Historic Replicas

More on pirate weapons – today some uses for the commonly used flintlock pistols.  Pirate’s typically favored small blunderbusses and used them as boarding weapons. A blunderbuss was a medieval shotgun (used even into the 19th century) and it could clear part of a deck with one shot. That would leave it easier for the boarding crew to clear up that part of the deck.  Others would have boarding blunderbusses for the part of the deck that they boarded.

Other types of flintlock pistols had a grenade like flare at the end of the barrel.  That looks just like a cup and its function was to hold a grenade for launching.  One of the more famous pirate replicas is Captain John Henry Morgan’s flintlock, that was inscribed witth “1671″ and markings of a skull and crossbones.  The picture above is a replica of a real grenade cup flintlock, owned by a former British Admiral from Wales who became a privateer.  He was a pirate who used the Anglo-Spanish wars to get himself knighted by sinking Spanish ships among other things , and finally died of liver failure due to his heavy drinking:  “Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum”, but not so much ‘ho-ho’  and too much rum for poor old Henry!