Bernard I do enjoy reading your books over and over. the thing I enjoy is that they are hard to put down as the stories are interesting believable and mainly technically accurate. Many good stories have been spoiled for me by technical errors about weapons particularly firearms and their use. I am a very experienced shooter with both Black powder weapons and bows (I cannot fully draw my 75lb Long bow)and I have fired a brown bess musket and wondered where the ball went. The point I would like to make is that twice once in one of the sharps books and once in Fallen Angels you have described a blunderbus as being loaded with scrap metal. This is a common modern day misconception. It would have been a very dangerous practice to load up with nails and rubbish. The normal load was Pistol balls or Buckshot in front of an hefty charge of powder. the advantage of the bell mouth was the ease and speed of loading especially in dark or difficult situations such as on a jolting coach. a good description of the blunderbus in in ‘The book of the Gun by Harold L Peterson in there he describes a load of 16 buckshot (balls of between .32 and.36 inch and a charge of 120 grains of powder and that makes it a fearsome charge to be on the receiving end Sorry to have gone on a bit as they say Looking forward to reading more of your books Richard Pritchard