The Boutet gun was rather special, and one of 11 guns given by Napoleon to Carlos IV of Spain. Edward Impey, director general and master at the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds explains its significance in another installment of our historical hunting weapons series. BOUTET GUN In 1802 The King of…
Bertand Piraube was a gunmaker working in France in the seventeenth century. As part of our series on historical hunting weapons, Mark Murray-Fletcher explains the birth of an exquisite piece. THE PIRAUBE As technical innovation in gunmaking progressed so did the uses to which the firearm would be put. One…
The wheellock transformed warfare and shooting. Its place in the history of the shotgun and shooting is confirmed. The new mechanism, in existence by about 1500, employed an enclosed, sprung steel wheel, wound up by a spanner. It spun and struck sparks from a piece of iron pyrites held in…
