This Week's Edo Period Corner

[estcrh]

Eric, yes, the Hayago were sometimes called apostles in English. You could pre-pack these early cartridges with a known amount of powder and ball in the lull before action, and they could be used over and over subsequently.

 

Most Japanese Tanegashima matchlocks have a big fat screw that sits in the back of the barrel. It is called a Bisen. You can remove it for easy cleaning of the bore, once you can untighten it. They lock up after a few shots with powder residue etc. and can be tough to open without a key of some sort.

 

PS You can see my Bisen removed, about 1/3 of the way down the below page of this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2554&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=90

Piers, that picture explains it all, thanks

[Bugyotsuji]

Carlo, yes. Strangely among my friends here no-one will touch what they deem a Ryo-ju 'hunting' gun. They are looked down upon as being somehow inferior. Everyone wants a Gun-yo-zutsu or military gun. To tell you the truth, out of hundreds of Tanegashima matchlocks, I cannot actually recall ever having seen a 'hunting' gun per se. :lol: Perhaps it just means long guns of small caliber for small game?

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Perhaps it just means long guns of small caliber for small game?

 

Thanks, it is totally new to me. I suppose that after the "Pax Tokugawa" most of these lesser items were destroied.

 

I wander if fragmented shots were used for the type of game they had to engage...

[Bugyotsuji]

There were many kinds of shot.

 

What the farmers used I do not know, but this distinction between military and agricultural guns may carry on psychologically the tradition of rank separation between samurai at the top, and farmers in the next rank...ie 仕農工商

[Carlo Giuseppe Tacchini]

Makes sense to me.

[estcrh]

Carlo, yes. Strangely among my friends here no-one will touch what they deem a Ryo-ju 'hunting' gun. They are looked down upon as being somehow inferior. Everyone wants a Gun-yo-zutsu or military gun. To tell you the truth, out of hundreds of Tanegashima matchlocks, I cannot actually recall ever having seen a 'hunting' gun per se. :lol: Perhaps it just means long guns of small caliber for small game?

Piers, I have heard of Tanegashima being converted into a more modern type, have you ever seen one. Quite a while ago I saw what looked like a Tanegashima but it was a bolt action but I did not know enough about them at the time to be sure.

[John A Stuart]

It is strange to think how today the most common military rounds consist of around .30 calibre. I know there are others .223, etc., but, most are of this calibre. When the British attacked Bunker Hill much was made about how the rebels were armed with light squirrel muskets. These hovered around the .50 calibre mark. Military weapons of the British forces were the Brown Bess .75 calibre, .71 ball. Close up what a hole they would make. I makes you wonder how a squirrel would make a good stew pulverised by a .50 cal. projectile. Of course shooting greys out of trees with black powder may have smashed them out of the branches to be dispatched manually. John

[Basho12]

For guns that caliber you wouldn't shoot the squirrel directly. Most likely you'd "bark" it by striking the branch underneath. Either the wood shrapnel or the shock alone would get the squirrel.

[Bugyotsuji]

Piers, I have heard of Tanegashima being converted into a more modern type, have you ever seen one. Quite a while ago I saw what looked like a Tanegashima but it was a bolt action but I did not know enough about them at the time to be sure.

 

Tanegashima have followed many paths up to the present day, Eric. Many are still as they were, or have been taken back from modernization to their original look. These will all have their paperwork and stay happily within the Japanese context, registered as works with historical or artistic value.

 

The Tanegashima stock and barrel is pretty sturdy, so with a quick lock and pan fix they were able to evolve and be pressed into service with a temporary patch measure on many occasions. All you needed was a Teppo-kaji blacksmith and the know-how. I have seen all kinds of 'modernized' locks, but bolt action, not a lot, Eric. We must remember however, that they were all smooth bore. Perhaps by the advent of bolt action, rifling was a prerequisite, so only as a last measure or as an interesting mental challenge would they be made into bolt action. It would require too much work to change it into a breech loader and add the mechanism.

 

Japan has occasionally fallen on hard times and the family Tanegashima was pressed into service for bagging game in the mountains, I guess. I once owned a leather powder flask with remnants of blackpowder inside. The powder scoops were old brass rifle cartridges, with the edges worn on one side. What does this tell you about how late it was still in use?

[estcrh]

Piers, I have heard of Tanegashima being converted into a more modern type, have you ever seen one. Quite a while ago I saw what looked like a Tanegashima but it was a bolt action but I did not know enough about them at the time to be sure.

 

Tanegashima have followed many paths up to the present day, Eric. Many are still as they were, or have been taken back from modernization to their original look. These will all have their paperwork and stay happily within the Japanese context, registered as works with historical or artistic value.

 

The Tanegashima stock and barrel is pretty sturdy, so with a quick lock and pan fix they were able to evolve and be pressed into service with a temporary patch measure on many occasions. All you needed was a Teppo-kaji blacksmith and the know-how. I have seen all kinds of 'modernized' locks, but bolt action, not a lot, Eric. We must remember however, that they were all smooth bore. Perhaps by the advent of bolt action, rifling was a prerequisite, so only as a last measure or as an interesting mental challenge would they be made into bolt action. It would require too much work to change it into a breech loader and add the mechanism.

 

Japan has occasionally fallen on hard times and the family Tanegashima was pressed into service for bagging game in the mountains, I guess. I once owned a leather powder flask with remnants of blackpowder inside. The powder scoops were old brass rifle cartridges, with the edges worn on one side. What does this tell you about how late it was still in use?

Piers, your right..it would be a lot of work, could have just been the stock that was used in the one I saw.

[MrJones]

Piers, very nice indeed. "Bisen" seems to be analogous to a threaded breech plug in Western guns. On that subject, it's interesting to hear that the Japanese disdain civil, "hunting" guns in favour of the military pieces. From what I've read, in the West, the gun produced for a hunter - i.e. mostly for the reasonably wealthy squires and gentry - was generally superior to the "mass-produced" military firearms of the period, made to tighter tolerances and with possibly greater quality control. A source (which I don't have handy at work) noted that, in essence, a well-made 16th-century arquebus such as might be ordered by the wealthy nobility for hunting (or indeed for armed service) would shoot as well as, or better than, a military musket of the 18th or early 19th centuries, such as a common-or-garden Brown Bess, lock notwithstanding - and even then, a wheel-lock could, I'd expect, achieve reliability comparable to a flintlock; being so costly, a wheel-lock arquebus/musket would probably be a piece made for those of some considerable means.

 

Anyway, the practical side of this is that I'm surprised that the reverse was true in Japan. I'm not exactly hot on Japanese history, especially between the Sengoku-jidai and the Meiji restoration, but I thought the Tokugawa's antipathy toward firearms (at least in large-scale public use) would have meant that the only guns not made for military service would be high-quality hunting weapons for use by the wealthy and powerful, rather than the Japanese equivalent of a cheap-and-cheerful farmer's 12-bore.

[Bugyotsuji]

Yes, it is interesting when you put it so clearly like that, MrJones. Sakai guns may be a third way, closer to the West, highly decorated possessions of the rich merchant class.

[estcrh]

Carlo, yes. Strangely among my friends here no-one will touch what they deem a Ryo-ju 'hunting' gun. They are looked down upon as being somehow inferior. Everyone wants a Gun-yo-zutsu or military gun. To tell you the truth, out of hundreds of Tanegashima matchlocks, I cannot actually recall ever having seen a 'hunting' gun per se. :lol: Perhaps it just means long guns of small caliber for small game?

Piers, I have heard of Tanegashima being converted into a more modern type, have you ever seen one. Quite a while ago I saw what looked like a Tanegashima but it was a bolt action but I did not know enough about them at the time to be sure.

Here is a quote from Giving Up The Gun..by Noel Perrin page 75 "Early Japanese guns were astonishingly well made.........they were retired to government storehouses for a couple of centuries.......they were brought out and converted to percussion rifles for the new national army.....still later, at the time of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, some thousands of them were converted a second time, to bolt action rifles." He goes on to say that the American gun expert Robert Kimbrough wrote that he saw tanegashima with names and dates from the mid 1600s which were converted to bolt action rifles.

[Bugyotsuji]

Many thanks Eric. Noel Perrin takes a rather extreme position with which some people disagree, but his book is well worth reading. Food for thought. I must go back and read my copy again!

 

Interestingly, in light of Mr Jones above mentioning Western 'threaded breech plugs', the Japanese word Bisen actually means 'tail plug' even though it is threaded as a giant screw.

[David Zincavage]

I never knew that, Ian. Presumably some can be found in museums.

 

For anyone who has not come across these Japanese "Kayaku-dameshi" before, they were used for testing out the quality of gunpowder, thus the name. They are like miniature cannon, but held in one hand and set off by way of the touch-hole. Some have a separate vertical hole so that they could be pinned to a base or carriage in some similar way to Ian's description above. No mechanism, so they do not need registration papers.

 

The following two pics show the difference in caliber. The larger calibre of the copper one is another reason I went ahead and bought it. (...despite the price!).

 

These used to go for around 70,000~80,000 JPY a few years ago.

 

Someone just referred me to this thread after I asked if anyone had any information on what I thought was a very small Japanese handgun I picked up years ago.

 

http://zincavage.org/Handgun1.jpg

 

My specimen is clearly one of these.

 

David Zincavage

[watsonmil]

Dear David,

Although these tiny guns could ( and quite likely some ) are considered eprovettes ( powder tester ), ... the example you picture is more than likely a Netsuke ( a toggle fastened by a cord to an inro or tobacco pouch ) and hung from the Obi ( Japanese waist belt ). Note the suspension loop, ... and tiny size. If used as an eprovette it would little more than tell you if the powder would ignite. Trying to hang onto the little barrel and touching it off with a red hot wire would probably have given you little more than a severe powder burn. The other possibilities for this tiny a barrel, ... is that it may have served some wealthy gunner as a priming powder dribbler ( very fine black powder used for priming the flash pan ). In this case it would have had a tiny stopper which is now long gone. Another possibility is that it is simply a toy or novelty item. In any event, ... it is a most interesting little artifact. ... Ron Watson

[David Zincavage]

It is rather small for practical defensive use, but it is larger than a netsuke. It has a sight and a touch-hole. The bore is larger than .22 and smaller than .25. Since I doubt its stopping power, I lean to the eprovette hypothesis.

[Bugyotsuji]

It is rather small for practical defensive use, but it is larger than a netsuke. It has a sight and a touch-hole. The bore is larger than .22 and smaller than .25. Since I doubt its stopping power, I lean to the eprovette hypothesis.

 

I have only seen a couple of these here in Japan in recent years. They look a bit like butane bombs, or something! Probably designed to look like a miniature cannon. Size-wise and shape-wise, they could be used for a practical Netsuke, although they are a little heavy, but this would surely be a secondary function. The primary function would more likely be as you say as an eprouvette, with very little kick, and you could wear gloves or wind a cloth around it to avoid burns. They may even have had a rudimentary wooden rest/block/carriage originally.

 

Netsuke-deppo or Teppo-Netsuke for display on a silk Obi would generally tend to be lighter, quite intricate, and decorated.

[IanB]

Having just caught up with this thread so I hope you will permit a few comments on what was being discussed a couple of pages back. Firstly the conversion of matchlocks. My dear old friend Dr. W. Galeno had at one time a Japanese gun fitted with a Snider breech and an iron lock - thus it was a single shot breech loader. Whether or not this had started life as a Bizen matchlock is open to question. I confess I didn't take too much notice of it at the time. The butt was definitely in the matchlock tradition, but in its final configuration was only half-stocked. I'm afraid my memory of the barrel is vague but it was definitely round and I think it had the usual bulbous muzzle. It could have been a conversion but on balance I suspect it wasn't.

Ian Bottomley

[watsonmil]

Dear Ian et al,

I have a reasonable collection of old articles on the Japanese Matchlock. I wish now I'd have kept e-mail photos of various Japanese Tanegashima that I have been offered over the years, ... but alas since " conversions " were of little or no interest to me I did not. I know I was offered one that was bolt action, and definitely a conversion of a regular matchlock barrel to accept a bolt action ... this only a couple of years ago. Two other photos ( part of old magazine articles ) that I did save show what is definitely a model 1880 Murata action and barrel fitted to what had to be a customer ordered matchlock style stock. The other photo, ... again although I do not recognize the particular bolt action and barrel, most definitely also has a stock in matchlock style which was a custom order and not a conversion ( neither of the stocks show any indication of ever having had been inletted for a side lock ). It would appear to be simply a case of the original Japanese owners not likeing the shoulder type stocks of the more modern firearms, ... but preferring the old style of stock with the simple pistol type grip. Both of these " custom " rifles have to have been built post 1880. ... Ron Watson

[MrJones]

I find all this most interesting. I'm no expert (as if that weren't clear), but I'd expect, as I said in the other Tanegashima thread (well, the other current Tanegashima thread), that converting a smoothbore barrel, built around the sorts of pressures generated by black powder and firing a reasonably large bullet, to take a modern cartridge (i.e. a post-1884-ish, smokeless powder cartridge) would be not only difficult, but not particularly useful and possibly dangerous to boot. Even by 1883, European powers were moving, while retaining black powder as the propellant, to smaller bullets for their standard-issue cartridges, and one would have thought that attempting to discharge, say, an 8mm bullet down a 12.7mm (.50) barrel would have been a dodgy proposition when it comes to accuracy; even with, say, a .45 or an 11mm bullet, the windage would be on the same order as that exhibited by ordinary muzzle-loaders.

 

Is it perhaps possible that these weapons, if they were conversions, were all made in a small time period - say from ~1867 to ~1885? Or perhaps the Japanese who converted these weapons were able to purchase surplus, or obsolete ammunition for their weapons?

 

It seems much more likely that Ron and Ian have it - these "conversions" were modern action and barrel fittings added to a traditional stock. Perhaps many Japanese gunners found it decidedly jarring to move from their old Tanegashima to these strange Western things with big, flat, heavy stocks and butts, though I wonder what the recoil from a modern "nitro propellant" cartridge would feel like when transferred through a Tanegashima-style stock.

 

Also, and just to throw everyone - does anybody know why the Japanese went in for those vast, flared muzzles? It seems to me to be both a waste of metal - and thereby money - and an encumbrance, adding weight where one doesn't need it and unbalancing the piece. I await the enlightened responses with anticipation...

[watsonmil]

Dear Mr. Jones,

The reason for the bulbous muzzle is to allow for a higher mounting of the front sight, .... without the bulbous muzzle the front sight would have looked like the CN tower. The height at which the REAR sight had to be fixed to the barrel to allow for the unusual stance of the Japanese gunner, ... required a correspondingly higher FRONT sight. Where the bulbous muzzle is not seen, ... one will notice the barrel " swamped " ......... a term meaning the muzzle swells in diameter near the muzzle to accomplish the same solution, but without the bulbous appearance. Sighting a matchlock is much different from sighting a western type gun with a shoulder stock to take up the recoil. No one wants to rest their face up against and slightly over what is essentially a VERY long barreled pistol. The recoil is being taken up by the wrist and arms ... not the shoulder, ... so aiming ( sighting ) requires a somehat different position of the face. It must be kept higher and out of the way, ... otherwise you'd at the very least have a bruised and bloody cheek. ... Ron Watson

[IanB]

Ron et al, I concur about the need for the bulbous muzzle to lift the fore-sight. For years I was mystified about the back-sights on Japanese guns. They always struck me as being over elaborate with holes, slots and whatever running through them. Then I went to the Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya and found the answer - they were to take a fully adjustable ladder-backsights! In their catalogue they illustrate some that fit into a transverse hole through the sight block. I suspect those sights with L shaped slots took leaf-sights of different sizes - although I have never seen any. It is generally reckoned that the India Pattern musket was the most accurate of the British military smoothbore flintlocks with an effective range of about 170 yards. The idea of a smoothbore matchlock needing a ladder-sight seems to be pushing it a bit but they obviously used them. Since some also have adjustable trigger pulls, I wonder if they might be used for target shooting at longer ranges.

Ian Bottomley

[watsonmil]

Dear Ian,

Having been the Canadian Senior ( meaning adult ) 3 position Small Bore ( .22 ) rifle champion of Manitoba at the tender age of 14, and again at 15 years of age ( at 16 my interest took a turn towards girls ), and having participated in the Canadian National Matches those years and having placed very well, .... I also was invited by the Canadian Army Reserve at age 17 ( as a private contractor ) to teach long range marksmanship out to 900 yards ( full bore .303 ), .... and having spent the balance of my working career as both an explosives demolition contractor, and Antique Arms Dealer. During the past 40 + years I have fired everything from full size 9 pounders ML Cannon thru Machine guns, thru the very finest Target Rifles, ... and also no end of Muzzle Loading Firearms. I can assure you that the Japanese penchant for accurate long range shooting with the Smooth Bore Tanegashima was nothing more than wishful thinking. The English Brown Bess was a smooth bore Service Musket of reasonable military quality, ... certainly the equal of any Japanese Tanegashima of the period, given the poor design of the Tanegashima stock for accurate shooting .... and I assure everyone reading this that to hit a single standing man at the short distance of 100 yards would be pure luck. You may well hit a man at 100 yards, ... but it will NOT be the man aimed at with exception of luck. The Japanese seem to love to improve upon an idea. In the case of leaf sights, ... they would most certainly be an aid in getting the APPROXIMATE elevation for a given distance, but the idea of long range target shooting with ANY smoothbore musket would require targets as big as the side of a very large barn as a target at anything approaching say 200 yards. ... Ron Watson

[MrJones]

Ron, Most interesting to hear that "from the horse's mouth", so to speak. I have in my hand a copy of Bert Hall's fascinating book, Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology and Tactics, which contains a chapter exclusively dedicated to the vagaries of smoothbore ballistics. A wondrous subject in itself, that... but anyway. Hall refers extensively to a series of tests conducted at the Graz Steiermaerkisches Landeszeughaus in 1988-89, which we performed upon a number of muskets (rifled and smoothbore) and pistols (all smoothbore, though I suspect that goes without saying). He notes:

 

The probability of scoring any hit [against a 167cm by 30cm target - roughly the frontal surface area of a man] at 100 metres (30 metres for pistols) was calculated. For smoothbore muskets the average probability was only a little more than 50 percent. In other words, the odds of any given shot hitting a man-sized target at 100 metres were essentially 50-50, or pure chance.

(pp. 140-141)

 

These tests were performed with the most assiduous attention to ensuring that only the inherent, mechanical inaccuracy of the weapon was what was being detected. Hall again:

 

Eighteenth-century tests [i.e. tests conducted in the era of smoothbore black powder firearms] do not distinguish between inaccuracies resulting from poor shooting and inaccuracies rooted in the mechanical properties of the weapons themselves. In order to control for these variables, the Austrian group measured scatter patterns of rounds fired from the weapons they tested. Mounted on mechanical stands, presighted, and electrically ignited, fired indoors, these guns were optimally suited to achieve the best possible accuracy ratings.

(p. 140)

[Bugyotsuji]

In massed attacking armies, you would only need to fire at the wall of advancing soldiers and your ball would surely hit something! Who hits whom might not be so important!

 

I have just found some photographs of breech-loading Tanegashima(s), and a close-up shot of a bolt action Tanegashima.

 

Today I had some luck at the antiques market. I found a couple of large bore Hayago, which was unusual as they do not come up too often. There was also a twin Tama-igata with two ball molds in the one head, a first for me.

[IanB]

Ron, I was trying to be politic when I mentioned 'long-range shooting' I fully agree, the windage and bore of most smoothbores would make the idea of a ladder back-sight rather ludicrous, but they made them and apparently provided for their use with most back-sights. I once journeyed for hours to a remote museum in Japan to see an exhibition of early secret scrolls of schools of gunnery. I ended up looking at about 8 or so scrolls covered with yards and yards of squiggly script that meant absolutely nothing to me. Only one scroll had a couple of illustrations including one of a worthy shooting butterflies. I remember thinking - Yeh, in your dreams. This matter of accuracy has been a worry to shooters for years. Early German tests, carried out in Mainz in 1547 in the presence of the local Archbishop no less, attempted to prove that rifled guns were better than smoothbores because of demons. One group thought the demons could not sit astride a spinning sphere and deflect it from its course. The counter argument was that they could indeed ride the ball and guide it to its target to do its hellish work. Apparently they tried comparing shots with ordinary ball against silver ones carved with crucifixes but the results were inconclusive since the carving introduced instability. Guess we will never know .

Ian B.

[Bugyotsuji]

Lovely story, Ian, and for some reason totally believable.

 

Bullet molds/moulds. Note the unusual double one from this morning.

Large Hayago, one with Umebachi Mon.

[watsonmil]

Hi Ian,

I too enjoyed the Arch Bishop story, ... I wonder if his faith was somewhat shaken to find the Cruxifix carved onto a bullet actually caused a greater deviation than the un-carved bullet ??? Of course he could always argue that the Cruxifix kept the demons fom riding the bullet at all, and therefore accuracy was reduced. It's interesting how the clergy could never lose an argument ! ..... and still can't !

 

Piers, .... Some lovely items, .... you must have a ball rumaging about in the land of the Samurai. Good for you, ... I for one am filled with envy, .... but none-the-less delighted for you. Keep posting your wonderful finds. They are both enlightening and educational. ... Ron Watson

[IanB]

Ron, Piers, It gets more ecclesiastic than that. In the days when they found that corned powder, as opposed to a simple mixture of ingredients, was better, they used urine to moisten the mixture before pressing it into a cake. It was considered that the urine of a Bishop, particularly a wine-drinking one (and how many were not), was by far the best. As a result the clergy ran a nice little number in selling their produce to the powder mills.

What a nice set of moulds Piers - and a Maeda hyago. Lucky you.

Ian