questions about Taiwanese matchlocks

[Philip]

LOCK:
If you're after ETHNOGRAPHIC ACCURACY in your design, the Viet hill-tribes flintlock will not do. They are distinctly different from the extremely primitive matchlock typical of Taiwan. In fact, those Taiwan matchlock mechanisms are so simple that a replica can be fabricated for very little money, can be made at home by anyone who's handy with tools and has basic workshop equipment including a torch. After all, the originals were made a milieu with the most elementary metalworking skill-set. Good images should be obtained from the Peabody-Essex museum, and you can go from there.

BARREL:
I think the originals were probably imported, most likely from Chinese traders. W. W. Greener, in THE BOOK OF THE GUN, offers eyewitness descriptions of itinerant Chinese smiths making good quality twist forged smoothbore barrels in shops set up at their customers' homes in south China. VOC records show various arms imported into northern Burma from China in the 17th cent., and you've probably seen Moro barongs with Chinese markings on the blades.

You could conceivably use the barrel off a Viet hill-tribe musket, they are quite nicely forged considering the crudity of the rest of the gun. Problem here is that they are shorter and smaller in bore than the existing Taiwan examples. Shooting one may be problematic from a safety standpoint because ethnographic iron objects from SE Asia tend to have corroded a fair amount due to climate and irregular maintenance (sometimes outright neglect after they were collected in the field).

STOCK
From a practical standpoint, 2-piece is the way to go if you don't want to wait for a sapling to grow for you. I don't know how skillful the Taiwan aborigines were at carpentry, whether they borrowed the skill of Chinese joiners who could do these tight and near invisible scarf joints on the curved backs/arms of those Ming style "horseshoe" armchairs.

Lemme call my buddy in San Diego who has a Taiwan gun and ask him if his stock is 1 or 2 piece. Stay tuned, guys.