Handgonne Faustbüchse

When writing about these very early firearms, I use the rather unusual word "handgonnes", since

it appears to me, that there is no appropriate word in modern English to describe this kind of

weapon. I don't like to use "handguns" because this word is used today for modern rifles and

shotguns. "Gonne" is the Middle English word for "gun" and was actually used in the 14th and

15th century to describe these contemporary types of guns. By the way, in German they are

called "Faustrohr" or "Faustbüchse" (=fist pipe or fist box) which distinguishes them from any

other firearm.

Black powder seems to have been invented in Europe in the first half of the 13th century by an

unknown alchemist. The first dated recipe was given in 1265 by Roger Bacon, a British

Franciscan friar and former professor of philosophy at the University of Paris. (Opus Tertium,

dedicated to Pope Clemet IV). Here, we learn that black powder was first used to make

firecrackers by young villains to scare innocent citizens at night. Roger Bacon didn't mention

guns.

The first and oldest picture of a firearm comes from Walter de Millimete (De Notabilitatibus

Sapientis et Prudentia Regnum, 1326), look page "History". The picture there shows a small

cannon fixed to a table, firing an arrow with a shaft the size of the gunner's forearm. It is hard to

believe that the inventor of firearms had cast a large cannon barrel for his first test. I think he

probably first built a model of it, and that model would become a handgonne. The use of an

arrow as a projectile doesn't seem too far fetched. After all, this was the kind of projectiles used

for thousands of years.

Fig. 1: The

siege of a

castle.

Painting by

Qinte Curce,

1468.

Painting

stored in the

archives of

the British

museum,

London.

This picture above shows us handgonners and archers in action, side by side. From this picture I

learned how to hold handgonnes the proper way for testing them.

The Tannenberg Handgonne

The so-called "Tannenberg-handgonne" was the very first handgonne that I held in my hands. It

is on display at the Germanic Museum Nuremberg (Germany) and fascinated me instantly. It was

found at an archeological excavation in 1849 at the bottom of the water well of the Tannenberg

castle in Hessen. When found, this handgonne was still loaded with a lead bullet.

That gonne was a gift from the Duke of Hessen to the Nuremberg Museum. But the bullet and

the excavation documents are still with the archaelocical service of Kassel (Hessen). The bullet

appeares to be cast with a filed off sprue.

Fig 2: The original Tannenberg gonne as it is displayed in the Germanic Museum in

Nuremberg today.

The Tannenberg castle was destroyed in 1399. So, you can safely assume the gonne is older than

that. And also of importance: It was loaded with a leaden bullet and not with an arrow.

It has been questioned whether the dimple around the touch hole is caused by corrosion only or if

it was made purposely as a flash pan.

To test that firearm, I copied it as exactly as possible. The original is cast from bronce. So I made

my copy from so called "cannon bronce" (88Cu12Sn) on my lathe and gave it the final shape by

filing. Here it is! It is stocked atop an octagonal to round ash staff.

Fig. 3: It is difficult to draw the original Tannenberg-gonne exactly. Due to casting and

corrosion you have to allow at least ± 1 millimeter. Total length of the octagonal gonne is 330

mm (~1 foot). Caliber is 17 mm. Caliber of the Chamber is 9 mm.

The shape of the octagonal barrel appears somewhat erratic. The breadth of the eight faces,

seen from the breech and counted clockwise are: top=16mm, 1=14mm, 2=12.7mm, 3=13mm,

4=14mm, 5=13.5mm, 6=12.5mm, 8=14.5mm.

The peculiar powder chamber of the gun is remarkable. At a first glance, you would think it is a

safety measure to avoid the explosion of the gun. But according to the contemporary literature,

the gunsmiths did it for better performance. They believed, the expanding gas acts predominantly

on the center of the bullet. And in a cylindrical barrel, the gas pressure would act predominantly

on the tilted flanks of the round bullet, where the gas wouldn't act as efficiently as towards the

center of the bullet.

As I will prove later, the gunsmiths were right, but their explanation was wrong. The hydrostatic

paradox of modern physics wasn't known then.

Modern cylindrical version of the Tannenberg-gun

To confirm the experiences of the mediaeval gunsmiths and to investigate the effects of the long,

narrow powder chamber, I built a cylindrical, modern version of the Tannenberg gun.

Fig. 4:

Cylindrical

version of

the

Tannenberg-

gun for

testing of

the

influence of

the absent

powder

chamber.

I made the modern version of the Tannenberg gun from common construction steel St37 on my

lathe. To get an identical passage for the bullet, I took into account the volume of the peculiar

Tannenberg powder chamber of 6.8 ml. Applied to the 17 mm-bore, it will consume a length of

30 mm from the barrel. Hence I drilled a comparable barrel length of 186 mm.

Be surprised of what came out!

The Danziger Handgonne

The second handgonne I'm going to discuss, is called "Danziger handgonne" because it was

found in the city of Danzig, then in eastern Germany , today called Gdansk in Poland. It was

found about 1920 by the supervisor of the water supply of the city of Danzig while digging

trenches for a new water supply pipe. This supervisor was the the father in law of the present

owner.

In the 1970s, a friend of mine had cast 20 bronze copies of this beautiful handgonne and sold

them at a moderate price.

Fig 5:

A

relatively

small

hexagonal

handgonne

from

bronze.

The

muzzle

cone

consists of

three

solemn

looking,

bearded

faces, who

surround

the

muzzle.

The touch

hole for

inserting

the fuse is

formed by

the mouth

of a mask.

This handgonne also has a large powder chamber, but the difference between the bores of the

barrel (12 mm) and the powder chamber (10 mm) is not as striking as that of the Tannenberg

gun. The powder chamber is relatively long, 37% of the total barrel length. The powder

chambers of modern 19th century muzzle loaders have powder chambers of only 5 to 10% of the

total barrel length.

I assume the powder chamber was entirely filled up by the charge. That would make a very hefty

load. If filled with modern black powder, only a small part of the charge would burn up while

accelerating the bullet inside the gun. Most powder would burn in front of the muzzle in a huge

fire blast. So what was the purpose of these large powder chambers in these old handgonnes?

I have stocked this gonne with a hexagonal, conical cane and added a matching foot from the

same bronze. So I can use this handgonne as a walking cane, which I do increasingly indeed, due

to my advancing age.

Measurement of the Bullet Velocity and Bullet Energy

with the Ballistic Pendulum

Today it's easy to measure the velocity and the energy of a bullet. You simply buy a chronograph

that records the time it takes the shadow of the bullet to pass two photo cells and then, as a result,

the instrument displays the velocity on its panel. According to Newton, the bullet-energy then is

calculated:

Energy (Joule) = m/2 * V2

where m = mass of bullet (kg) and V = velocity (m/s)

But this method is tricky with black powder muzzle loaders. The bullet may be surpassed by its

patch or un-burnt powder residue. What you actually measure then is the speed of the patch. So

always keep a safe space between the muzzle and the chronometer.

For saveing money and eliminate missreadings caused by debris, the author chose this

ballistic pendulum:

Fig. 6: The

Tannenberg

gonne, test-

firing at

author's

ballistic

pendulum.

The red

tape around

the wooden

block

faciliates

aiming at

the center

of the

block. By

this,

possible

wobbling

of the block

is

suppressed.

Note the

horizontal

meterstick

at the wall

for

measuring

the swing

(amplitude)

of the

pendulum.

The muzzle velocity and the bullet energy are calculated according to the next draft-sheet.

Fig.6: ...Legend

VB..Velocity

of bullet

(m/s)

mB..Mass of

bullet (kg)

mP..Mass of

pendulum

block (kg)

H.....Higth

of lift (m)

S.....Swing

of the

pendulum

(m)

L......Length

of the

pendulum

(m)

G......Earth

gravity (m

kg/s2)

Then the equation to

calculate the

velocity of the bullet

VB (or any

projectile) is:

(m/s)

The secret of the peculiar powder chambers

Since you, dear reader, are now familiar with the determination of the speed and energy of a

bullet the old way, I will reveal the results of my handgonne-tests I did in the 1980s.

Below, you'll find two diagrams. The left one shows the results obtained with the my

Tannenberg-gun (Fig. 2), the results in the right one were obtained with a corresponding

handgonne without a powder chamber (Fig. 3). If the latter is loaded with the amount of powder,

necessary to fully fill the powder chamber of the Tannenberg gonne (6.8 ml), the same active

barrel length remains in the modern, cylindrical gonne as in the Tannenberg-replica. That

ensures compareable coditions.

Diagram 1

Diagram 2

The two handgonnes were tested with homemade powder (red curves) consisting of 100 parts

Saltpeter, 18 parts charred willow wood and 16 parts of sulfur, and with Swiss factory powder

grade 2 (black curves). The charge was increased step by step in increments of one of gram

powder. With 4.5 grams of homemade powder, the Tannenberg chamber was entirely filled up.

Three shots were fired on each load and then the average velocity was calculated.

After this, the type of gonne and the kind of black powder can be distinguished by the following:

Tannenberg, with powder

chamber

Cylindrical bore (not

historic)

A progressive increase of bullet

energy

with homemade powder.

Nearly linear increase of bullet

energy

with homemade powder.

A very slight, progressive

increase of

energy with Swiss factory

powder.

An absolute linear increase of

energy with Swiss factory

powder

Homemade powder performed Factory powder beat

signifi-

canly better than factory

powder.

homemade powder

by a margin. Neither powder

performs

as well as in the Tannenberg

gonne.

So, what caused the significantly better performance of the homemade powder in the

Tannenberg-gonne? I got the idea of a possible reason by merely listening to the sound of the

muzzle blasts. When fired with factory-made powder, both gonnes created the typical "black

powder boom".

The Tannenberg gonne, fired with homemade powder, sounds quite different -, a very sharp

crack, comparable to a modern gun firing nitro-powder.

I think the cause of this effect is comparable to the knocking of car motors, running on low

octane gasoline. When the black powder inside the long powder chamber first catches fire at the

touch hole side of the chamber and then starts to burn like a fuse through the long chamber, this

causes a sudden increase of pressure with an adiabatic heating of all the air inside the porous

homemade powder. As soon as the temperature inside the powder surpasses 300 °C by adiabatic

heating, a second fire front is created. So we see a simultaneous ignition of all the black powder

inside the chamber! That causes the atypical explosion of the black powder inside the chamber.

Since modern, factory-made black powder is very compact without any air-pores inside the

grains, there is no adiabatic heating of air inside the powder grains and, hence, a second firefront

is hardly created in the chamber.

According to the contemporary literature, the old gunsmiths observed this, too. They attributed it

to the centered push of the gas, the chamber directed towards the center of the bullet. They didn't

know anything about adiabatic compression.

How to Shoot the Handgonne?

Usually early handgonnes didn't have powder pans. From the many I have seen, there were only

about two or three equipped with a kind of pan which could be closed by a pivoted cover; plus

one with a dove tailed sliding cover (Otepaa gonne, Estonia). So, as a rule, most handgonnes

have touch holes for ignition only and nothing else.

To a "modern" muzzle loader shooter like me, who is familiar with match lock muskets and

flinters, that brings up the question: How were handgonnes ignited? According to the modern

literature about ancient armes, two methods are suggested:

1st ...Ignition by a red hot poker wire (German: "Loseisen"),

2nd

.. Ignition by a fuse.

Ignition by a glowing poker wire:

That implies you have an open fire at hand. According to the literature, defenders of a

fortification kindled a coal fire in a kettle, staked with a number of pokers. I tested this. I bent a

three millimeter wire into the shape of a poker iron and heated it red hot by means of a propane

gas torch. Woom, - it worked immediately, though I had to hurry to ignite my gonne since the

poker cooled rapidly. But after the bang had died away, my poker was bent like a trodden worm.

It was not possible to use it a second time. The reason was the recoil of the gonne while the wire

was inserted in the touch hole, faciliated by the heat-softened iron.

Fig 7:

Poker

wire

before

ignition

of the

gonne

Fig 8: The

bent

poker

after

firing

one

shot

Maybe, this method would have worked if the gonne had been hooked to a window sill or a

battlement. But this method certainly is not suitable for shooting a hand gonne offhand.

Ignition by match and fuse

Not by one of those ubiquitous match-sticks of course, but by a slowly smoldering match cord.

(The English word "match" derives from the French word "mèche" which means exactly and

exclusively this smoldering cord. (The English confuse the two.) But if there is no pan for

priming powder, it seems reasonable that gonnes were ignited by means of a fuse. And you will

notice exactly such fuses on the Chinese picture, Fig 14, at the end of this page called "three shot

gonne".

Fig.9: Here it is

demonstrated how

to aim and ignite a

handgonne offhand

best. Watch the

fuse, looking

horizontally to the

right side. Since

you have to

concentrate on

aiming, you watch

the fuse by a glance

and hit it easily with

your match.

Triggering the

charge is a matter of

half a second then.

Matches were the only readily available source of fire that could be carried all day long by a

traveler, usually stored in a match box, - a perforated tin can worn at the belt. (German:

Luntenberger)

The match used here, the kind I usually use in match lock competitions, is a cord woven from

hemp, with a 6 millimeter diameter. The match cord is bucked and then impregnated by lead

acetate as a catalyst and burns very slowly, - 15 to 17 centimeters per hour. (Look section:

Making a Proper Match) The little bit of match you see pinched atop of a split stick would be

consumed in no less than in half an hour.

Aiming and Hitting

Remember, neither the Assyrian nor the medieval English archers used any kind of sights on

their bows. Intuition was their principle. This is confirmed by modern bow-hunters who easily

and consistently can hit a deer at 25 strides distance, be it in flat or sloping terrain, without

sights. From my experience, two points are essential for bows as well as handgonnes:

1st: Don't align the gonne too close to the peering line eye/target. I think holding it under the

armpit is best. Breast high may also be O.K. Keep both eyes open. In this position your two eyes

will send a three dimensional picture to your brain which will "compute" automatically the

proper direction of the gonne. (Fig. 8 and 9)

2nd: Don't point the gonne just in the general direction of your goal, be it a card board target or a

deer. Concentrate on the very exact spot you want to hit on the target. E.g. don't aim at the whole

deer, but precisely at its shoulder. Be relaxed.

Fig 10: Shooting

at a

Swiss

Army E-

target,

25

strides

away.

Fig. 11:

As demonstrated here, the

Swiss army E-Target used

represents a full size,

upright man. I can hit it

more or less consistently

over this given distance of

25 strides, although, among

five rounds fired, one will

probably be a miss.

A bit more practice would

be an asset.

How effective were handgonnes?

History books about early firearms, written by ignorant historians, as a rule, state that the effect

of early handgonne led more to flabbergasting the enemy by smoke and bang, then to really harm

him. This is definitely not true. To contradict the historians, I run some tests with steel plates

from 1.0 - 1.5 and 2.0 millimeter thickness. Steel quality was steel 37 (St37). This is a low

carbon steel, today widely used for construction work like girders or garden fences. Though it

can't be hardened, it's a tough steel.

Fig. 12-13: The

performance

of the

Tannenberg

gonne with

4.5 g

powder

behind a

patched

16.8 mm

round ball,

and

The

performance

of the

Danziger

gonne with

3.0 g

powder and

a patched

11.8 mm

round ball.

The bullets

were fired

from a

distance of

two meters.

The dents in

the steel

plates are

witnessing

tests with

more

moderate

loads.

Certainly, medieval personal armor was made from hardened steel. But due to its weight, it was

hardly possible to wear two millimeter armor.

As I could prove, it is easily possible to pierce steel 37 of considerable thickness with my

primitive, homemade black powder.

- With the Tannenberg gonne, with fully loaded chamber (4.5 g powder) = 2.0 mm Steel

- With the little Danziger gonne, fully loaded chamber (3.0 g powder)..... = 1.5 mm Steel

To sum up: The advance of firearms, beginning with the handgonne, changed warfare at the end

of the 14th century entirely. Handgonnes were to be taken seriously. From then on, a simple

peasant could beat a well-armored knight with the tip of his finger.

And the Chinese?

As a dessert to my findings about the handgonne, I introduce three pictures I found in a copy of

Wu Pei Chih (1628). By this date, handgonnes were long outdated in Europe. There it was the

time of the 30-years-war that was fought with match lock muskets. The following three Chinese

pictures show possible ways to enhance the fire power of the handgonne, - a topic still pursued

today.

Fig. 14:

"Chainging-

seasons

gonne".

A

handgonne

with two

opposite,

long barrels.

The muzzle

lies on a rest,

the gonne is

fired by an

assistant.

Fig. 15:

"Three shot

gonne" A gonne

with a slit

along the

barrel. This

construction

allowed

three

cartridges

with

protruding

fuses to be

loaded, one

behind

another. The

fuses passed

along the slit

while

loading..

Note the

cartridges

lying on the

ground with

the

protuding

fuses. Also

the smoking

match holder

in the right

hand of the

shooter.

Return

Fig 16:

"Twenty

shot gonne" The same

principle as

in Fig.14.

Obviously,

the gonne

with its 20

touch holes

could be

loaded with

20 charges,

one after

another, each

prepared

with its own

fuse.

And on this page youll find a good selection of original Handgonnes

by Robt Maser

Last updated: Sept. 2009