Items from the ship Samson

Flintlås pistol from London

This gun is a typical English flint gun with a brass barrel designed for officers and gentlemen. It was produced in the period 1750 to 1760 by William Staples, who was gunsmith in London from 1750 to 1770.

The barrel is stamped with a crowned "P" label of "London Proofhouse" (pressure tested), as well as the manufacturer's brand "WS". Later, Staples got royal approval and marked his guns with crowned WS.

All brass parts were marked with 4 file marks, something that was done to separate the different parts from each other during the production. This shows that the weapon was produced in a series of at least 4 pieces. There are guns of the same type that are completely identical except for the size of barrel and wood. Staples held on to this design for many years, what distinguishes the different is the length of the gun pipes, releif cutouts on the buttocks and the thumbsheet. The bore is 15mm which increases to 16mm at the muzzle. The outside at the breach has a 10mm round frieze, then it continues as octagonal, then to cross to round at the middle of the barrel. The race is so-called "swamped", that is, it is thicker at the muzzle than the smallest diameter of the race.

Here are some pictures of an almost equal gun William_Staples has made at a later time.

These pictures are stolen from tortugatrading.com

Detail of the gun

The reconstructed model	Sidebeslaget (original) etter montering på nytt skjefte

Barrel stamps (original)	Skjeftebeslag detalj sett bakfra (original)

Detaljer av utskjæringer i stokken (kopi)	Skjeftebeslag (groteskmaske) sett fra undersiden (kopi)

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