Ever fired a matchlock? Yes, I have. Many decades ago, I worked at one of the larger “Natural History” museums in the U.S. and buried among the hundreds of thousands of specimens & physical objects that had been collected & donated from around the world, were a number of things that were not in keeping with the generally liberal sensibilities of the educational & research staff members. One of the more controversial curators, however, was more pragmatic about life & our culture and because among other things, he was a hunter, we became friends. Over time, he showed me some of the marvelously crafted swords, pikes & edged weapons that were part of the collection but not really “admitted to” by the museum administration & rarely made part of their displays. He also showed & taught me about the number of original matchlocks they owned. He knew about them because for a good part of his life, he had collected such things himself. Months later, at the farm in which he & his family lived, I had the opportunity to not only examine his collection but fire a couple of pieces from it. I realize that such an act would be considered heresy today but as I said it was a long (very long) time ago & he was also very knowledgeable in regard to the materials & metallurgy involved. In consideration of an even longer-ago period of time, the ones he owned & that we fired were Asiatic, and while I think the Chinese used some of theirs into the 1800’s, these might have stemmed from, or actually predated, the timeframe of your replica. I have considered myself to have been extremely fortunate in regard to the number of historical, collectable & just plain neat firearms I have handled (and even shot) in my life but that afternoon on the farm, holding & firing something that went that far back in time & was so important in regard to how guns impacted the world, is something I will never forget. If the phrase “holding history in your hand”, ever applied to something I did, it was on that day.