Weird flintlock rifle

newnan man

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Aug 8, 2005
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One of my workers told me he had an old flintlock rifle his grandfather left him.
He sent me these pics which I thought were unusual looking for a gun.
His story is it's an early Afghan rifle. Supposedly they would take a flintlock off a dead British
Soldier and redo it to look like this. Nothing's changed, the Afghani's would hide in caves and shoot
the Brits who never really conquered the country. Here we are 300 years later with super sophisticated
weapon's and the Afghani's are hiding in cave's shooting the hell out of everything and no one is really
changing anything.
 

Interesting that it has a frizzen stall on it .....any close ups of lock and markers marks
 

The lock is of the style from a Third Model East India Pattern ("Bess") of 1795 to . . . when they wore out.

They are called "Jezail". Usually they have a clunky Spanish or African miquelet lock - so yours is sleeker (and likely a better performing overall). Even so, at the time of British Occupation it was found the rifled versions could far outrange the Bess muskets and the British took some punishment from the Afghans.

PS - the hex nut on the top jaw screw is a later addition. ;-)
 

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I was hoping you all had more info, thanks. He did say his grandfather told him the Afghani's would snipe the hell out of the British officers. I guess that makes sense, shoot the officers and the army is without leadership. I heard that's still true today. Shoot the officers & radio men. Everyone else is thrown into chaos.
 

The British badly underestimated the Afghans. But then so did the Russians and Americans.

The last fully successful invader in the region was Genghis Khan. His generals and soldiers didn't bother trying to sort out civilians vs. combatants and just destroyed everyone they could overtake. The Mongols completely wiped out the three largest Kush cities of the time. The next 150 years were probably the longest "peace" that has existed in the historical record of the region.
 

Very cool rifle! :occasion14:
 

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