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Its been mentioned the shorter barrels for the " confined space" of an elephants Howdah saddle.

It's actually the opposite, one's well out in the open. Obviously there's different kinds of saddles and platforms. One I remember using was a highly polished wooden bench seat. One was in danger of sliding off. I forget the other two. I think one was a sort of basket one knelt in. I remember being in a howdah looking straight down in the eyes of a growling tiger under a bush. With the naked eye the tiger was well viewable. All the twigs, leaves, branches of the bush prevented anything like decent focussing of my video camera. Limited time permitted only.

Looking at Howdah hunting photos many are an open framed platform basket or box. The occupants kneeling or standing inside. The typical long arm was normal length barrel rifle or smoothbore.

The Howdah pistol was IMO from reading, I wasn't there

, a last ditch close quarters defence weapon against a tiger which has lept onto the back, head, neck of a elephant. Very close. A 28" barrel might have been too long or unwieldy to bring to bear. The Howdah pistol, was it used only for defence, or also for hunting? Probably, but I can't imagine a Howdah style handgun is very accurate at even short handgun distances.

Some of the long arms, particularly older paIntings, show very long muzzle loaders. Typical of the time. This also illustrates another reason for the Howdah pistol. The time to reload a muzzle loading firearm. Having a short barrelled ML pistol at hand when the long arm was expended, a tiger jumps in the elephant would have been very useful. I immediately think of how pirates were said to carry say seven ML pistols on their person. Multiple shots then possible.

Short barrelled long arms? Firstly because a double rifle doesn't have an action length aft of the barrel chambers, a DR is already quite a short and handy long arm.

But for sure some hunters may have had shorter barrel "long arms" made for use on a Howdah platform or a hunting tower. We've seen two or three on NE in the past and again on this thread.

Shorter barrel long arms are of course also handy for hunting on foot in a thickly obstructed jungle environment. Where we see such shorter long arms used a lot today.

Interesting to see these shorter barrel doubles rifles.

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John aka NitroX

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Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"

Edited by NitroX (03/08/23 10:36 PM)

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