1855 Tower

Muskox · Jun 9, 2025

Yes, ok.

There are thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of those rifles in the Bazaars in Afghanistan. I don't think they are antiquing them and they look old as hell with 30-80% of the finish wore off and beat up stocks. I never saw a new looking rifle. I never imported a new looking rifle.

A lot of folks put a lot of digital ink into the the Kyber pass guns. I have been around guns since I was a child, and working on guns since I was an armorer in my first military unit 33 years ago. I never felt like the guns I saw were knock offs. For sure I am not an expert, but I think I have a fairly sophisticated eye, been building my own guns for over 10 years.

The SKS's and Ak's in the market look like the were made yesterday on worn out tooling.

Never saw a gun in Afghanistan the was a musket or falling block that looked as good as your lock does. The amount of finish worn off of them is pretty severe.

fourfive8 · Jun 10, 2025

Couple of pics from Anthony Tiri’s excellent reference on Islamic weapons showing an example of handmade Crown w/VR and misspelled “Enfild” found on a copied gun and four examples of Afghan Jezail tribal guns common to the region. It seems “Enfield” was commonly used on the copies, if for no other reason than it sounds official, rolls off the tongue and would be similar in the US where the term “Winchester” has become synonymous with most any lever gun.

fourfive8 · Jun 10, 2025

Here’s my example of an Afghan tribal Jezail. It has an original British Yeomans, East India Company lock, probably originally on a Brown Bess. All other parts are locally made. The octagonal barrel is rifled with bore of approx. 55 caliber. It is of high contrast, mandrel forged twist steel/iron. I occasionally shoot it with a patched round ball and about 30 gr black powder. These were intended to be shot kneeling, sitting, prone or using a rest. Many have a bolster toward the muzzle for attaching a primitive bipod. The often repeated information about these “camel guns” being shot with the short buttstock tucked under the armpit is nothing more than urban legend hooey.

Most are well worn and somewhat crude but nonetheless fully functional, These were cobbled together by local smiths to use for both hunting game and for two-legged adversaries.