Firearms

[IRISH]

G'day all, how many of you have found old guns while digging or detecting ? if you have let's see your rusty ol' shooting irons [] . They are found fairly often here in Oz.

These two are interesting, the top one is a double barrell flintlock, about .35 Cal.
Bottom one is a huge caliber, roughly about .50 to 55 maybe a touch larger, it appears to have been a flintlock as well. Even though the old flintlock was outdated the gold diggers of the 1850's used lots of them probably as they where the only guns they could afford, there where quite a lot of extremly old gun's getting around in Australia for many years after the goldrush's, a lot where probably only dumped when cheaper metallic cartridge firearms hit the market en-masse in the 1890's-1900's.

These two are well past there shooting days (probably by one hundred years or more [] ) but are interesting finds.

 

[diggerjeff]

i found a .38 revolver opnce in a privy. it was about 100 yr. old . i frequently find ammo. from the first ww.!!!!

 

[CALDIGR2]

The best firearm find I've ever made was in a privy in Wonder, Nevada. It was Colt Single Revolver in cal. .44 WCF. It was in such good shape that it still functions perfectly. This is due to the fact that it had been wrapped in newspaper and tossed into the hole. That, along with the super dry climate kept it rust free. I sure would like to know it's story. Something made a person get rid of that gun some 95 yrs ago. It had only been in the ground 65 yrs when it was recovered.

 

[IRISH]

Any chance of a photo Caldigr ? sounds great.

Jeff, I (and most detectorists) tend to find a lot of ammo with metal detectors, both empty shells and live rounds of all types and ages and more bullets and balls than I would ever have thought possible [] , some of them are really interesting though.

This two inch shell and case came out of the same spot as the double barrell pistol in the top photo but date around 1900 to WW1, found by a mate of mine. The shell has had it's fuse removed.
Also when I said "when cheaper metallic cartridge firearms hit the market en-masse in the 1890's-1900's" I was meaning when those guns became cheaper/cheap models avalible, self-contained metallic cartridges have been around since the early 1850's, I re-read my post and that sentence came across wrong [] .

 

[preditor]

My Daddy bought a Wheel barrel at the flea market years ago. it was full of junk he had to take that too. any way there was a rusty old double barrel in the pile, the wood had rotted away. he gave it to a friend who cleaned it up. re-blued it. and made a stock for it. he traced the numbers on it and found it to be from the mid 1800's. it was a double barrel hammer gun like the stage coach drivers used for protection.

Preditor[8D]

 

[trussin]

found a rifle at petersburg battlefield under a bush. Turned out to be a 1900 one though.

 

[jme_jett]

my friend dug up this toy gun.

 

[jme_jett]

it has TEXAN on it.

 

[madman]

nice finds its always cool to see the non bottle finds i like the toy gun jamie happy hunting mike

 

[diginit]

I've never found anything in restorable condition myself. I would love to.
Found this 32 cal. near a miners cabin. People sure are sloppy with their ammo around here. You think I should buy a metal detector?