Intro

Recently I saw more interesting information about the old type of muzzleloaders. But now I’m able to make only 1 to 2 videos/articles weekly so I have to make them slowly. Anyway, this time let’s talk about a broken musket but it shows us some very valuable details.

The Musket in the Post

This musket actually is from a post and the website of this post is also our old friend, the “muzzleloadingforum.com”. The post uploader posted it in 2023 in order to sell this firearm. According to the comments, there are some friends. They pointed out that this is a Toradar, a South Asian matchlock and was used by the people in the Mughal Empire. At first glance, this matchlock is not really long. It’s more like a kind of carbine type of gun. Except for the stock, the situation of the other parts, such as the pan, the pan cover, the rear sight, etc. , is not bad. Speaking of which, it indeed has many South Asian matchlock’s features but here I want to share some of my opinions.

Ottoman or India

I found 2 questions that I’m confused about. One is the stock. Comparely, we can think it's a Toradar stock, but it’s more like an Ottoman matchlock stock. Because the place of the stock between the pan position and the trigger position is a negative curvature shape-like handle and the stock is slimmer in a typical Toradar matchlock. But this musket has an Ottoman matchlock stock shape. So based on this point, we might get another direction to see it and recognize what its identity is.

*Indian Toradar

*Ottoman Matchlock

Then, the second question is about the pins of its trigger lever and this is why I don’t reach the conclusion that this is really an Ottoman matchlock but not the Indian matchlock. The typical Ottoman matchlock has 2 pins to fix the trigger and cock. But this matchlock seemingly has only one pin to fix the trigger so it might mean that the trigger and the cock are in a whole lever. The only one pin structure is similar to the Qing dynasty royal matchlock and the Tibetan matchlock. But this trigger has the typical Indian Toradar feature, like this trigger arc is very similar to the Indian Toradar but not the style of Ottoman matchlock trigger.

*Indian Toradar

*Ottoman Matchlock

So it might be an Indian matchlock mixed into other matchlock elements. Maybe it’s from another region. But now we still can call it the Indian matchlock temporarily before the truth goes out.

the Mechanism

As we can see, very unfortunately the gun stock has broken. But it resulted in a good thing. This is that we can see the mechanism of the trigger directly and we finally don’t need the X-ray photos. Based on this photo, it looks like it’s indeed a one-lever trigger. Although this shooting angle is not very good, we still can see there is a long spring.

What if we take this trigger out, it will be like this matchlock trigger from the 19th century in this photo. So here we can even have an inference. With the time going, the simplified one lever trigger system gradually replaced the 2 levers trigger system. In other words the people might gradually prefer the simpler mechanism. Maybe it was more reliable or maybe it was easier to produce. We don't know if the one lever trigger is better or the 2 lever system is better. But both are very practical matchlock trigger systems and used in many matchlocks in that era in Asia.