Mystery Rifle - Shotgun

[KiwiKev]

I saw this shotgun in a museum today. It had two barrels and four hammers? I would be interested to discover whether anyone knows anything about it? The strangest thing I have ever seen!

[Bruce Scott]

Here's some info on a similar gun:

http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/55168

[GunnyMack]

I remember hearing about these many years ago.
I could see confusion in battle causing this to be dangerous!
Beautiful piece on art & engineering tho.

[M. M. Wright]

The concept was applied to rifles, pistols and of course, shotguns. Big problem was fire leaking past the first load, yeah you double loaded each barrel, then fired the front one first, hopefully. You seldom see one for obvious reasons.

[Griff]

Interesting read.

[walks with gun]

That might have been one of my builds. My eye's are getting screwy and couldn't remember if I allready installed a hammer or not. Sorry guy's.

[AJMD429]

If there were a good enough mechanical interlock to prevent out-of-sequence firing, it might have been reasonably safe (versus running out of shots mid-battle).

Of course maybe the surreptitious motive was to get rid of politicians and 'dignitaries'.....

"Superimposed loading was designed to increase firepower, but guns of this type were never regarded as particularly safe to use, despite a built-in safety feature so that the rear charges would not fire before the front ones. They tended to be given, as in this case, as expensive and ornamental presents to dignitaries."

[KiwiKev]

With a percussion muzzled loaded shotgun did they put the shot on top of a ball. Either way the risk for leakage would have been very high. I would imagine the ball would not be in there two tightly. Did they even use a patch?

[mark]

Thanks Bruce, very interesting.

Came back from NZ last Sunday, youngest daughter's wedding.

Cheers Mark