3 piece Zouave barrel?

[CAGerringer]

Which company produced the Zouave barrel with the 3 piece breech? It had the barrel a sleeve and the breech/plug.
Charlie Gerringer
Old Dominion Dragoons

[John Holland]

That would sound like one of the custom barrel makers such as Hoyt, Whitacre, Harmon, etc.

[CAGerringer]

That would sound like one of the custom barrel makers such as Hoyt, Whitacre, Harmon, etc.

Sorry John, I obviously didn't describe this barrel accurately. It's a regularly rifled barrel that screws into a ~2" long sleeve, that the breech plug also screwed into the opposite end. Does that sound familiar?
Charlie Gerringer
Old Dominion Dragoons

[John Bly]

That's how Whitacre barrels are made as well as Hoyt's and others have done so in the past. That is how you get the bolster onto a otherwise round barrel in these modern times without an expensive forging setup.

[Bob Hatfield]

that had a 3 piece barrel. The barrel was normal length but it had a breech plug/bolster that screwed into the barrel that indexed the nipple. Then it had a tang breechplug that screwed into the rear of the bolster. I always thought it was odd. By the way it was imported by FIE. I still have the lock and it has tiny little lock parts in the back about 1/2 the size of a Zoli lockparts. It was sort of like they made a shooter but not one to last very long. It was like if you asked Pedersoli if you could have some muzzleloader parts from their scrap pile in a dumpster and started making Zouaves from it.

Bob

[John Holland]

CAGerringer - Remember, "A picture is worth a thousand words."

[CAGerringer]

John, I wish I had a picture, because I remember it as the most Rube Goldberg thing I'd ever seen. There was a sleeve that screwed into the barrel on one end and into the bolster on the on the other. The breech plug screwed into the rear of the bolster, making a sort of "Patented breech", I guess. I also think the stock was 2 pieces. I don't know who made it, but I was sure that I didn't want one!
Sorry for the 'fuzziness' of my memory, but I saw it back in the 70's and that whole period is sort of fuzzy...
Thanks for all the inputs,
Charlie Gerringer
Old Dominion Dragoons

[Muley Gil]

"The breech plug screwed into the rear of the bolster, making a sort of "Patented breech", I guess."


A patent breech has the tang screwed into the stock. When you remove the wedges, pins or bands, the barrel lifts out, leaving the tang still in the stock.

After further research, I believe Charlie is correct and what I was describing should referred to as a "patent hooked breech", as per John.

[John Holland]

I always thought that was called a "Hooked Breech".