real mixture of old ex-Indian Army muskets and "bitzas" - the empire obviously exported barrels, actions, and other parts to all its corners for others to play with. There was also a really ancient matchlock, all inlaid and a true work of art - to the stock of which some helpful soul had added a huge chunk of builders foam to soften the blow from the vicious stock. Interesting place)

Those guys clearly aren't members here on AR. Someone needs to inform them you can only hunt African big game with a CRF rifle with at least 5000lbft of muzzle energy!

I just finished F C Selous' book "A Hunters Wandering in Africa". His favorite elephant gun was 4 bore double barrel muzzle loader throwing a 4 ounce slug. His medium gun was a 10 bore muzzleloader.
Later in his career, he switched to cartridge rifles but considered the .450/400 and .500 NE as marginally adequate. He always went for heart/lung shots and then followed the elephants on foot or horseback. As an FYI you can download the book on the kindle app/amazon for $1 and Patterson"s MAneaters of Tsavo is free to download.

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
I just finished F C Selous' book "A Hunters Wandering in Africa". His favorite elephant gun was 4 bore double barrel muzzle loader throwing a 4 ounce slug. His medium gun was a 10 bore muzzleloader.
Later in his career, he switched to cartridge rifles but considered the .450/400 and .500 NE as marginally adequate. He always went for heart/lung shots and then followed the elephants on foot or horseback. As an FYI you can download the book on the kindle app/amazon for $1 and Patterson"s MAneaters of Tsavo is free to download.

Interesting to note that in Selous time there were virtually no elephant in the Zambezi valley as they had been shot out by Portuguese traders who contracted communities to conduct the hunting by trading firearms etc for Ivory.

"Ahhhh Starin down the barrel of a gun, son of a gun , son of a bitch, gettin lucky gettin rich. "

Great pics

Although there is a lot of muzzle wear, this is a rifled barrel. It looks like the old Metford polygonal rifling. If this is near a 1" bore then it is near the old four bore elephant killers. It also appear that the lock has been altered from flintlock ignition. The screw holes for the frizzen and frizzen spring have been plugged, although the bolster for the percussion drum is an odd fit. I suspect it was an original piece from around the 1860's or so with much workover through the years. That hammer has been built up/soldered in at least two places. Making caps shouldn't bee too much of a challenge, but to make them dependable, that's a whole nuther story.

Very interesting Andrew.
Enjoyed reading all the posts.
Thanks for sharing.