SHOVE IT .. an ENDOSCOPE Camera ..

 OK - that is what this thing has printed on the carton - 'ENDOSCOPE CAMERA' - but I'd call it a "Flexible Borescope" as it isn't intended to be used for medical examination. (not by me anyway)

- Don't ask me WHY did I buy this from USA - when it was made in China and - I could have bought it from AliExpress for one tenth of the price - sighs .. When will I learn to check my impetuosity?

There It Is:

If you've not read my stuff before - the antique 'Ottoman' flintlock in that pic was received loaded with ball and powder underneath a blockage that might have been chewed wood from some nesting insect .. 

This what I got after buying that drill bit and collecting the detritus .. I drilled all the way through the soft lead ball - reducing it to swarf.

- And after 100-150 years perhaps .. the damp powder charge still went POOF when ignited.

- You gotta be careful eh.

So I have managed to install this magic wand-scopey-thing onto my phone-camera and I now spend my wakeful hours trying to find uses for it, to justify wasting spending my pension dollars on it.

NO - It is not available for do-it-yourself COLONOSCOPY ..

On The Way in .. This 5/8" caliber Ottoman Flintlock needs the 

Oil of Wintergreen Rust Treatment eh.

Rust is INSIDIOUS stuff .. nasty.

At The Bottom:

That is one ugly looking Breech Plug - Don't members of the LGBTQI A+ community use breech plugs?

Either way - there seems to be an inwards BULGE down there that isn't visible from the exterior so I now have another task - to dissassemble and investigate the citee-ayshun. 

It looks like it may have had one hell of a whack .. (or not?). Surely if it's an inwards bulge that would be OK?- or is that a "thickening" at the vent?

Either way I'm having fun playing with these things and learning ..

I tell you what .. in the last several years I have lost my only sister and her good husband Fred - and FIVE of my best long time mates .. I only hope that they were having as much fun as me in their life and that there might be better things now that they have passed.

Are You a Fit and Proper Person?

Are NZ Police 'FIT AND PROPER'?

nah

FIREARMS LICENCES FOR NZ POLICE.

Marty K.

Old Shooters NEVER Die ..

- I was very sad to learn that my old kiwi mate 'PRICKLES' Tony Sillars has succumbed after living for many years following a cerebral stroke. - I had only spoken to him on the phone a few weeks earlier.

He was a huge collector of cartridge firearms. - His house, loft-space, garage, workshop, and shed all were stacked with rare items ( you would have loved his beautiful 45-70 that we bought in Sydney on one shooting trip for several thousand real dollars.

One year we attended both the Sydney and The Melbourne Gun Shows as well as touring all the Gun Shops in both citys by public transport with much walking .. It needs to be recorded that Tony COULD NOT PASS a pub or bar without entering for a few VBs - including gay bars on carnival week .. I truly suffered - becoming beer-logged with Tony. - Good Times.

Tony once told me that he had been buying guns since he was 14 y.o. and had only sold ONE in 60 years and that was a sporterized Lee-Enfield he flicked to me cheap and that I got converted to 7.62x39mm Russian and adapted to take a 30 round AK Magazine .. this tool I took into the Police ChCh HQ and shoved it into the arms officer's face saying "NOW BAN THIS". He, good cop that he was - with my permission, took it into the inner recesses to illuminate his most senior administrators day.

- We went winter pig hunting in the Cunnamulla area of Australia many times - plus around Lightning Ridge for competitions (The Opal Open) - BUT in all those trips - Tony, who truly loved his shooting sports, guns and reloading - NEVER ONCE fired at any animal. He would sight-in his guns out on the properties and ride the 4WD trucks for hours with a rifle in hand - but when nominated to take the first shot he would fumble the bolt and mumble about a jam or faulty spring - until someone else took the shot. - He was a lifelong member of the RSPCA. - We were so familiar to trans-Tasman flight crews of the airline we both worked for - that they would apologise to us if they couldn't upgrade us into business class!!

These Australian trips were with Aussie airline shooter mates into the center - up the Mitchell Highway - regularly with both trucks towing trailers stacked with food, beer, and cider, rifles and ammo. One good joker, 'Fred' had been a chef and - did he look after us. WOW - me, I always did the washing-up and preparation help. 

Fresh caught Yabbies, boiled with garlic highly acclaimed

THOSE TIMES ARE GONE FOR EVER.

Marty K.

 

Almost A Nice Pair:

 You can't beat holding a nice pair eh ..

ALMOST a pair - the sharp eyed will spot 12mm difference in barrel length and the hammers don't really match.

I found them maybe a year apart, - both smooth-bore .44" Pocket Pistols were battered, rusty, corroded messes and both were offered on trademe New Zealands on-line Auction site. - When received these were really in 'relic' condition.

A lot of my time has gone into RUST removal and restoration. - Well it's more than that .. I have re-finished these old muzzle loading antiques - and they needed it. - Both had crushed nipples seized in place .. that were a pig to extract - and had awful surface corrosion, pitting, filing marks and gouges.  .. And these two pistols have been my first try at using Oil of Wintergreen as a rust remover and penetrating oil.

Expert collecters will be jostling for space to tell the world that I have RUINED these guns value . but they were well ruined before they came to me.

I've tried to stop the corrosion and to diminish the worst damage - while retaining an aged character and "patina" while restoring them to working condition. - I also 'matched' their curves & profiles a little into conformity.

I like to think that these unmarked antiques both came from the Birmingham England outworkers groups of the 1850s and '60s and have enough of a family resemblance to be almost a pair of plain guns .. despite one seller describing the longer barreled pistol as "French". But they might easily be from Belgium (or France). I'm just guessing but I like the feel of both. When I was new to buying collectibles I didn't much like the look of those 'bag shaped' grips - preferring the slab sided stocks .. but when gripped as for firing, in the hand - the rounded bagshapes are very comfortable.

They might be the sort of low cost tool sold with powder & ball in a paper bag, on the Aussie harbourside wharves to 'new chums' headed for the gold diggings.

PAIRS of PISTOLS are also known a 'A brace of pistols'. - If one is good then TWO has to be better eh. The fastest reload has to be grabbing a spare backup gun. Buccaneers & Pirates are often depicted as being well armed for their jobs ..

I think fancy pairs of embellished pistols have long been gifted to the Master as bribes while matched pairs were needed for "fairness" back when Dueling was fashionable.

Are You a Fit and Proper Person?

Are NZ Police 'FIT AND PROPER'?

FIREARMS LICENCES FOR NZ POLICE.

Marty K.

P.S. I just read again this piece by Elmer Keith. It's BRILLIANT so give it a read ..

https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/keith-article-on-cap-and-ball-pistols-long.11474/

Beaumont Adams Pocket Pistol ..Best of British?:

Police Te Tari Pureke say that more than a third of all firearms licence holders have registered their firearms, with New Zealand’s Firearms Registry recording its 400,000th gun now linked to an individual licence holder. Te Tari Pureke – Firearms Safety Authority, says the 400,000th firearm was one of more than 1000 guns added to the Registry in one day, on 1 May. These firearms are held by 81,400 individual licence holders, or 36 percent of licenced gun owners in New Zealand.

In other words - around two thirds of NZ Licensed Firearms Owners continue to avoid registering their legally owned guns.

WILL POLICE PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW A LIST OF LEGAL FIREARM SERIAL NUMBERS AND THEIR LOCATIONS ACHIEVES ANYTHING - OTHER THAN A SHOPPING LIST FOR CRIMINAL HOME INVADERS, THIEVES & NUTTERS:

 - WOULD TE TARI PUREKE COLLATE A LIST OF ALL SWORN POLICE OFFICERS & THEIR HOME ADDRESSES TO ADVANCE CRIME FIGHTING?

____________

I seem to have bought a well used antique English 'Beaumont Adams' five shot 4" revolver made by London Armoury Co. .. which indicates it's manufacture date to 1856-59 - claimed to be .31" blackpowder caliber, - but I measure the chambers at 0.335"- and the rifled muzzle bore at .340 inch.

Caliber: 120 bore aka .338" or .340" ?- Depending on who you read ..

This suggests Hollow base .34 Conicals required to be historically correct .. and a chamber reamer needed (or some fine abrasive paper wound around a dowel) as - for accuracy, the chambers ought to be slightly larger than the rifled bore.

 The trigger return spring was 'at fault' (missing) - but I have made one from a 4 mm wide steel strip off an old hacksaw blade, cut, heated & bent into a fitted Vshape. - Fixed.

- Yeah I know it's yet another one - don't tell my wife (ex). - It's an old mans' indulgence.

That 'SAW HANDLE' makes for a Comfortable Grip:

I am learning as I go here - BUT it seems that old timers made their guns in 120 Gauge, .34 inch caliber, as well as .28 inch and .40 inch - not forgeting the more standard .36 inch (Navy) and .44 inch (Army) guns. - I read that Allen & Wheelock 'pepper-box' pistols were commonly .34".

- Might this confusing mix of ball sizes account for some of the CHAINFIRE incidences - that may have been caused by flame leakage ??

____________

- NZ Police Arms & Ballistics Officer G G Kelly writes in Chapter 12 of his book 'THE GUN IN THE CASE'  about a Deane & Adams Revolver taken from a museum exhibit seventy-five years after the Maori Wars in Taranaki - The revolver had sat in storage for decades with two chambers loaded .. until a sixteen year old boy experimating with mixed percussion caps in an attic, after nicking the gun, set-off the old powder & the heavily oxidized lead bullet with unintended but deadly impact into his own temple. - Two loaded chambers had remained "live" in the cylinder perhaps for as long as 75 years.

- That's an interesting book if you find one at a school fair ..

Robert Adams 1810-1870 was a very active revolver designer and manufacturer of the mid 1800's. He may have been a difficult man to work with, as he changed partnerships many times - but his Revolvers were the very first "self cocking revolvers" and were highly successful and reliable - to the extent that Sam Colt failed to take-over the British market because they preferred the Adams's.

 This revolver is a Beaumont-Adams - but I'm thinking that there are sliding links between English makers Adams, Deane - to Deane, Adams & Deane - to Beaumont-Adams, - London Armoury Company, to Tranter & Kerrs & then to Kerr's Patent Revolvers .. In 1867 Robert's cousin? John Adams left 'London Armoury Co' to set-up 'Adams Patent Small Arms Co.' .. other associated names later are Kynoch Gun Factory (Aston Arms Factory) (& Tranter Brothers Gunmakers) and Kynoch/Schlund - then on again to BSA British Small Arms. (note: Kerr & Adams were cousins.)

You might say that these English gunmakers had flexible incestuous relationships .. working together to the extent that Adams often relied upon frames manufactured by William Tranter to manufacture his own revolvers! 

The U S link seems to be Civil War sales, with several hundred Adams guns made under licence by the Massachusetts Arms Company 1857-61 - while Adams revolvers were made on the European mainland in Belgium by, for one, PIRLOT FRERES (brothers).

When in 1867 - Robert Adams brother?/cousin? John Adams set-up in competition - with a freshened, cartridge design, it was adopted by the British Military as the official sidearm for the army until 1880.

There is a variety of progressively developed "Adams" type revolvers out in the antique collectors world .. enough to spend lots of $$$$ on while searching for examples. Then there are the later breech loading Cartridge guns ..

As pointed-out by a mate .. I do seem to be building up a sizable collection of antique sidearms and pocket carry pistols eh.

Note: The early Adams revolvers were made without levers to ram home the bullets, so the bullets had to be pushed into the chambers by hand - these projectiles used "spiked" pills to hold a waxed WAD of leather or wool felt to the base, that was meant to lock the loose fitting projectiles in place in the chambers ..

ARE YOU A FIT AND PROPER PERSON?

- ARE NZ POLICE 'FIT AND PROPER' PERSONS?

- They are not ..

FIREARMS LICENCES FOR NZ POLICE.

Marty K.

 

Have you seen this? You Wanna NEEDLE Someone?

 You won't be interested in this as it's only an airgun-blowgun ...

But I bet the 3D-Printer backroom boys are working on their m/cs 24 hours a day ..

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/?pc=carousel-about-en#sent/QgrcJHrtpqcXgCqmVWWSPbvHZhQzgDwzTqb?projector=1

What got my attention initially was that this thing is a PEPPERPOT PISTOL - and I've just 'won' a 170 year old English antique collectible ..

170 years old - v brand new ..

Watch the video linked to see what this thing can do while considering the variations the bad boys are going to dream-up.

Bear in mind this technology is LOW TECH, low-pressure - powered by toy shop CO2 cartridges or spring power whatever ..

The projectile 'needles' are made by cutting-up wire to length with a bit of plastic stuff to push it.

- You could use spitballs and cardboard.

Anyone can see that a heavier needle is an option for a heavier hit. - And, don't those "Taser" stun guns fire needles at their targets?

No doubt the politicians will BAN these from sale ..

WHAT A CAN OF WORMS

Are You Fit and Proper?

Are NZ Police 'FIT AND PROPER PERSONS'?

FIREARMS LICENCES FOR NZ POLICE.

Marty K.

Stakes Followed by Steaks ..

After starting school in 1949 I came across kids in class who were lying little shits. - Being 'properly brought-up' I avoided them and ignored anything they said or did. The decent teachers made these snots sit at the front under their supervision - Sad to say but right now in River City we got trouble - Those lying, cheating shits have ripened and slithered out of their slime and are now running our nations as "leaders" - presidents and prime ministers.

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW TOTALLY WEIRD ARE THESE "LEADERS" - WHO ARE IN CONTROL? - Check this out ..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-boYD47gmh4

You wanna be a girl? - Sure 

..Discipline is OUT .. replaced with 'Positive Reinforcement' .. Dwaine, aged twelve years, with the writing ability of a two year old - "I'm rewarding you with a special GREEN STAR for the lovely crayon colours you choose." 

- In my home - the only positive reinforcement given is every time I've used the microwave to reheat my leftovers - the machine tells me that I am  COOL.

“…no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned, they are lower than vermin.”

Aneurin (Nye) Bevan, 1948

On the 4th of July, 1948, on the eve of the creation of the National Health Service in Great Britain, ex Health Minister Aneurin (Nye) Bevan delivered a vitriolic attack on the Tories.

_____________

Over in USA - "felons" are prohibited from owning 'firearms' - so a few of these jokers get hold of muzzleloading 'no license needed' 'old-tech' guns (original or reproduction) as the next best thing .. Here in New Zealand all we citizens are forbidden from lawful gun ownership unless they can undertake costly processes to meet preventative laws and licence requirements. These imposed 'Rules' include rebuilding your home to make it "Burgler Proof" and installing an approved built-in SAFE.

Our current kiwi rules treat reproduction blackpowder guns as 'Firearms' the same as "modern" cartridge arms - but old original antique guns, made before 1899 are legal to own as collectibles of interest .. exempted from Firearms LAW .. in much the same way that our Police have exempted themselves from all prohibitive firearms legislation and LICENCE requirements.

Weird Rules ..

Naturally our NZ Police Service claim that while you are legally permitted to own antiques .. you must not under any circumstance fire the things. - Not even to test their mechanical safety.

- Back in the U S 'CallmeSirJack' says:

Lots of rural folks had black powder percussion cap revolvers well into the 1930's. No need to upgrade when what you already have on hand is "good enough."

There is a fun blackpowder Range competion where a team of shooters compete to cut a wooden stake in half against the clock and other teams. Much like 'Bowling Pin' shooting it can be a barrel of laughs ..

I took part in a few "stake shoots" over the years. Usually as a team, but sometimes individual. A piece of post (the stake) must be shot between two marks until it is cut off and the top falls over. At 25 yards, the stake marks would be about 5 inches apart. A hit above or below disqualified. Again it combines accuracy with reloading.

The splintered timber can later be used to fire up a barbecue for burnt steaks and sausages with a cold drink.

I get it that for many folk - OLD STUFF is simply outdated and useless crap from the olden times - But I like to point-out that the old mechanisms and methods STILL work despite being time proven.

RADIO - invented in 1896 - still works well for entertainment & information while we can be busy working .. and fists & feet still injure. - FIRE was utilized by mankind 500,000 years ago - it still burns.

Black Powder 9mm. A Recipe For Squibs? Jake at Everything Blackpowder tests loading 9x19 with his home made powder .. Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RyKT5o3_wM

 

I've owned and shot guns since they taught me AT SCHOOL - on the school rifle range aged 14 in 1958. 

- IT IS NOT GUNS THAT ARE DANGEROUS - IT IS UNDISCIPLINED, POORLY TAUGHT, SOCIALLY MALADJUSTED LOW IQ NUTTERS & PSYCHOPATHS THAT ARE THE PROBLEM.

Are You a Fit and Proper Person?

Are NZ Police 'FIT AND PROPER'?

FIREARMS LICENCES FOR NZ POLICE.

Marty K.