A late medieval or early modern light gun barrel from the Castle Museum in Malborktypology, technology of manufacture and identification of the smelting process

摘要

The paper discusses a gun barrel of a possibly late 15th-early 16th c. date from the collection of the Castle Museum in Malbork (Marienburg), Poland (MZM/468/MT). The barrel was originally part of a hand-held gun(a hackbut?) and was later converted into a light cannon. The barrel was made from unevenly carburised soft steel (c. 0.1-0.2% C). Both metallographic examinations and the analysis of slag inclusions with the use of multivariate statistics suggest that the metal in the barrel was manufactured using the direct (bloomery) smelting process.