British East India Company “Model A” Style Musket with Bayonet & Scabbard Original Items

Original Item: Only one available. This is the only Model A type HEIC percussion style musket we have found from the legendary Nepal Cache. This Musket was most likely once a Model P-1771 East India Company Brown Bess that was then transformed to percussion as the first in the “A-F” Percussion Musket Series.

A brief history of how this model came to being- The shortened 39” barrel Brown Bess musket was first developed and adopted by the EIC in 1771. This was a full 25 years before the Board of Ordnance in London followed suit with a 39″ Brown Bess Musket dubbed the “India Pattern” in 1796. This is a testament that private enterprise has seemingly always got things done long before government bureaucrats. In 1839 the British Government officially adopted a converted to percussion Brown Bess musket (P-1796/39) but in the Great Fire of the Tower of London of 1841 over 400,000 of these converted Muskets were destroyed leaving the British Government very short handed. The result, once again, was to copy the current EIC Percussion Musket, the Model “F” and designate it the “Lovell’s Pattern of 1842”. By that time, the EIC had already developed and refined the .75 bore Percussion musket through six models- A to F.

IMA is proud to offer an original British/Nepalese manufactured EIC Model “A” type Musket (small differences have been noted between this and a true English made Model “A”, however, we firmly believe this musket started life as an English Flintlock, was then converted to a Model “A” percussion musket, and then was altered sometime afterwards by the EIC or a Nepalese armory). Again, in .75 bore and with 39″ standard length barrel. Models A and B were EIC flintlock muskets converted to percussion. The conversion to percussion is quite standard and retains the rear part of the barrel, which is the principal difference between the Model “A”, and the Model “B”. The Lock plate markings are indistinct but appear to have the remains of the Gurkha Temple Crest that was applied after the delivery to Nepal by the E.I.C. probably after the Sutlej Campaign of 1846 in gratitude for Nepal’s assistance in the war.

Best of all, this musket comes with an original East India Company Socket Bayonet bearing correct markings complete with heavy brass mounted leather scabbard. The socket of the bayonet has a minor split near the foresight and the scabbard body leather is slightly buckled.

Full details of the very rare Pattern “A” Musket can be found on Pages 97-101 of Volume 2 of David Harding’s wonderful Book “SMALLARMS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 1600-1856” published by Foresight Books in 1997.

Offered in nice tight condition this a singular opportunity to own an exceptional EIC Model “A” Musket and Bayonet Set.