Chassepot Versus Dreyse, The Mad Minute Grudge Match 

The bird is singing, "Can't hit me".

​@@myparceltape1169 French Pigeon: "What are swiss humans like?" Swiss Dove: "Useless shots. You could sit in a tree only a flap away from them and they can shoot all day and never hit you."

They have indeed 😉🍷 in-fact they even like the sound of two rifles.

I know this thread is from pre-war, but I have noticed the same thing in the Ukraine conflict-- birds singing with actual danger and random explosions in a dystopian hellscape. I guess we need to learn to enjoy as much as we can in our everyday environment. Most of us have it so good, and we get bent out of shape on little things like an opinion somebody makes in the comment section -- or a statement of from an opposing political figure.

If they were so good, why didn't they win? Checkmate Bonapartists!

Vielen Dank!🙂

Oops 😅

Very glad to be of service! I also have a vid on making original Chassepot ammunition if you wish to show how laborious it was.

Combine wood, iron and brass and you have a fine rifle. The Chassepot cavalry rifles are sexy AF.

It’s over 10 years old, washed countless times and still glows in the dark!

and did I?

@@thebotrchap I think so yes! There were no hovercrafts full of eels or anything of that nature.

In addition to the superior range, the Chassepot is smoother to operate, and the needle is more durable.

@@khester7397 From what I saw watching this movie, operation looked much smoother on the Dreyse.

The Dreyse's larger bore allows less residue build up and fouling than the Chassepot. The Chassepot has a faster fire rate, yet, French soldiers struggled to manage the recoil and turned to playing the butt of the rifle at their foot when shooting, almost as a mortar style type of firearm, lowering accuracy immensely.

I recommend going to InRange. Karl and Ian did a short series on why tube fed lever actions never really made a dent as universal service rifles (although it was a very very close call in Switzerland as I tell in Vetterli part 1)

Most lever actions can be used as quite rapid single shots when the magazine is empty, so you get however many are in the mag at a high rate then speed comparable to a good single shot until your cartridge pouch is empty as well.

Oh wait, I said words to that effect in the vid 😉 Victory was achieved with excellent artillery, railway logistics and tried and tested decentralized command. Small arms superiority is very seldom a war winner since the standard adoption of firearms..

Get a load of this guy🤦‍♂️

@@thebotrchap The last sentence is very important here. I think people focus too much on the arms instead of the logistics and tactics. Especially in discussions about the Franco-Prussian war (and the Austro-Prussian war to an extent). France might have had the better rifles, but everything else was worse and in many cases chaotic.

The germans won for things in which the french were too stupid. The prussians praised and feared the Chassepot. Wawro mentions that Moltke told an attaché to tone down his praises for the french rifle in order to not upset the King.

I didn’t because that would be cheating 😉 Interesting to note that the Dreyse does have the equivalent. The needle carrier has a recess for a leather gasket.

The Dreyse Needle Gun only lasted for 30 years in service, before being replaced by the 1871 Mauser. It must have been a really awful infantry weapon compared to what other countries had, to have been discarded so quickly. ;-)

@@dj1NM3 right on the cusp of so many advances in infantry arms. King of the battlefield for a short period of time made up by for training, espre de corps, logistics and staff work.

@@stevep5408 Three decades of use is not exactly "a short period", I'm pretty sure you missed ;-) to indicate sarcasm.

@@dj1NM3 /sarcasm

Kind of . it's more that prussians used their 30 year old rifle (as the subsequent updates to the 1841 pattern were only in materials so switching from iron barrels to steel etc) and realised that they didn't manage to keep the rifle a secret for 30 years. Should also be noted that in 1869 the prussians adopted a update system (part of wich chap shows of as the pattern of bolt he uses would e used for the update aswell) that would give the dreyse the same capabilities as the chasspot . So wierdly enough Bismarck didn't use the first opportunity he got to get the french to declare war on the north german federation and waited for another inevitable opportunity then the french propably wouldn't have shown up the prussian longarm as they would be relatively equal. Not that that would've changed anything but still interesting

No, the worse fouling is actually within the narrowest part of the head where you can’t put a gasket in.

Paper Cartridges - Making Dreyse sabots SBAM - Making RB Dreyse cartridges BotR - Original and quick Chassepot cartridges although the cartridges I am using in this vid are a further evolution that I will publish elsewhere at some point.

My hope is to convince Karl of Inrange to do it since A) he has one and B) he is far more operator with it than I could ever hope to be 🤣

@@thebotrchap Karl! Oh Karl! Still, if you have one and the accompanying .45-70 ammo, it would be fun to learn the rifle, would it not?

All in good time!

@@thebotrchap Good!

Well in both cases this mode of fire is rather artificial but the fouling question still stands in the case of a long exchange of fire, rapid or not. The superiority comes rather from the ability to hit at ranges which are impossible to the opponent. You can then cooly lay donw precise fire and have time to deal with fouling should it occur.

@@thebotrchap Yeah, I guess accuracy takes precedent, updates to bolt actions improved reliability fairly quickly too. Fair point.

thats what the austrians thought aswell and then they got assfucked by their cousins in their war over who unifies germany.

There were, and there were also reports saying soldiers sometimes had to piss in the chamber to remove fouling...

The original chassepot cartridge was never intended to be consumed, debris was sucked out behind the bullet in the same way as the Dreyse, hence why they both have a swirl chamber around the needle guide on the bolt. The needle is harder to get to in the chassepot because it is far more unlikely to break since it is thicker and is less exposed when firing than a Dreyse needle. Even then, Dreyse needles are not as delicate as people think. I have not yet broken one in over ten years of needle firing.

It shouldn’t do even with a standard Dreyse in good condition, don’t believe the myths. This one has a Beck converted bolt which adds a rubber gas seal. A standard Dreyse will only start to leak when it is absolutely filthy.

It gets blown out with the rest. There is an annular space behind the cartridge to swirl the gases.

@@thebotrchap Thanks Chap. That sounds like a an elegant design.

Ich verwende einen Bubble-Tea Strohhalm aus Papier als Hulsenkörper und dass Bodenteil dieser Geschosse passen genau hin. www.castbulletengineering.com.au/products/miscellaneous-others/product/2979-11mm-gras

@@thebotrchap Danke, das klingt ja interessant. Kannst du mir einen Link zu den Strohhalmen geben? Ich hab von B-Tea keine Ahnung und weiß nicht, ob es da Unterschiede gibt. Bezgl. der Geschosse: Ich nutze derzeit die Geschosse von "H&C Collection" - sind gut, aber leider Recht teuer.

@@Oldstyle1959 www.amazon.de/PAPSTAR-Sortiert-Bubble-Tea-Halme-Papiertrinkhalme-Papierstrohhalme/dp/B083V31HWC/ref=sr_1_4?crid=26U5FU2VR6337&keywords=papstar+strohhalme&qid=1636119817&qsid=262-0003778-8994919&sprefix=papstar+str%2Caps%2C138&sr=8-4&sres=B083V31HWC%2CB09CNR937Y%2CB07MLMQKFN%2CB07MPNDN9C%2CB07W7LB87J%2CB0845SV337%2CB08HMSL9Q5%2CB08HMS48NK%2CB08462QG99%2CB07MJ2DKW2%2CB08HMTD8JZ%2CB07MJ2F9GD%2CB07MLLL6R4%2CB07M744WBL%2CB09CNQZMJS%2CB09CNQSRN3%2CB07MLMFF3X%2CB07MLMCWZN%2CB07MLMNZ6R%2CB07MFG2HH4&srpt=DRINKING_STRAW

@@thebotrchap Super, nochmals Danke!

Extended range is useless unless you can be reasonably accurate 😉 I’ve only taken it out to 100m and it holds the 9-10 ring fine. I’d like to take it further but unlikely to happen

Flintlock? Absolutely

There are a few maxi-ball type projectiles around but I don’t know how well they work. You have to remember that the rifling and rate of twist was based on round ball and never updated.

Cleaning and clearing. There is no extractor so you need something to push out a cartridge if you get a dud. This practice continued well into the 20th century on military rifles.

Thank you! However, maybe now we should call them extractor rods!

@@chomocharlie3997 In British doctrine they were referred to a clearing rods with the introduction of the Long Lees since they were issued with pull-throughs for cleaning. The rod was also shortened so that two or three from the squad rifles had to be screwed together to be actually used.

I have a Peabody MM in the release pipeline as well as a Snider one (not me firing). Brett of paper cartridges has also done one. For the trapdoor and martini henry I am hoping British Muzzleloader and Karl will do the honours.

@@thebotrchap That is excellent, thanks for the reply. I own a Martini, Trapdoor, Peabody and now a Snider that I have got to figure out a way to get ammo for. I wonder why in the 1866 the French went with paper cartridges while the British and Americans were converting their muzzleloaders to metal. Great video as usual.

​@@Wolf-yt5deProbably a question of cost. The French had a much bigger standing army compared to the British and certainly the post ACW Americans, and they also just got a massive conscription program in place. So they were gonna need a lot more rifles than the British and Americans. Also the paper cartridge was a much more established technology at this point in history, while the metallic cartridge was still finding its way. Note that the earliest Snider and Martini cartridges were of rolled brass, and only later did it convert to drawn brass when the former proved to be problematic.

I have no idea what you’re trying to say. It’s historical fact that the C had a flatter trajectory, longer range and higher precision, even the Prussians acknowledged it.

@@thebotrchap "The geometry" I said. "The bullet has this funny acorn shape which is not the most ballistically efficient". The bad trajectory came from the small load they chose and from the heavy bullet (31 g). I never tried to say the Dreyse is superior. The rifle is 25 years older.

Actually I’ve had more range time with the big D since the round ball ammo is easy to load. It’s just a clunky rifle compared to the C. The loading space between the „chamber” and breech face is also very tight on the D so it helps to see what you are doing, hence lowering the rifle. With the C you just need to throw the cartridge somewhere in the nice wide bolt channel and it will feed.

Not really no, I have spent equal time on both. The Dreyse ergonomics are simply not as good. The Dreyse was designed to give superiority over muzzleloaders, the Chassepot was designed to give superiority over the Dreyse.

I’m guessing you didn’t watch at least until 13:38 😜

@@thebotrchap Oh...

Yein... There's a whole debate regarding Dreyse effectiveness. At under 200m, absolutely. But over that? The Dreyse is ineffective, whereas the last-gen rifle muskets are effective out to much longer ranges. But for a while the Dreyse is king.

No need, the Chassepot will foul before the Dreyse ever will. It’s down to chamber geometry. Interestingly though it was not cited as being a particular problem. I think we over estimate how much an individual soldier fired. Their load out was 60 rnds anyway. The major issue was rather the relative fragility of the cartridge in storage, transport and susceptibility to damp.

@@thebotrchap Thanks for the insight, I hadn't thought about the fragility of the ammunition.

@@DickHolman The Chassepot cartridge is long and thin with the bullet tied to the charge. I can imaging it was easy to put a kink between the two. Chamber it like that and there’s a high chance of the needle not lining up with the primer. The Dreyse cartridge is stubby and the primer is well protected. The damp issue is applicable to both naturally.

It's been a truism since the invention of projectile weaponry that soldiers in true oh shit moments can run through ammunition much faster than was even thought possible.

The beauty of the Chassepot was the deliberate adoption of paper cartridges because they knew the brass industry was not up to par in terms of production, compared to its tobacco industry which could churn out paper cartridges on a much higher frequency.

@@TchaikovskyFDR I often wondered if cost and manufacturing capacity had anything to do with the military adoption of paper cartridges before brass. Even though brass ammunition has become a standard thing in modern armies, you still see many of them policing up their spent brass at the end of a range day for reloading.

@@peteranderson037 it absolutely would have played a role. We think of a drawn brass case as a pretty trivial thing to manufacture, but in the mid 19th century it was a big deal to produce in large numbers. Meanwhile paper cartridges had long established production going to at least the 18th century. That is also why the whole idea of militaries not adopting breach loaders / repeaters because the soldiers would fire "too quickly" comes from. Not because armies didn't want soldiers to shoot a lot, but countries couldn't supply enough cartridges for the hem to fire at a reasonable rate.

@@88porpoise early europan military brass cartridges would have been rolled (see early martini cases)

I am surprised that it lasted more than one shot. You can see tyre tracks on the road where there was a risky manoeuvre and that is from strong heat treated rubber. Still, machining steel to tolerance might have been too difficult then.

They had better rifles but that’s not enough to win a war. The Prussians basically had better everything else including logistics and command philosophy and structure.

@@thebotrchap You are certainly right, but the individual armourment of the soldier in 1870 was much more important than in every later war.

@@ArnoSchmidt70 As in most situations (I think); the best armament means little, if you cannot supply your troops adequately (logistics) and they have nothing to shoot with their nice rifles, or cannot get them to the right places at the right times.

@@zephyros256 quite so... and just being quicker to fire in one mad minute doesn't always make a weapon all round better.

The French had better rifles, but the Prussians had much better artillery. Herr Krupp really did his country a solid. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C64_(field_gun)

Not really, it’s one of the weaknessesof the system. There is an intermediate needle guide in the middle of the bolt body (noix) which should also limit fouling into the spring area but these wear out with time and are difficult to get out and replace. Since using the bubble tea cartridge though the fouling issue has largely gone, at least for casual range use.

@@thebotrchap thanks Chap for your confirmation. I'm using the bubble tea straw method as well only recently. Going to try it out some more and also I received 1 litre of flame retardant fluid which I will be using on de sides of the cartridge. Less burnt paper residu means less chambering problems.. I hope ☺️

For the French it would have been an assortment of 18mm percussion rifled muskets, short rifles, carbines and musketoons. For the Prussians they effectively skipped the rifled musket stage back in the late 1830s and when straight from percussion smoothbores to the Dreyse. Other German states only adopted the Dreyse later so also went through the percussion rifle or even percussion breechloader stage.

I have indeed

Great series.

Mostly from other people, rarely from toy shops.

No strippers for these rifles ;-)

@@thebotrchap I should dislike the video, but it is another kind of pawn I guess.... so like I do.

If anyone was gonna adopt a technologically advanced, expensive rifle it would be the Union Army, not Confederate. And the Union did adopt many of them for their cavalry, like the Sharps and the Spencer.

I some places they did. In Saint-Privat for instance, the French troops broke a charge of the Prussian Guard, who lost more than 4000 men in a few minutes. Unfortunately the French didn't exploited this success...

Which one? The Chassepot was converted to metallic cartridge in the form of the 1866-74 rifle alongside the 1874 Gras rifle, the Dreyse was replaced with the 1871 Mauser rifle.

@@thebotrchap Oh, thanks! And I guess I was referring to both.

They did, espionage was just a prevalent then as today.

20 or so