+Nukle0n I'm too cheap to buy snap caps so I take an expended cartridge case and de-cap the primer.Then I fill the primer pocket with hot glue.The glue is kind of pliable and elastic and I've never damaged a firing pin with this method.
+Nukle0n Maybe someone could 3d print some snap caps with the primer areas hollowed out. I guess a softer plastic would be best, since it would stand less of a chance of damaging an antique.
I can see how this version required pretty much the least amount of modification to upgrade a single shot rifle. The modified bolt and base plate are easily swapped out and could be mass produced seperately. I suspect the idea behind the design was to produce something that could be applied by anyone in the field provided you had the new parts.
They would probably have issued just one magazine per rifle; to be refilled in situ. Even if there was a carrying case it would looked similar to an ordinary cartridge pouch. And being German, in the 1880s, it would have been leather.
That magazine has some downright amazing sheet metal work that has gone into it, all of those compound curves would be a nightmare for production! One part that you didn't explain, It seems like the little lever on the outside far right was a shell feeding mechanism to only allow one cartridge into the loading area at a time. You can see the little finger protruding into the inside of the magazine where it would make contact with the cartridges. Each time the cover closes it would allow the cartridges to freely feed into the loading area, then cut it off once the cover opened and hold the cartridges back. It is a pretty ingenious system considering how little the original firearm would have to be modified, receive remains untouched, bolt could be refitted with an adapted bolt handle, only a new trigger guard/floor plate. but it's not as simple as a gun should be, too many moving parts to fail in the feeding mechanism. Thanks for the video Ian I always learn something new by watching. I'm going to join you patreon shortly!
i really enjoy learning about these dead ends in technology because they spark all kinds of interesting what if questions. Its fun to imagine what the world might look like today if some of those bizarre dead ends were instead technological mile stones or even revolutions.
"It's sort of a very steampunk sort of external lever and mechanical setup sort of...device." That's unironically the best description for this thing, captures the weirdness really well. :D
+TheSkipjack95 I thought it also very well thought out. For what it is. Obviously this is NOT battle ready, but that aside a lot of thought went into the design. I find it fascinating.
+William Hayden I find it fascinating that these sorts of things were designed without the benefit of CAD software, 3D modelling, or even calculators. They really had to role up their sleeves and hit the drawing board back then.
What I really like about your videos is that you are so concerned about history- you know SO much about all those interesting- and important, historical details!
I love this! It turns the G71 into a magazine rife with minimal modifications. Something like this would’ve probably been the half-live upgrade for this rifle, if it ever got one.
Holy hell Ian really doesn’t age! Im watching this in 2022 and had to double check its really from 2015, as he looks exactly the same as his most recent video i saw, good stuff man!
Un-flipping believable. What a great job you have. I have seen enough of your videos to know that you are good at what you do but...wow, what a great gig you have going there.
Shekel-Man I think the Remington-Lee or a variant of it came out commercially around 1879ish with the removable box magazine . And the Spencer used a removable tube magazine in the buttstock.
+TheNextGamer87 If I only knew 3d modeling I could already have done several of this stuff for FO3/NV/4 But as long as I'm terrible at it there aren't many chances
***** I would more like to know what the hell happened to China, after all they are the main cause of all of it. Then France that relies a lot in nuclear energy, a nuke there would probably cause a domino effect that would affect the countries and, last of all, most of the nations around France would be very interesting to know how they manage to hold up with the radioactive winds. Well, obviously here we're mostly to talk about weapons, but there's still need for something to glue the thing together.
+54Simon54 I was recently re-reading Neuromancer where it is alluded to that Bonn was destroyed in some sort of nuclear incident. As Fallout 4 had also just come out, I was thinking the same thing, Germany/Europe would make a great setting for a fallout game (also, while I've nothing but love for the city, I'd like to see my old haunt of Hamburg in post-apocalyptic mode)
+CeeDee Player A canceled Fallout game would have taken place in China (partly). It was planned that a cult of followers of a new chinese emperor tried to launch a superweapon against the US and the faction of the player. While it is fair to say that China is responsible for the radioactive wasteland in North America, I wouldn´t blame them for the war. Who started it remains debateable, even though one NPC in the Fallout Universe claimed "the damn reds" to be the initial attackers. But he was a US-Government figure, so he wasn´t the most reliable source. Keep in mind that Fallout does not take place in a post-apocalyptic version of our world. The US in 2077 have probably reached the peak of nuclear energy use, as cars, household objects and handguns are powered by it. Cramming more reactors into one square mile than we see in the Fallout Universe would be hard, so France would probably equally or less fucked than the US. Also a reactor doesn´t explode just because it is hit with from the blast of a nuclear bomb, and even if it gets damaged to the point of a worst case scenario, a explosion similiar to a bomb isn´t really what would happen. It would irradiate a great area around the plant, but not as spectacular as one would hope.
I really love these 18th- and 19th-century kludge rifles. Muskets converted to breach loaders, breach loaders converted to magazine feed. It takes a special kind of cleverness to make it work. It's not as efficient, cost-effective, or compact as a purpose-built weapon, but it makes sense if you've already got obsolete rifles lying around. The 20th century didn't really have an equivalent, unless you count the handful of machine guns converted from bolt-action rifles.
+Dan L The first successful box magazine was the Remington-Lee 1879. Not mid 1800s, but it was at a time when most rifles if they were repeaters at all used a tube magazine. And yes, that's Lee as in James Paris Lee, designer of the Lee-Enfield.
11mm of BLACK powder though, not the more modern smokeless powder. Its the same stuff used in muskets and shit, not what most everyone walked into world war one with. They needed it to be that big to compensate for the lack of power with just making the cartridge massive.
The idea was mass > speed. There was no real ballistic armor then, so what people did was have a bigger bullet to impart all the force, rather than a smaller bullet going faster. Black powder's less effective nature also played into this somewhat.
+Hertog Willem While I don't personally know the answer, it is likely that we could not come to a final agreement with the consignor. Darn shame too with all the exposure he would've gotten from Ian's video.
+Rock Island Auction Company Its great that you have established a partnership with Ian! Not only does it increase exposure but Its a great way to share the history of these amazing and rare firearms. Without collectors and historians, so much of this interesting knowledge and heritage would be lost forever. Thank you!
+Rock Island Auction Company That's too bad. I'm really curious to see what this prototype would go for. I just made a comment that it was too bad that Ian couldn't shoot it, but I know those opportunities are few and far between. The only ones I remember him shooting off the top of my head are automatics. I imagine having Ian demonstrate an old auto is fully functional is quite a boost come time to bid.
+Rock Island Auction Company I remember reading about this experimental improvement in the late 80s,and yes there was one small poor quality image in that book. Never even crossed my mind that what I just saw Ian do would happen. So I very much wish to thank both Ian and RIA for the opportunity and the cogent explanation. Way to go,fellas. This sharing of information to interested parties is what this whole technology does best. Good on you both.
I think the Krag was inspired by that rifle. Maybe not, but this rifle is about 15 years older than the Krag, so it could not have been inspired by the Krag.
That is interesting and a great way to retro-fit an old single shot, but I can see why it did not win. It might be cost effective compared to basically replacing all the rifles with new ones, but I suspect in combat conditions this would have all kinds of issues. If your rifle is tilted, the round could just kick out of the rifle entirely. If you are running and working it, the round could pop out and you chamber nothing but air. The good aspect though, if it fails, you still have a working rifle.
This has a great deal going in it's favor. Minimal work done on the actual rifle, none of which affected it in its primary role, a quick (relatively) change feature in case of in-the -field damage and the magazine lockout. These could be delivered pre-loaded as well. Frankly, it is the next best thing to a box magazine without the problems of more machining and having to be held up higher in the prone position. There was real promise shown here.
+Forgotten Weapons Assuming that they did manage to issue extra of these external clips, would it be reasonable to say it couldve been used as a detachable mag?
+RandomOinker They 'could" have, certainly, but at the time, it would not have been a viable option for a military to order extra magazines, each made specifically for each individual rifle, when the doctrine of the day was by order volley fire.
tolle videos , die du da machst ! selbst wenn man das englische nur spärlich versteht wie ich , ist es leicht zu begreifen :-) great videos that you make there! even if one understands the English only sparingly, like me, it is easy to grasp :-D universal translator :)
It would be interesting to see you guys demonstrate the use of these weapons, and how they operate with ammunition in the cycle, by utilizing something like snap-caps, or dud rounds. That way you could easily showcase how the firearm operated, without too much concern for the overall integrity of the firearm's condition.
I imagine that is probably less than reliable and possibly a little fiddly, with rounds having to land just the right way and the timing being close, it is, none the less, very clever.
If everything worked as intended this seems like it would be better than just tubing, but I imagine it either was too expensive or that there were feed problems they weren't able to reliably fix within the time restraint.
can you get ammo for these rifles still? After watching and hearing your description, I realize one of the rifles hanging on my wall at home is a Gewehr 71/84. even though it it probably the oldest one up there it has the smoothest action, and I've always wanted to shoot it. not a lot, since it is in good condition, but just a couple times maybe.
It can be found on places like Gunbroker. the 11MM Mauser round was also known as the .43 caliber Mauser round and was made until the mid 50s. You can still find surplus sometimes but is it pricey. Some people have modified 45-90 casings like you said and it works fine. I have about 200 rounds all together and fire my gun every once in a while. I won't fire stuff from early years, I don't trust it but the later stuff works fine and is smokeless so you don't get that cloud of smoke that ticks off other people on the gun range.
Cool design what a contraption, wonder if you were not quick enough with the action if you could actually have several rounds bounce out of the mag? I like the fact they thought to make it removable ans still retain a working firearm without the magazine. Pretty slick I remember reading somewhere about a horse shoe design magazine but could never really picture it in my head. It does look pretty high tech for the time.
People laugh at a magazine cut off on a bolt action rifle but it's really identical in function to a selector switch on a fully automatic weapon today you can save the full amount of fire power until you need it and hence save ammunition
I wish u would have some empty shell casings for these guns so we can see if they actually worked in practice instead of just pointing and how it was going to work
Just an idea, but I think Forgotten Weapons could use a collection of snap caps (dummy rounds) to show how weapons with available calibers cycle rounds.
Did the under barrel solution require any modification, or change of the bolt? I have no experience whatsoever in machining, but i can imagine you would need to replace the standard bolt, with the new bolt with the required finger to operate the horse shoe magazine.
I am interested in purchasing this rifle, Do you have any knowledge on why this rifle was pulled from the auction, or whether or not it will be back during a future auction?
This looks like Mauser saw the Farquhar-Hill, and designed this. Krag-Jorgenson saw this and designed their own. Don't you love how history builds on itself to create the most interesting ideas?
Hi! Just stopped by to say I really enjoy your content! I wish you talked a little bit about what was wrong with this system, why it was impractical and ultimately unsuccessful, since it does look pretty dang brilliant!
That looks pretty cool! I mean, it looks rather frail and fragile with all that thin metal, but in the 1870s, I think we're still talking about organized line infantry, like the 18th and early 19th century. Not a whole lot of running around, ducking for cover, and the like, to be had.
+NormanMatchem Actually the german army was a little bit farther than line infantry. And while running around was an integral part of battles since ever, taking cover was one of the main advantages of bolt rifles, as loading a musket while lying down is pretty hard. The german war (or prussian-austrian war) of 1966 is a good example of modern (german) tactics and technology against more traditional line infantry. Turns out standing in a line isn´t the best idea while shot at. Who knew?
Luke DS No, I think it was easily perceivable that I meant the small conflict where a polnish province went to war with Austria. I nearly caused a East-West confrontation. The reason to the conflict was the price of milk.
Jorvard There was really no such thing as Prussia in 1966 man, and they wouldn't have been using line infantry, dude the A-H empire wasn't even using line infantry during WWI they wouldn't have been using them 1966!
I would like to see a series where all guns used even once during Franco-Prussian war was used.. Because it really could make an interesting game, if those random repeating arms would really be hard to obtain, yet you would have to move around a field shelled with the first real modern artillery. Original carnage.
You always do an excellent job with these but sometimes you overlook very important details in your videos. Things that may be obvious to you, because your there, but in no way can the rest of us know. How do you load the magazine? From your description there doesn't seem to be a feed lip of any kind? Does the lid serve as a feed lip?
Would it have been too complicated to have added the bottom plate and modified bolt to the under barrel, tube fed model they adopted in the end so as to be able to use magazines as well?
if i was around during this time i'd probably buy one of them. That way i could have multiple magazines, and just swap them out. Probably would be very useful in the old west.
Trouble is, at the time these were made, each magazine was made specifically for the individual rifle, rather than the modern mass produced 'one size fits all", it was 'some size fits most".
