Pirate Weapons- Flintlock, Scabbard, Hanger

Other than swords and scabbards, a pirate would typically use a gun called a flintlock. A flintlock was frequently of the wide mouthed ‘blunderbus’ design, though the design changed according to the country of origination. Most 18th century pirates were Spanish, French and English, though there were pirates of every nationality, including Portuguese, and North African. The Corsairs were French and the Barbary Corsairs were Turks. They would track boats for days deciding whether to attack them or not, but rarely used shots since that would damage the vessel that they wished to capture, not to destroy. They used more skilled tactics to capture ships.

Their tactic would be fly a friendly flag as they approached a ship, then strike it and raise the pirate flag, the skull and crossbones. They would then fire one shot that generally persuaded the captain of the other ship to strike colors and surrender. In that way they took the ship complete and none of the treasure on board was lost.


Scabbards, swords and pirate flintlocks can be found at Historical Weapons Store. Also learn more about the history of pirates within our Articles Directory.