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The English blunderbuss and its ballistics

Few firearms have attracted as much attention, curiosity, and mythical attributes as the blunderbuss. Indeed, it often seems that fiction has overwhelmed the facts. To add to the mystery, the literature is conflicting with regard to defining exactly what a blunderbuss is, what it was used for, and how it performed. What is the difference between a blunderbuss and a musketoon? Is the blunderbuss really designed as a weapon of defence using whatever ammunition one might find in the garden? What was the real purpose of the flared bell mouth of the blunderbuss? Despite the extraordinary interest, the many extant examples of blunderbusses found in public and private collections, and the numerous related publications over centuries, it appears that virtually no properly controlled scientific studies have been carried out to address blunderbuss ballistics. Unfortunately, it was not possible for the author to carry out the carefully designed comprehensive experiments required for such a study. Thus, this article is a modest attempt to combine what information is available from some published blunderbuss ‘tests’, together with the results from more scientific forensic studies of the performance of sawn-off shotguns, and the addition some ballistic science and suggested scaling laws, to improve our understanding of blunderbuss ballistics.