Blunderbuss be a muzzle-loading firearm with a short, large caliber barrel, which flared at the muzzle and was typically loaded with a number of lead balls smaller than the bore diameter. Blunderbuss is the Dutch word for Thunder Gun. The French called them Espingole. Sometimes also called a Musketoon, it was an early form of the shotgun. Blunderbusses were also commonly carried by naval warships, privateers and pirates for use in close-quarters boarding actions during the Golden Age and Late Pirate Era. Large blunderbuss mounted on a swivel were called wall or deck guns. Pistol blunderbuss were called Dragons. We carry the largest selection of working blunderbusses in the new or old world: Dutch, English, French, and Spanish Blunderbusses. We also carry dragons n' blunderbuss with spring bayonets.
Thar be two common myths about the blunderbuss. One be that you can put anything metal, like spoons, down the barrel, but that is not true. Anything hard and not round can get jammed in the barrel n' cause it to explode. The other be that the flare of the barrel determines the spread of the shot, but this is also not be true otherwise, all modern shotguns would have flared barrels. The truth is, the flared barrel made loading much faster.
NOTE: All flintlock weapon will only work with real black powder n' not with Pyrodex. Pyrodex is a black powder substitute designed to work with percussion cap weapons. It requires a higher temperature to ignite with a flash point of 740 degrees vs 320 degrees for black powder. Black powder is considered an explosive because of this fact, n makes it more difficult to get due to extra safety requirements. The spark from a flint is not hot enough to light Pyrodex, which means you will get alot of misfires.
