I'm reading A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. He mentions, among a collection of other trades, a "gunmaker" in Paris, around the time of the French Revolution, and this piqued my curiosity.
Was "gunmaking" at this time a trade that a person would do, along the same lines as a butcher or carpenter? (ie. presumably an apprenticeship to a master gunmaker?)
How did gunmaking as a trade become established?
How much of a gun would a gunmaker construct himself (stock, barrel, ammunition, etc.)? Who would make the parts he would not?
When did firearms go from implements of war, presumably outfitted during conflict, to something someone would purchase for private ownership?
Were most guns made by private individuals for retail? For some reason I assumed that gunmaking at this time was primarily the purview of the state.
If gunmaking by individuals was a thing, who would outfit a nation's army (I assume the logistics of this would be beyond the means of an individual or even a group of individuals)?
Who made up the primary market for firearms? The nobility?
Were there early restrictions on gun manufacturing and gun ownership?
Were certain nations renowned for the skill of their gunmakers and the quality of their firearms?
How much would a gun cost around the time of the French Revolution?
I'm primarily interested in the development of the gunmaking trade in Western Europe (especially France) from its beginning to the time of the French Revolution, but I would also be curious to hear answers to these questions as they pertain to the Ottoman Empire as well.
That's a lot of questions.
2)They were sold because there was a market for them. People were hunting with firearms in the 15th century: the Emperor Maximillian I, for example, had some very nice hunting rifles. They were also used for defense, but you wouldn't get the first practical pistols until early-mid 16th c.
3)Answered this in #1. But a big shop would likely have barrel-maker/ forgers, lock filers, engraver, decorative carver, gunstocker. Or teams of them, or there might be a barrel or lock making shop specializing in those, selling to others. A barrel-boring mill, driven by water power, could sell to a lot of smiths. A lock-maker could export- many of the Kentucky rifles of the 18th c. had imported Ketland locks.
Not sure about that one.
You have to distinguish between an arsenal and a gunsmith shop. A military firearm has to be very robust, is used in volley fire and so not often carefully aimed, can take a bayonet, and has to be made in large quantities in identical calibers, so the same ammunition can be used. A big gunsmith shop could contract to build weapons for a government ( Grice, for example, built Brown Bess or New Land muskets ) but governments also began setting up arsenals or armories to build in greater numbers and have greater uniformity. In France, big ones were St Etienne, Charleville, and Tulle.
answered mostly by (5)
7)Sometimes. Certainly, if you look in museums like the Wallace Collection, you get the impression that aristocrats were who a gunsmith wanted to work for...but there's also the problem of control of hunting- someone was more likely to need a shotgun if they only owned or had access to a place with birds to hunt, and that likely ruled out lots of people. In the American colonies that was not so much a problem, and indeed enough very utilitarian guns survive to indicate wide ownership.. ( somebody from the NRA might want to make a big deal about self-defense and militias , here, as well, but that aspect has gotten too politicized to bother with here)
There were guild laws in Europe, restricting who could practice the trade. Some of this was supposedly to preserve quality ( ergo, a masterpiece) but some of it was surely to simply restrict competition. I am not sure of gun laws in Europe. There was a militia law in many American colonies requiring gun ownership, essentially trying to pass a major cost of arming the militia on to the population. But , again, that's become quite a political question.
Oh, yes. Spain was famous for barrels: they had some extremely good sources for iron and very skilled smiths, who could do fine pattern-welding ( later in the 19th c. more of a Belgian specialty). It's not unusual to find 18th c. Spanish barrels used in English or French guns. England had some very creative gunsmiths, like Nock, who created very ingenious semi-rainproof locks. Germany produced very fine small rifles, which were very influential on the creation of the Kentucky rifle, when German gunsmiths moved to the American colonies. The French made some astoundingly ornate pieces. The Scots were fond of making all-steel pistols.
I am not sure. In the American colonies, a plain fowler ( shotgun) could set you back 4 pounds or so: a very fine imported English one might be three times that. But there are some extraordinary European pieces that must have gone far beyond that- I just don't know those numbers. But 4 pounds might be a year's earnings for a day worker, so , like most "things" in the pre-industrial world, guns were expensive.
If you're interested in France, Diderot's Encyclopedia ( c. 1755) has a section on gunsmithing.