December 10-13, 2024 Firearms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/10/2024
An extremely rare example of a military rifled-musket by Durs Egg, originally setup in the mid-1790s as a pattern for consideration by the Board of Ordnance for British light infantry troops. These soldiers needed a more accurate arm for irregular warfare, yet required a bayonet for close-quarters combat—as recommended by now-senior officers derived from their experience in the Revolutionary War and more recently, the campaigning then ongoing in the West Indies. Rifled musket prototypes were also delivered to the Board for consideration by Henry Nock and Joseph Grice, but only Durs Egg received a contract. In May 1796 the Board agreed to his “fair and just demand: of 3 pounds and 15 shillings for each “rifle musquet”, but how many, if any, of these Egg rifled muskets were actually purchased and received into the Tower is unknown. This Egg musket has a pin-fastened, 39 inch barrel like the India Pattern then in use, but rifled with nine deep grooves to a bore of 0.70. However, its stock is similar to the smoothbore pattern that Henry Nock had submitted for consideration as a replacement for the Short Land Pattern. It is fitted with a plain, fixed-blade rear sight, the front sight being a bayonet lug filed into blade form at top, so that it could function adequately in both capacities. Although no specific bayonet has been identified to this arm, the socket of a standard Land Pattern bayonet of this period would only require minor changes in cutting the 3-way mortise to fit this arm well. Because of the rifling, a more robust steel ramrod, with hole drilled crosswise through the swell for a push-bar (as with the Baker rifle) and the stock is slit from muzzle to triggerguard in the fashion of the Nock carbine and some Baker rifles. The barrel has “D. EGG LONDON” engraved on it, with London Company proofs to the left near the breech, while the border-edged, convex lock is engraved with D.EGG across the tail and a crown over GR before the gooseneck cock. PROVENANCE & LITERATURE: This specific gun is pictured and discussed in Blackmore's "British Military Firearms" (1961), pp. 111 and 146, when it was then in the collection of noted historian and collector Jac Weller.