Slitherine

I can't find any of my resources and I am at the stage in life when eyesight and memory start to fail their CMTs.

Poking around on the internet it looks as if the gun tubes are exclusively or typically made of iron.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribauldequin shows an original manuscript with a grey rather than yellow barrel.

pot-de-fer is sort of self explanatory: http://xenophongroup.com/montjoie/gp_wpns.htm

A period painting in the site above also shows iron/black barrels on handguns.

So, is there anyone out there with more expertise who can point to evidence that some barrels - particularly on organ guns - were made of brass or bronze, or who can confirm a sad, drab uniformity of iron?

I realize that there were some weird materials used early on - logs, leather, etc. I am looking more for the mainsream than such esoterica.

TIA - Skullz

I found a couple of references to cast bronze barrels for handguns found in Sweden and Germany, so perhaps there were some bronze hand guns about. As for cannons I think they would be iron, the huge size and the possibility of them exploding probably made iron the metal of choice to cast them in.

http://xenophongroup.com/montjoie/earguns.htm

Hello, to distinguish the guns at the Middle Ages a good way to do it, especially in the guns with carriage and fixed, is to observe the shape of barrels, being most of the ones cast in iron reinforced along the barrel, and the ones cast in bronze, bell-shaped.
Hope it helps
Mikel

Bronze would likely go that pale shade of green as well, unless polished regularly - something perhaps not a priority on campaign!

The way I understand it,bronze barrels were cast and then bored out,which means they were more decorative barrels. Iron barrels were forged,thus more plain in appearance,and were more prone to bursting due to that fact.

From what I recall, the early guns were mainly iron; bulky and often with various forms of reinforcement to the barrel.
Bronze cannon were used in increasing numbers mainly for weight saving reasons. This had more to do with being able to cast barrels with less flaws, therefore could be thinner or not reinforced, rather than the actual material weight.
However bronze was more expensive and harder to get in quantity, so there were always iron guns. As a rule of thumb, the more mobile the gun was required to be, the more likely it was made of bronze (unless very small to begin with). I don't think this would be common till after 1500 however.
As iron and steel casting and milling techniques improved, bronze guns rapidly disappeared, but we are talking mid 19th centuary here, long after the middle ages.

IanP wrote:From what I recall, the early guns were mainly iron; bulky and often with various forms of reinforcement to the barrel.
Bronze cannon were used in increasing numbers mainly for weight saving reasons. This had more to do with being able to cast barrels with less flaws, therefore could be thinner or not reinforced, rather than the actual material weight.
However bronze was more expensive and harder to get in quantity, so there were always iron guns. As a rule of thumb, the more mobile the gun was required to be, the more likely it was made of bronze (unless very small to begin with). I don't think this would be common till after 1500 however.
As iron and steel casting and milling techniques improved, bronze guns rapidly disappeared, but we are talking mid 19th centuary here, long after the middle ages.

There is a reason that the tube of an artillery piece is called the 'barrel' . Early artillery pieces were commonly constructed like barrels, using longitudinal iron sections hammered onto a wooden core, reinforced with iron hoops, then burning out the wooden core.

http://www.themcs.org/weaponry/cannon/cannon.htm

A cast bronze cannon was a superior weapon, but more difficult to make without flaws. In the 13/14th centuries, iron cannon predominated. The use of bronze cannons increased as castings techniques improved. The gigantic bronze siege artillery used by the Ottomans at Constantinople were cutting edge technology - the super-guns of the day.