Elegant all steel Miqulet Jezail for comment

[Philip]

Originally Posted by rickystl

Hi Mel

Originally, the barrel tang screws were mounted from the bottom ....The barrel tang screw mounting from the bottom of the stock and threaded into the tang is common with all Balkan style guns. But mounting the screw inside the trigger guard is strange to me. But it is common to every Albanian musket and pistol I have seen.
So you may want to look out for this while disassembling the gun for cleaning.

Rick

Tang screws threaded into the tang itself, and with heads on the bottom, are the norm for Italian and Spanish guns pre-1700. And miquelet lock firearms in the Balkans are based on weapons originally exported to the Balkans from those countries beginning in the first half of the 17th century.

However the location of the screw heads is outside the trigger guard, ahead of it, on the European prototypes. I can't explain the odd position of the screw on Albanian guns. Since you shoot a lot of your guns, do you think this design was dictated by a desire for a certain balance, or length of pull in the case of a shoulder-fired weapon such as a musket?