Rifle (or Musket) Barrel In Fantastic Shape

[paleomaxx]

I was detecting around an old cellar hole and I got a blasting surface signal. It's a pretty trashy site with lots of sheet iron chunks so when I kicked over the leaves and saw an iron pipe I was going to toss it towards my iron pile when I took a closer look and noticed it wasn't exactly a pipe.



There were little eye holes and it took me a second to realize that I had found a gun barrel! And since it was just under the leaves it's in absolutely incredible shape for an iron relic.



There are three of the eye holes going down the barrel and the end even has the little sight.



The end is crimped nearly closed which is sort of odd. I also haven't been able to figure out which gun it's from. I couldn't find any other gun pieces nearby and I not as familiar with the civil war era guns to recognize if it's from that time period. The inside isn't rifled though so I'm leaning towards a musket of some kind, but what do you guys think?



I'm really happy about this find; I've had a stellar year so far finding gun parts but this one really takes the cake for me!

 

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[Fullstock]

The eye holes as you called them are barrel lugs. When the barrel is in the gun stock, small pins are pushed through the wood and through the lug holes to hold the barrel in place. Neat find.

 

[Peyton Manning]

Gonna guess shotgun barrel, looks like a big bore

 

[bologna321]

The eye holes as you called them are barrel lugs. When the barrel is in the gun stock, small pins are pushed through the wood and through the lug holes to hold the barrel in place. Neat find.

Its either and old barrel due to the wood going most of the way to the end of the barrel, or from some kind of mannlicher stock (which is not likely). Not sure if shotgun or musket.

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Congrats on the nice relic!

 

[CAgem]

Black powder is very corrosive and many of the guns recovered from my husband's relatives were corroded around the nipple end or had that part replaced. I wonder if that is what happened to this poor barrel.

 

[paleomaxx]

Black powder is very corrosive and many of the guns recovered from my husband's relatives were corroded around the nipple end or had that part replaced. I wonder if that is what happened to this poor barrel.

That would make sense. The side of the foundation where I found this had a distinctly trash-pit feel so it may have been replaced and discarded. The ground at this site is so rocky that almost everything I found was a surface find including pieces as old as the 1840's so not much in the way of contextual clues there.

 

[A2coins]

Good job that a nice relic hope you get an I'd. Tommy

 

[RVRoamer74]

That's the kind of iron we like to see. Awesome save on the barrel. Very nice find.

 

[NHBandit]

Could be much older than Civil War also. And the big bore makes me think so. Can you get a rough estimate of the size of the bore ? The way it's held to the stock with the the barrel lugs reminded me of the barrel on the Brown Bess musket I recently restored. The bayonet lug/front sight tells me it's military as well. A typical Revolutionary War period Brown Bess is .75 caliber. Huge compared to a Civil War barrel and easily mistaken for a shotgun barrel since they were not rifled. Here's the barrel from my Brown Bess. Note the same type of lugs on the bottom and the bayonet lug on top.. Is the breech end missing ? It looks to be cut off. If so that's a shame because we could tell if it was a percussion musket or a flintlock. In my picture you can see the flash hole on the far right just in front of the tang typical of a flintlock barrel.

 

[Inspector]

Awesome find, good luck with an ID on it, congratulations & HH

 

[Digger RJ]

Nice!!! Congrats!!!

 

[Hillbilly Prince]

I am curious about the bore also. Is it common to find something which appears so old under leaves? That made me wonder it is a reproduction for a moment but I know nothing about relic hunting in your area. Black powder is very corrosive as CAgem said. Be really cool if it was a ten gauge duck gun.
Very cool find

 

[Joe-Dirt]

On one hand it looks like a fowler barrel, but it also has enough meat to be a rifle. Definitely not military as military weapons had their barrels secured with bands and not pins (in the US) although a few models come to mind like 1803 Harper’s ferry rifle. Check the breach are for arsenal proof marks (eagle, P, US, VP, etc) very cool find!! Congrats

 

[CreakyDigger]

You should be able to tell if it is rifled or smoothbore by looking..are there grooves inside?

 

[port ewen ace]

not what we call a "boring" post. SUWEEEEET find

 

[paleomaxx]

I am curious about the bore also. Is it common to find something which appears so old under leaves? That made me wonder it is a reproduction for a moment but I know nothing about relic hunting in your area. Black powder is very corrosive as CAgem said. Be really cool if it was a ten gauge duck gun.
Very cool find

Thank you! Definitely not common to find old artifacts right under the leaves, but the geology of this are is fairly unique. There are multiple sites along this road and the entire area has series of rock ledges right below the surface. There actually isn't a traditional cellar hole, but a square built up and into a sheer rock face. There's no loam layer and only a few inches of hard clay before the bedrock below. I haven't had a chance to clean and post them yet, but I found 1800's intact bottles also right under the leaves here too and an ~1850's suspenders buckle as well. Very odd but it's cool to see the relics right there and at least I know I'm the first to search this site too!

 

[paleomaxx]

Could be much older than Civil War also. And the big bore makes me think so. Can you get a rough estimate of the size of the bore ? The way it's held to the stock with the the barrel lugs reminded me of the barrel on the Brown Bess musket I recently restored. The bayonet lug/front sight tells me it's military as well. A typical Revolutionary War period Brown Bess is .75 caliber. Huge compared to a Civil War barrel and easily mistaken for a shotgun barrel since they were not rifled. Here's the barrel from my Brown Bess. Note the same type of lugs on the bottom and the bayonet lug on top.. Is the breech end missing ? It looks to be cut off. If so that's a shame because we could tell if it was a percussion musket or a flintlock. In my picture you can see the flash hole on the far right just in front of the tang typical of a flintlock barrel.

I did look inside the non-crimped end and I didn't see any sign of rifling; I'll check again with a stronger light, but I would be beyond excited if this is a brown bess barrel! The breech end does have marks that could be where it was cut, but there's no sign of a flash hole. I'll get some better measurements of the inside diameter posted too.

UPDATE

Definitely no rifling inside and the diameter of the breech end (which shows signs of being snapped off) is 5/8".