altered and modernized tanegashima.

[Peter Bleed]

                Please allow me to beg the advice and insights of this community on modified tanegashima. Clearly, unmodified and original matchlock guns are the central interest to collectors, but I am curious about guns that seem to have been altered – maybe “modernized” – with non-traditional ignition systems. Caplock systems seem to be rather common, but I also have a gun that carries a Murata bolt action. Such “modernized” guns seem not to be treated in Japanese literature, even in volumes that treat 19^th century  imported arms. Are modernized matchlocks legal and interesting in Japan? Do they have a following internationally? Are there studies that address how and when these modifications were made?

Peter

[Bugyotsuji]

Well, I cannot answer for anyone else, Peter, but these guns in various iterations do come up with some frequency. Sawada Taira has a couple of chapters in his book (in Japanese, 日本の古銃, pp136~ the end) where he introduces many modifications. They seem to have been pretty inventive in Japan as they followed the evolutions coming in from abroad, adapting their own guns in various ways. Some would be one-offs, and other more successful adaptations might have been to some extent mass-produced. 

[JackFrost]

KFC also produced multiple hunting shotguns variations that used the Murata style bolt actions with the more original Tanegashima style stocks. Can included a translated blurb I got from a fellow collector friend, the focus is more on the Murata's themselves but include some insight to the KFC made guns as well. I sadly do not have the source on me from where he got it. 

"Here is a blurb on the Muratas converted to shotguns. From a Japanese source so English is not perfect. Need to do a little research on dates of restricting ownership of certain weapons.

The 13-year and 18-year Murata rifles, which were retired from the Japanese military, were converted into shotguns and released to civilians under the pretense of hunting shotguns. In addition to the Type 13/Type 18 shotguns using 28, 30, and 36 gauge ammunition produced based on the existing 11×60mmR ammunition, numerous gun companies and workshops, including KFC (Kawaguchiya Firearms Company), produced 8 rifles modeled after Murata.
Murata-type shotguns were made in a wide range of calibers, from large-gauge pellets to small-gauge 7.6mm pellets. Additionally, shotguns were made by transplanting the barrel and operating parts of the Murata shotgun into the body of the Tanegashima . These Murata shotguns (both modified Type 13/18 and newly produced Murata-type shotguns) can use only black powder brass cartridges in common, so the misfire rate is high. The disadvantage of shotgun ammunition with plastic casings widely used in modern times is that they cannot be used unless they are separately modified. Shell casings and handloading tools for the Murata shotgun were produced until the 1990s. If you look at the anecdotes of hunters who were active in Joseon during the Japanese colonial period, there are many records that rich hunters buy American Winchesters or European firearms, and poor hunters use Murata rifles. In addition, many hunters in Japan also used these shotguns, and in particular, in Japanese films about the hunters of the Tohoku region, Matagi, they appear as almost essential elements along with the Tanegashima rifle. At the end of World War II, the Japanese military conscripted even the Murata shotgun that was released to the civilian population and put it into the mainland defense force. These are the variety of calibers/gauges the shotguns were produced in: 8-gauge, 10-gauge, 12-gauge, 16-gauge, 20-gauge, 24-gauge, 28-gauge, 30-gauge, 36-gauge, 40-gauge, and 7.6mm pellets. "

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[Peter Bleed]

              The Token Message Board has, once again, proven to be a wonderful resource. Thank you Piers and Jon for your guidance – and the 50 odd folks who paid the discussion  some attention and offered opinions.  I am not sure that I adequately explained the topic of my interest, but as a result of the discussion, I am enriched.

A part of my interest is in  Japanese style guns modified  during the late Edo and Meiji era was what those modifications do to the value of the altered guns. Dick Dodge (who was an active early re-imported of matchlocks to Japan) opined to me and others, that the primary determinant of matchlock values in Japan was the Tokyo police. His argument was that guns they judged legal could be imported to enter the Japanese market as antiques. Guns that they judged ”modern” could not be imported, and were  therefore excluded from the Japanese market. Modified  arms already in Japan could be registered. All this to say that I raised this question because I was kind of wondering about the value of these modified shooting irons.

The information Jon shared  on Murata shotguns interestingly shows that in Meiji times Japan had a hunting gun industry and folks who hunted game  either commercially or for sport.  By the 1880s there seem to have been folks who could get ahold of Murata bolt actions and insert in old and new guns. It would be interesting to know where this was done and why they sometimes used old guns.

 Tanegashima modified to use percussion caps seem to me to offer  a potentially more interesting riddle. To my eye, these look like they might predate Meiji times so that they might reflect the dynamics of the terminal Edo period. As Piers notes, Sawada presents a great range of  firearms that were imported into Japan throughout the later Edo period. Clearly, the Japanese were well aware of world  firearms development. (For us sword collectors, it is also worth remembering that the Shin-shinto era was basically about re-arming and modernizing weaponry.) But, in Sawada’s 60 odd pages devoted to late Edo period guns, I see very few matchlocks modified to use percussion caps (page 175). Another  (page 185) is shown right next to a tanegashima that was modified to use a Murata bolt action. The collectability of such arms, however, remains uncertain.

Peter

               

[Bugyotsuji]

Hi Peter, thanks for the further clarification.

 

Most everything you say in your first paragraph about the police and modifications still holds true. I do know one importer who has deactivations performed abroad and successfully seems to import almost anything in some quantity. He must have established a track record to do this.

 

Matchlocks modified to percussion caps do come up regularly in auctions in Japan. To purists, they do not hold the same value as a straight untouched matchlock, so interest will thin a little, but many collectors will not be too worried by the lockwork if the decorations look good, and most dealers will be aware of that and still hopeful they can sell. 

 

Some years back while I was writing the definitive Tanegashima book with Jan, we needed a gun for the Choshu section. I had a finely inlaid matchlock which had been modified to use percussion caps, so I sent him a set of photographs. "Actually, can you source a genuine matchlock?" he asked. Now that was difficult, as most Choshu guns you find on the market today were once modified to percussion. Eventually I did find an untouched Choshu matchlock, which I still have, but it does illustrate that in the case of Choshu guns it seems that modified ones are actually more common. Modifications certainly pre-date Meiji, and were happening in different iterations from Tempo (1830s?) onwards. Pill locks came first, but percussion caps soon followed; in strong demand regionally, guns were either imported, native guns were modified, or they were specially built in Japan.

 

 

[JackFrost]

Piers, 

I will fully admit my knowledge base is more focused towards Murata's and onwards into Arisaka. So please forgive my rather novice questions but were all Percussion rifles updated/modified from prior existing matchlocks? Or were there new Percussion rifles built from scratch as the need had arisen during and before the Meji restoration? 

Grateful for any additional insight you can provide. 

[Peter Bleed]

This has been a useful discussion. I am much informed! Thank you all.

P

[Bugyotsuji]

  On 4/9/2025 at 3:02 PM, JackFrost said:

Piers, 

I will fully admit my knowledge base is more focused towards Murata's and onwards into Arisaka. So please forgive my rather novice questions but were all Percussion rifles updated/modified from prior existing matchlocks? Or were there new Percussion rifles built from scratch as the need had arisen during and before the Meji restoration? 

Grateful for any additional insight you can provide. 

Expand  

 

Hi Jon, and apologies to Peter on his thread, for the quick answer, imagine the strength of the desire to update at that time. They were under pressure from all sides, and hearing rumours or seeing armed groups with new-fangled firearms, willing to try anything, which accounts for every combination that started to appear. These were crossover times. Any kind of bridge that will get you to the other bank! Of course the earlier imports were smoothbore, as the matchlocks were, and barrels with rifling, true rifles only came along later. You'll find imports with butts that were cut shorter to suit the Japanese physique, and copies made from scratch (or melted down matchlocks) in Japan that were shorter overall, and various types of ignition modifications to smoothbores. Sawada in his book that Peter has, illustrates several evolutions of early pill-lock. Jan has a Bizen matchlock that had been converted to a pill lock, but the added parts were removable, so it could still be safely used as a matchlock if or when necessary.

 

For me it is simpler to confine myself to the Golden Age of the smoothbore matchlock, 300 years from 1540 to 1840. Beyond that the mind goes crazy trying to map out all of the military developments happening as the country faced political turmoil from within and without. Perhaps someone will one day provide such a post-Tanegashima evolutionary map of late Edo and early Meiji. (I have seen two wonderful cased examples of inlaid Tanegashima matchlocks made during Meiji, each probably the swan song of an elderly gunsmith pouring out all of his inherited talent from a by-gone age.)

 

There is a good display of much of this stuff in the new 'Token World' Museum in Nagoya if you have a chance to visit. There are floors dedicated to Nihonto and Katchu, but the firearms floor alone has about 300 guns on display, with examples of just about everything. Last year I must have posted photos here somewhere from my own visit.)