Lancaster base-fire guns are rare and this is the first example to have passed through these rooms in almost twenty years. The design was one of the earliest self-contained cartridge innovations of the mid-nineteenth century and it is understood that the cartridge was devoid of any type of priming-cap. A blow on any part of the base of the cartridge would ignite a flash which was communicated to the main charge by means of four flash holes
The makers have kindly confirmed that the gun was completed in 1858