Period Photos of People with Ethnographic Arms

[estcrh]

Originally Posted by RobertGuy

Just noticed the ...bipod? in use here.I'm not a collecter of muskets and no little about them but how common were such attachments? I had somehow always thought of them as a modern development for automatic weapons.

I have seen bipods on Tibetan and Afghan long guns and on one Persian example.

The Afghan Joozaeel or Mountain Rifle.
On Stone by J.Bennett. T. Black, Lith Cal. 1840.
Lithograph, rare. Sheet 115 x 205mm, 4½ x 8¼". Narrow margins.
A very unusual illustration of a jezail, with the distinctively curved stock and a bipod. It has been suggested that the jezail was originally designed to be held like a pistol with the stock under the arm, allowing use on horseback. However during the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-42) it came into its own as a sniper weapon, fired down from high cliffs down onto the British Army retreating from Kabul to Jalalabad. Being heavier and longer-barrelled than the British Brown Bess musket, the Jezail outmatched the return fire. Most were hand-made: only a few were rifled.