What a fascinating piece which I have never seen the like of before. I would however question if the gun is actually a pin fire with a conversion to a percussion cartridge. It would appear to be a backward step in the evolution of the gun. Whilst I know very little of the evolution of the gun I do know at this time there was a great deal of experimentation and innovation taking place. If you look at the photos on the link it would appear that the flash tubes actually sit back in the breach face, not through a notch in the top of the barrels, where the pin of a pin fire cartridges would be. The flash tube also appears to be much thicker than a pin fire pin would be, which would make it rather useless as a pin fire gun.
I would like to suggest that this gun possibly predates the pin fire and it is an early attempt at making a self contained breach loading cartridge gun – and very clever it is too. As a self contained cartridge there would be no need for a ram rod so possibly the gun was originally a muzzle loader and was converted to breach as many of them were and the rod has got misplace with the passage of time.
Just thoughts!!
