A tale of two guns at the Cody Firearms Museum (VIDEO)

By Kristin Alberts

The Cody Firearms Museum in Cody, Wyoming is one of the best sources to learn about historic firearms. With more than 7,000 guns and 30,000 artifacts, it’s like Mecca for gun lovers. However, among the vast collection, two items stand out among the rest. Ashley Hlebinsky, the museum’s curator and Discovery Channel star, identified a 300-year-old sporting rifle and a modern-era machine gun as two of the most well-documented historical arms in the museum’s collection.
Rowland Signed English Wheellock Rifle
An English-built, hunting Wheellock is a rare enough gun by itself, but add in the fact that almost the entire history of this particular long gun is known, and what we have is a priceless historical treasure. “This wheellock is very interesting because it’s made in the 1600s and it’s a signed English Wheellock,” Hlebinsky said. “That might not sound that exciting when I say it, but there are very few surviving signed English Wheellocks.”
Built by Robert Rowland of London, the gun is remarkable enough to behold in its complex mechanical wheellock construction, but it’s truly provenance drives intrigue. “The other thing that’s fascinating is we know most of its history,” Hlebinsky said. “Usually, when you get a firearm in a collection,

Source: Guns.com