[Raf]

hI Andreas
This pistol maybe a bit more complicated than it first appears. Given the conservatism of Italian gunmakers these Brescian type pistols continued to be made well into the eighteenth century with a variety of locks . Flintlock , snaphaunce with or without external buffers and as in your case a southern Italian toe lock.Having said that I agree that in the main this pistol probably belongs to the third quater of the seventeenth century. First question is are you absolutely sure this is the lock it started life with ? The reason for asking is that these pistols are normally of uniformly excellent quality and from the photographs the lock does not seem to be up to the quality of the rest. Secondly the center lockplate screw appears to have been drilled through the wood rather than through the sideplate which is a strangely scruffy thing to do on a pistol of this quality. Also the third sideplate hole, where a belt hook might have been fitted looks like its been blanked of with a domed rivit. All this should be easily resolved by looking at the rebate for the lock to see if their are any signs of it being cut for a different lock. If it looks OK then we need to think again. Another strange thing is the barrel tang which has been shaped to fit round the very nicely executed escutcheon doesnt look right . Also at this date you would expect the barrel tang screw to be fitted from underneath the trigger guard and screwed into the tang. Whatever the answer is its still a nice thing and if it has been modified then this must have occurred fairly early in its working life. Attached are some images of our archaic looking Brescian snaphaunce of a similar date and a potential pattern for the missing ramrod tube .