What a slick little carbine, certainly ahead of it's time. As Ian has mentioned before, so many times the success or failure of a gun design has nothing to do with the merits of the design but with timing and circumstance of it's introduction and the business acumen of the designer. With that said, turn that finger rest into a functioning lever to work the action and cock the hammer, add a tubular magazine....oh yeah..the Henry.
Way ahead of its time indeed. If I did not know about this rifle before now, I would look at this and think, oh, late 1800 carbine. This was about 50 years ahead of its time.
As some have already pointed out, this rifle was designed by George Washington Morse not Samuel Morse. It's an understandable slip and you got it correct in your comments. Morse's real innovation was his centerfire cartridge design that incorporated the anvil for igniting the priming compound that can be found in nearly all boxer primed ammunition today. In fact, the anvil did not come into widespread use until a couple of decades after the US civil war and then a British army officer with the last name Boxer was credited with inventing it and now his name is on Morse's cartridge ignition system.
Love your channel, ian. Many years ago, my father owned a Steven's falling-block , single shot 38-55 rifle that would put a 12 inch hole through a moose at 500 yards. I would love to see an episode on one if you could find it. Keep on keeping on, brother. God bless.
"Well, this project didn't really have a chance to go any further, because..." (my brain, automatically: "... war were declared.") "... around this time, the U.S. Civil War breaks out." Wrong channel, brain, but good effort.
I heard that as the confederate army were low on firearms, they bought guns from England. ie- whitworth, enfield, adams revolvers etc. Armstrong sold artilery. An saddles were sold in the 1600s to the colonies.
Would it be possible to take a modern case, trim and shape it, load it with black powder and a .50 bullet and shoot it. I think that would be pretty neat.
Robert Kelley the striker might not work. its designed for the much more sensative percussion caps and it looks quite broad too. I'd say if you weren't opposed to modifying the striker or replacing it with one it might work, but the extractor might also have a problem too
Theoretically... if you bored out the bottom of that case just enough to accept a percussion cap (thinner brass then a primer, and found a fulminate-based cap if you wanted really reliable ignition), then there's nothing about this that wouldn't work fine. Nothing stopping you from making your own from-scratch ammo for it either (though if your success is anything like mine back when I tried doing that, it'll be mixed).
I guess if you used a brass case that was berdan primed it would already have the anvil in it and be close to fitting a cap. Maybe a 7.62x54r case. It'd be fun to try that's for sure.
D8W2P4 Well, yes lever actions would eventually move beyond toggle locks, but not until two (or three, I need to rewatch the Winchester series) decades after the invention of the theoretical Morse lever action. A good lever action rifle, and a stout center-fire cartridge (Which might be better at range, considering the bullet seems more aerodynamic than the competition) would change history if someone had figured out a better way to make the ammunition
+ChaseTheStars Most likely for the same reason(s) as bored through cylinders being something that with the exception for basically one company wasn't made for all those years, patents.
Amazing how innovative our nation was. Even when we're torn apart by civil war and killing each other in mass numbers, we're innovating warfare in ways that won't be matched until World War I. We were an amazing country once.
This is, hands down, the coolest and most innovative, in a thoroughly practical way, forgotten weapon you've done. I wish I'd been there to bid for it. Did they ever see action?
No such thing as the 'U.S. Civil War'. This was the 'War of Northern Aggression' and it was waged almost exclusively in the C.S.A. (Confederate States of America). Call it the American Civil War, or the Civil War if you'd like, but it is not the U.S. Civil War.
It is for the swivel-snap hook on a cavalryman's shoulder belt -sling instead of the usual ring-and -bar most period carbines had mounted on the carbine's left side.
@@justforever96 reading books is part of being learned. writing scripts is part of being learned. even with those tools, the high speed and quality of works is impressive. One still needs to gather the conversion numbers, serial numbers, and details, which requires a knowledge of what books contain said knowledge. If only owning a bunch of books made people as skilled as Ian in creating and presenting a large pool of knowledge that continuously becomes rarer and more obscure due to the nature of the well known information being talked about first. also not sure why you are replying to a 4 year old comment.
Perhaps there is a standard size of thin-walled brass tube (like model makers use) which matches the original case? Let's face it, you're going to be basically starting from scratch and so soldering caseheads onto tubes isn't perhaps the worst way to go. Unless you're extremely lucky and find a "close enough" modern case.
I have to wonder if the thin stock was due to preference, or a material expedient. It occurs to me that you may be able to get that stock out of a regular flooring plank (not that Tennessee has a shortage of trees, but one would much rather use seasoned wood).
Or maybe its just a weight thing - carbines tend to be aimed at saving in weight so useful for arty/medical/support/etc units and for cavalry use. Its a beautiful little lass......
@@aeredhaelredfalen6194 Yeah, maybe something like the 56/50 Spencer centerfire round for reproduction Spencers might work but .45 Schofield or Colt or even .44 Russian would be a whole lot easier and cheaper to find. Any of the calibers could be easily reloaded once you have a stash of components.
Eh, racist or less I bet that, even if the Confederacy, enough contact with people of African descent would've still drove the population to give them rights, people aren't monsters, not even the ones siding with the Confederacy.
The confederacy was wrong in their beliefs yes but that doesn't make them monsters. From their point of the the north was infringing their rights to slavery and when someone tries to take an Americans right away they're gonna fight back. Not monsters just misguided people
@Angel of Mercy. Let's just accept the fact that no matter who would have won the Civil War slavery would have ended sooner or later anyway at least in civilized societee even though it is still going on in Africa specifically in Muslim controlled countries.
What is even stranger than this innovation fading into obscurity is that Morse did not take it to Europe and tried to have it made there after the war. This rifle is far ahead of any rifles the Europeans had at the time.
I wouldnt say it was far ahead of rifles like the Chassepot and Snider Enfield, they were both introduced into service in 1866 and used the most modern technology. The fact the Chassepots needle fire paper cartridge was a technical dead end doesnt detract from the fact it was a very advanced weapon.
Love to see A Uberti or Pieta reproduce some of these in a modern available centerfire cartridge.... Maybe 45 LC or .44-40. Nice gun for folks who like historical shooting (NS-SA) or reenactment... And would likely be handy as a farm or ranch gun.
Agreed! Although they’d be very pricey, not just for historical factor, but also because they’d have to use steel receivers instead of brass since they’d use smokeless powder.
@@WrenchWhacker "they’d have to use steel receivers" I'm not actually certain that they would... Just changing the breach block from cast iron to steel and the "locking block" from cast brass to phosphor bronze or steel might be robust enough for standard pressure .45 LC. or 44-40 rounds. I don't see that the brass frame is really taking that great a loading anywhere other than at the point the barrel attaches, which might need to be beefed up a bit.
@me Me : It was largely about classism, and more particularly was because of the _fallout_ of the differences in classism in the North vs South (the North was more developed for two reasons: firstly the northern states were willing to give out loans to businesses in return for creating local factories & such, which the southern states largely _opposed,_ partially due to the risk that plantation owners might end up bankrolling their current of future competitors, leading to more northern development through greater ability to get funding _for_ development; secondly, immigrants found the southern plantation oligarchs more similar to the european nobles they were trying to get _away from,_ and thus the north had greater access to cheap immigrant labor then the south). At any rate, while slavery would have started collapsing _again_ (Eli Whitney having interrupted the _previous_ collapse about 4 years after the Revolutionary War with the economic improvement of his cotton gin), the fact is that if the South had won it's independence then it's very likely that the South would _still_ have some form of slavery, as much of the reason for southern racism was more a push for a new aristocratic class, than pure economics.
If you put absolutely all political and racial biases entirely to one side--if that is possible--you really do get a feel for the sheer bravery of the Confederate army. They were up against truly impossible odds and yet fought so well it took what amounted to a hugely powerful industrial nation just short of four years to grind them down. Even more so, at certain points it looked pretty dicey for the North as well. This rifle is somehow that entire struggle condensed into a single artefact. I know how incendiary anything concerning the South is at the moment and I acknowledge the racial issues at its heart. Even basic consideration of the 'States Rights' concept has become instantly derisive in many quarters. Maybe it is truly impossible to separate those issues, maybe it is impossible to consider anything positive about the Confederacy at all. But if you focus down to the common private soldier and rifleman who fought for the South and likely had almost no control over slavery nor political dogma... Surely anyone would agree they were _brave_ men who fought incredibly well and with much honour? I wonder in the end how many of them carried this rifle as they did so?
Oh no I don’t think that’s a wildly controversial statement, (or at least it should be) like me and my brother are both very liberal and think the south was totally wrong in that war and even the state rights thing was utter bullshit created after the Civil War to justify it, but my brother commented this morning that in that war the south had the best soldiers and the best generals (at least at the beginning until the union kind of got out of its own way) and The North had everything else lol
Ian, or anyone who knows, I would like to pick your brain for a minute. Years ago I helped a fellow by cleaning up and sizing the cases of a sliding break action Carbine. I was told it was a German made cavalry Carbine that was sent to and used by the Confederate cavalry. It had brass cases with a small flash hole at the base. The base was rounded with an extraction grove. It was a large caliber and the short 16 inch or so barrel had micro grove type riflings. There were about 14 small lands if memory serves. I loaded it with FF I believe because of the center flash hole in the case head, it could have been FFF. The action used a large musket cap for ignition not a percussion cap. The lever action would push the barrel forward out of the breech and extracted the fired case from the chamber. The barrel would tilt down like a break action for reloading. If anyone knows what this civil war carbine was, I’d like to know because I would like to find one. This was 25 years ago or so and I don’t remember what it was. I thank you much.
Could it possibly be a Gallager Carbine? It is similar in what you describe however it has no relation to Germany. I recommend you look through the Wikipedia page (yah I know not the most accurate but it does have a lot of info) on “Rifles in the American Civil War” it lists the carbine I mentioned under the breach loader section as well as other similar carbines. Hope that helps!
@@jameshuggins4118 There were a lot of designs like that, going all the way back to the 1790's, at least (the design seems to have originated in the Northern Germanic states or up in the Baltic Countries). Gastinne Renette made quite a few guns like that in France. They started out using loose ball+powder, moved to combustible cartridges, then brass/copper cases with separate priming, and finally the self-contained metallic cartridge at the end (I don't know of any needle-fire versions of it). Some just slid the barrel forward, some slid it forward and tilted it to facilitate cartridges. They all have the same basic design: a lever w/ toggle locks the breech and barrel together, moving the lever down and forward unlocks the action and slides the barrel forward to facilitate loading. It's actually a really good design for paper cartridges and loose powder+ball, and is easier to maintain good headspace with metallic cartridges (than a typical break-action). Mr.Gibbs "invented" the idea in the US in '57 ( + - a yr or two), and Mr. Gallager "improved" the idea in '60.
I have been to the place where the factory was in South Carolina. There is nothing left but a plaque now. They do have one at the Greenville civil war museum which is pretty cool to see in person.
You should do more Confederate breech loafing civil war carbines like the rising breech carbine and the tarpley carbine :) I love civil war breech loaders and repeaters
Same here brother, I love The Morse, Tarpley, N.T. Read/Keen,Walker & Co. , Rising -breech carbines, as well as the D.C. Hodgkins, J.P. Murray, Cook & Bro., Richmond , Tallassee, Dickson/Nelson & Co., LeMat carbines, and the "Richmond Sharps" carbines !
This rapid firing carbine might explain what happened when South Carolina Cavalry helped stop a Union Cavalry advance in 1864 in Virginia. I think it was the Battle of Haw's Shop. The South Carolinians hadn't fought much for 3 years in S. Carolina and these troops were sent north to aid Lee's Army as mounted infantry. They were reported as being well supplied and heavily armed with Enfield rifles. In their first action they eagerly engaged the Yankees. And their fire was so heavy that General Sheridan later reported that his men were up against a strong reinforced Brigade. I suspect that many of these men were armed with Morse Carbines. The timing and circumstances fit well.
I had family in that unit at that battle. Wounded, and he survived. There are very clear memoirs - they were armed only with the Enfield short rifle. They were glad to have them. Earlier in the war they were embarrassed by them as they saw themselves as dashing hussars with sword and pistol.
1,000 guns made, nearly 3 million fighting, and 750,000 died. I gotta say it, those 1,000 guns had no impact at all on anything other than Morse's fortunes.
It would be really cool if Uberti or Pedersoli made modern cartridge replicas. In say, .45 colt or .44-40. I know they wont. But, it'd be really cool if they did.
Can't recall ever hearing of these. Looks like a solid design. The cartridge design is a good one. Using a standard cap was very wise. I wonder if the trapdoor or even the rolling block were influenced by this design at all? I bet that load would get around 1000 fps out of that barrel length. Nothing to scoff at. Almost the ballistics of modern 45 Colt +p. I agree- a modern reproduction using large rifle primers would be a lot of fun. Modern steel would make it easy to use 5744 or a similar smokeless powder. Put on a more normal wider srock, and life is good. Great video as always. Thank you
The tooling for the Harper's ferry rifle was also captured and those were first sent to Richmond Virginia then to Raleigh NC, then towards the end of the war to South Carolina. It's strange that the tooling for the Morse actions went to Nashville
Nashville Plow Works and College Hill Arsenal that cast iron gun tubes..... Also, as today, Nashville is a major transportation hub that was close to iron ore and coal......
Owned/used no doubt, by a hard-fighting South Carolina cavalryman. Who were almost as good as cavlarymen of Georgia, who were almost as good as troopers of Texas ! (LOL)
I’d like to disagree with the opening point. The confederacy made huge innovations in weapons. The confederate armory realized in 64 that smaller bullets worked better than the .58 and .68 bullets being used, something the US wouldn’t figure out for a while. Plus the first use of electronic mines, the first land mines and first naval mines.
