Firearms Flashback

[Applause] [Music] on a quiet street in the town of brownsburg in the province of quebec there's an unusual museum the only one in canada devoted to arms and ammunition there's a fascination about ancient firearms those mechanisms men devised to provide themselves with food and protection and there's a classic beauty in the metal working and woodworking skills of bygone days visitors come from all over the country even people who have never in their lives fired a shot one of the earliest types was the match lock shooting was a major operation you kept the long end of the cord burning lift the other end open the powder pan pull the trigger and half the time nothing happened except that flash in the pan we still talk about the flint lock was far more reliable especially in the rain it made its own fire the flint ignition system showed up in many variations through its long history the blunderbuss for instance the gun with the short flaring muzzle was the chief defense of the traveler in 17th century england it belonged to the romantic days of stagecoaches and highwaymen when a traveler never knew what adventure lay in wait for him around the next bend in the road [Music] so [Music] this museum has a large collection of the storied flintlocks many of them elaborately decorated presentation pieces for princes and warriors the flintlocks turned up in many shapes and with a variety of ingenious mechanisms a handy pistol the flint strikes the prison hot metal scrapings fall to the powder the system lasted hundred and fifty years until the invention of percussion caps the little pepper box is a percussion gun the early ancestor of the revolver but the single shot pistol was still the favorite of the early percussion era it was carried by big game hunters as a last defense against a charging buffalo an army officer carried one and no respectable pirate would be caught without a pistol in his belt they belong to exciting times [Music] hey [Music] much of the colorful history of firearms is associated with europe but in the early days of north america they provided food and clothing as well as protection these rifles were traded to indians in return for furs they're called trade guns and they're stamped with the insignia of the various fur trading companies our canadian forefathers carve their names on their powder horns and cherish their rifles for opening up a continent a gun was just as essential as an axe or a plow it took courage for a man to strike out into the wilderness to trust to his own skill in providing the necessities of life for himself and his family [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] this museum at brownsburg quebec is in a town that has been manufacturing sporting ammunition since 1886 brands such as falcon crown and sovereign were everyday household names in the late eighteen hundreds and through the years ammunition developed as firearms developed for craftsmanship guns made in canada in the 1800s are among the finest ever produced master gunsmiths came from france with the first settlers they trained apprentices turned out custom-made firearms beautifully ornamented it's a pleasure to be carried away by the romance of the past to escape from the highly organized world of today even briefly to remember the skill and the courage of our forefathers that's what makes the study of firearms such a fascinating hobby you