Blunderbuss
The Blunderbuss is a short, muzzleloading smoothbore gun, similar to a musket or carbine but has a bigger barrel designed for multiple pellets to be put in. It is considered to be a precursor to the shotgun. A blunderbuss in handgun shape was called a dragon which made way for the word dragoon.[1][2]
Etymology
The term "blunderbuss" is from the Dutch language, from the Dutch word donderbuis, which is a fusion of donder, meaning "thunder", and buis, meaning "Pipe" (Middle Dutch: busse, box, tube, from Late Latin, buxis, box, from Ancient Greek pyxίs (πυξίς), box: esp. from boxwood).
The evolution from donder to blunder is thought by few to be done on purpose; the term blunder was originally used in a transitive sense, synonymous with to confuse, and this is thought to describe the very loud sound of the large-bore, short-barreled blunderbuss. The term dragon is taken from detail of older models that were designed with a carving in the shape of a dragon's head around the barrel; the muzzle blast would then give the impression of a fire-breathing dragon.
Blunderbuss Media
A flintlock blunderbuss, built for Tipu Sultan
A French blunderbuss, called an espingole, 1760, France.
A blunderbuss pistol, or dragon, found at a battlefield in Cerro Gordo, Veracruz, Mexico
An 1808 Harper's Ferry blunderbuss, of the type carried on the Lewis and Clark Expedition
A pair of early blunderbuss pistols from Poland fitted with the miquelet lock
A recreation of one of Lewis and Clark's pirogues with a blunderbuss mounted to the bow with a pintle.
References
- ↑ Sibbald Mike Lier (1868). The British Army: Its Origin, Progress, and Equipment. Cassell, Petter, Galpin. pp. 33, 302–304.
- ↑ George Elliot Voyle, G. de Saint-Clair-Stevenson (1876). A Military Dictionary. W. Clowes & Sons. pp. 43, 114.
