This hunting rifle was originally made as a flintlock weapon by Georg Drausmiller in Munich in 1729. It bears a typical German walnut stock and wooden trigger-guard, and the lock plate is inscribed with the German word Tugend meaning ‘virtue’. Like all early muzzle-loading rifles it also has a 'patchbox' in the stock which stored the bullets and patches.

Around one hundred years after its manufacture, it was converted to percussion and used in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 (a failed attempt by the Kingdom of Hungary to gain independence from Austrian rule). The replacement lock is of an early (Forsyth) type with a long-nosed striker, which used a priming powder made of potassium chlorate and sulphur, instead of fulminate.