John Hall was the true pioneer. Eli Whitney actually FAKED his demonstration of interchangeable parts for the government. Hall was given a long time to complete his 1000 rifles. The guy running Harper's Ferry (got the job for politics) hated Hall and considered him a flim-flam man because he wasted time NOT producing rifles, and NOT hiring lots of men to make them. Kept reporting him as such. When the congressional committee showed up, he demonstrated one boy operating machines that were making perfectly interchangeable parts, and demonstrated that they WERE interchangeable. They were floored. NOBODY expected such a leap forward. Hall and North came up with the use of standardized measuring tools to keep the measurements universal over long distances, too. Frankly, it looks like Hall may well be the true originator of modern manufacturing. I'll have to look for it, but there is an excellent write-up on it somewhere online.
It was pretty much the closest thing to "modular" any weapon platform could get in that particular time period with the available interchangeable parts this beautiful rifle had.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine nah, a simple reverse load breech. keep the same movement of action and just drop the round tail first into the chamber lose the action and fire.
@@therake8897 no need, a simple flammable resin holding the gunpowder and bullet together. Its similar to the early attempts at producing caseless ammunition. Its doable even as early as the 1850's
Their most famous use was in the Mexican American War. Soldiers found the percussion breech could be removed, put in a pocket, and carried in Mexico City as a pistol. It was done enough that orders had to be issued for them to stop doing it.
@@johnkelinske1449 It probably is a fable, but I've seen a painting depicting a U.S. soldier named Sam Chamberlain using a Hall's breech block in that manner. He's holding this stubby little pistol at the far end of a room, and a crowd of men in stereotypical Mexican dress are charging towards him with knives. It's on page 79 of the book "Peacemakers: Arms and Adventure in the American West" by R.L. Wilson. The caption reads "Sam Chamberlain holding Mexicans at bay with the breechblock of his Hall percussion carbine."
@@hunter35474 I know. Look at Gun Digest 51st Annual Edition, 1997 excellent article on the Hall starts on page 168 where the author mentions trying that with his Hall breechblock. The author in his testing mentioned he had an effective range of probably 15' with it.
Well, as I mentioned on another thread, that's across the table or alley. Which is probably enough to buy you time to get the hell out of wherever it is you just became seriously unwelcome. The engraving as well as the practice is also described in Harold L. Peterson's "The Book Of The Gun". If it was a highly unofficial practise and liable to get one in trouble, possibly twice over (wandering off into the city in search of wine, women, and decent food) it's no surprise that the practice is hard to document a century or two later.
Doby Pilgrim- damn it, you beat me to it. My grandfather had the breech block of a Hall and every fourth of July he'd take it out and shoot at his berm, then pass it around to the kids (including the grown-up kids) for their turn shooting it. The finale was double powder and thin strips of news paper (in later years it turned to toilet paper) for our own fireworks show. My uncle has it now, but he didn't have any kids so I goes to me when he passes. That's probably a good thing. I build muzzleloaders From scratch and have had to build parts for it from time to time. Have a nice day.
Marine stereotype...as early as 1820.... "References to crayons in literature appear as early as 1813 in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Joseph Lemercier (born in Paris 1803-died 1884), considered by some of his contemporaries to be "the soul of lithography", was also one of the founders of the modern crayon. Through his Paris business circa 1828, he produced a variety of crayon and color related products." -Wikipedia Math checks out.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine I want to believe that you are telling the truth, because it would be hilarious, but I can't find anything about it on Google...
Monotech2.0 Visited the museum at the end of February this year and it was still in the display. But I don’t LaPierre at all. NRA needs to be reformed to save itself.
Another place one can see a Hall "in the flesh" is at Fort Scott National Historic Site in Kansas. They have the carbine version on display there in the exhibit on the U.S. Dragoons.
And when you see something like this in a museum, you don’t get to see it taken apart and shown how it works. That is why this channel is such a treasure.
One of the most fascinating things about Hall’s Rifle Works at Harpers Ferry is that his factories were completely powered by water in only a few years
Probably boxes of 5 colors. Red, Blue, Yellow, Black and White. Crayon is of course pencil in French Techniques for wax colored drawings go back to at least the 1st Century AD.
As a engineer I can believe in interchangeable parts in XIXth century. Getting a government to wait years for delivery- now that's the really impressive part!
I dont know if anythings changed, but modern governments seem incredibly patient on waiting on the results of tax payer money. There's an entire invisible bridge jn London that was planned, paid for, but mysteriously then mayor Boris Johnson had no more updates about his new bridge. People are still waiting on its construction and its been so long he became and then finished being PM. Similar story to the HS2 high speed railway plan and so many things. So I find it more surprising anything was delivered rather than the government didnt care about waiting
Hm. So basically this is the SCAR-H of two hundred years ago - based on previous technologies applied in a novel manner, well engineered, actually mass produced, kind of expensive, limited issue only to special troops, in a different caliber than regular troops would use and not issued to Marines because they'd just break them.
@gofa curself i fail to see how marksmanship and being in federal service since 1775 (not sure how they could be in federal service before the founding of our modern government though) correlates to treating their equipment well or intelligence. Not saying they don't treat their stuff well, just what you said is in no way evidence that they do.
It had flaws but just imagine having a breach loading rifle in a time when the smooth bore musket was the primary weapon. A soldier with a good eye and steady hands could probably pick off an officer on their horse at ranges not familiar to most shooters. I mean I figure the specialist units that got these were made up of people who were already very good shots with non rifled guns.
I wonder how many of these rifles were "midnight acquisitioned" by the Marine Corps. I find it hard to believe Marines just accepted "No" for an answer.
The Corps did, in fact, buy a number of them, and use them in the Seminole War. As for the "Marines break everything" meme; yeah, we play hard, but we take good care of our weapons. Other stuff, not so much.,
They take care of thier equipment when they need to use it. Otherwise, what's the point of training if you can't see what your gear can handle in extremis? ... I cannot believe I just came to the defense of the Marines... Bad Army REMF, bad!
The Breech face gap to barrel on this rifle was substantially tighter than any Revolver/Revolving Rifle/Shotgun of the period. So gas blow by is a non sequitur, in relation to that. For it's time The Hall Rifle was and still is a brilliant design. Halls dedication to it's production lead the way for the modern "Production Standards' in place were all parts are built to a rigid standard with quality control testing throughout to ensure interchangeability of those parts, that most take for granted.
I have an 1819 Hall Rifle in orig. flint. The hammer, however, is brass, the the top jaw and screw are iron and the frizzen is brass faced with iron. It looks like very fine factory work. Any rhoughts for who or why ? Ron Evans
Whenever there are thise kind of weird "pistol grips but not quite" i wish Ian would give us a show of how to hold the damn thing because i haven't the slightest idea
While comparatively smaller I would suggest watching this video done by C&Rsenal: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-krJxBhHTSuI.html to see how the bolt on pistol grip is used and makes a difference in handling. Hope this helps.
@@johnsmith-sp6yl like an old wooden try plane? I can see it looking a bit like this i.pinimg.com/originals/63/1a/e1/631ae1f1a4e940ffbdd8869ea38df19e.jpg
Rumour has it that the breech block assembly could be removed and used as a stand - alone, "impromptu" handgun - but I personally would not want to try it. Thanks for the video, Ian!
@@ottovonbearsmark8876 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Rk-pISvud6w.html Check this out. Not much of a fan of flamboyant weapons but the practical details it has are awesome
It could be something used in 1918 in like Afghanistan since they still had quite a few soldiers equipped with black powder weapons up until the 1980s.
Haha, I was working with a marine squad last year, and they were in the middle of reminiscing about their platoon mascot. A hamster who's name I can't remember. I asked what happened to it and a female private nonchalantly replied that it was thrown out of a third story window, like that was a perfectly understandable mistake to make. I fairly immediately recognized the danger of leaving anything with the.😂
@@Jason-fm4my My dad was in the coast guard, rubbed shoulders with a lot a marines for various training schools and things. Said the stereotype was mostly true for 90%, but the other 10% were about the most intelligent guys you could ever meet.
Pretty soon museums are just going to install a small video screen beside each of their exhibits with a Forgotten Weapons vid to autoplay when you stick your headphones into the jack.
“Been going on...” I would actually love to hear more about Mr. Hall and his venture into interchangeable parts. That kind of stuff is fascinating to me.
Don't forget inflation is only part of the equation, there's also relative purchasing power. $25 would buy you a lot more back then than $510 does today. Just spitballing a number but I'd guess in relative terms that gun would've cost closer to $2000-$3000 today, which is in line with modern cutting-edge military rifles.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine Exactly, tbh my spitball number might be too low but I'm too lazy to look up how to do proper relative buying power calculations. Either way it's certainly not $510, even in bulk I don't think the military gets their M4s for that cheap today let alone when the M16 was first adopted. A cutting-edge rifle like the Hall was extremely expensive, and hell even muskets were extremely expensive due to the numbers of man-hours it took to make them despite their simplicity.
I find the interchangeable parts aspect fascinating, in part because there’s interchangeable parts and there’s interchangeable parts. Even with machines producing the parts, if the tolerances are too loose you still need some hand fitting or even if the equipment “works”, a replacement will not be as good as the original. The well-known issues with matching vs. mixed “Arisakas” (Arisaka himself only designed the Type 30) is one most here would know of, but there are other issues across many nations. While my study is at best superficial, it appears the US was ahead of the curve by WWI and through WWII, with very tight tolerance standards compared to other nations, and I’ve often heard that replacement parts for firearms (particularly Colts) was a key factor. I had wondered how far back this went, and it seems Hall had a key roll in this process.
Two key developments in the ability of the ability to produce tight tolerance work on a mass scale was the development of the first commercial micrometers (Palmer in France and Brown and Sharpe in the US) and gage blocks by Johannson in Sweden. These combined with flat surfaces allowed the inspection levels required. Moores Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy covers a lot of what is really required.
@@mpetersen6 And don't forget Henry Maudslay (1771-1831) whose work on measurements, threads & lathe design provided the basis for machine tool development. It has always pissed me off that every school kid in UK is taught about poets like Keats & Shelley of a similar time period, whose works, whilst alright if you like that sort of thing, contributed SFA to the modern world. Maudslay & the like, on the other hand, about whom we were taught nothing, were instrumental in driving the Industrial Revolution. It's a sad thing that the arts & humanities, to this day , are grossly over rated in society.
+I'm beachedwhale1945 I really wish people would stop throwing around the term "tolerance" as though it is the end all for modern machining. Other terms (clearance, parallelism, etc, etc) are just as (sometimes more) important. But outside actual mechanical engineers, machinists, and mechanical /dimensional inspectors, their relationships /importance to each other are either unknown or misunderstood.
@@stevecolley6750 Don't you think that for most people the word "tolerance" covers ALL of those things? I have specialist knowledge in some pretty arcane fields too....but I don't get bent out of shape when other people use the technically inaccurate "generic" terms ....they get across what they are trying to say...which IS the point of communication after all.
@@trooperdgb9722 NO! Words have pretty specific meanings called definitions. If one means to say "gold" (speaking of the element) but uses the word "dung", it certainly does not convey the intended meaning. BTW - I was /am not "bent out of shape" by the others comments which incorrectly spoke of "tolerance. I am however upset over YOU suggesting that it is allowable to use words in whatever manner we choose. You are an ass, and an ignorant one at that.
Forgotten Weapons That’s really great! I’m from and currently still in Maine, I love learning more history about Maine I didn’t previously know. Great video btw just finished it!
"I am practically acquainted with the use of Hall's arms, and assert unqualifiedly that if my honor and life were at stake, and depended on the use of firearms, I would sooner take one the these (Hall carbines) than any other weapon." Lieutenant Colonel George Talcott, Assistant Chief of Ordinance, 1845
I remember reading about this in a 1950’s book about civil war weaponry where they used the Hall as a control in Minie ball tests. Evidently it had significantly less penetration and velocity compared to its peers, but it’s still such a cool and innovative system.
16:30 Nice. Like the old joke that if you lock a Lance Corporal in a closet with an anvil for an hour, by the time you get back, he'll have lost it, broken it, or f***ed it.
While Ian talks about Hall and his ideas about serialized production, I couldn't help but remember The Chieftain speaking about the operative differences between the M4 Sherman - all parts industrially machined to standard specs and, thus, rapidly interchangeable with "random" spares - and its German adversaries - almost everything hand-fit to each tank. Dare I say that mr. Hall "lesson" served the U. S. well.
On the priming hole, I'm sure that shorter travel to the charge also reduced delay between the hammer fall and the actual shot. If you've ever fire a flintlock you soon learn there is a slight delay and with that powder going off in the flash pan near your face you must learn to ignore that (don't flinch) for accurate shooting. I'm sure the delay is only something like 1/8 of a second, but that shorter and direct travel in the Hall rifle must cut the delay in half.
I'm not so sure about that.... a properly placed priming charge in a conventional flintlock pan will quite literally "flash" through to the main charge. One does NOT fill the flash hole with powder..... The problem I see with the Hall is that the priming powder might indeed FILL the flash hole... then "fuse" through when ignited...rather than having that "flash" through...which would almost certainly increase the delay.. (Which as you point out can be pretty minimal indeed)
Do you think Hall every imaged his rifles would still be around almost 200 years later? Let alone watching a video about them on a computer, tablet or phone.
That is a very cool firearm. K-12 schools teach that Henry Ford first used interchangeable parts, however this history lesson completely shatters that paradigm. Thanks Ian!
What a great bit of history. Helps to explain the importance of Harper's Ferry not only as an armory but also as a pre-eminent manufacturing design center, a technology hub of its time.
Pretty impressive "standards" development tbh, 30 years b4 the first national standard screw (by Whitworth in the UK). The fact that Hall spotted this need and acted on it before simple things like screws were standardised says a lot.
Why perhaps so unheard of too. Before became widely accepted idea in practice, and with wait on first rifles etc, people must of thought he was full of it lol
This is a fascinating rifle, I've gotten to handle one for work, and it is a nice landmark in military tech. Thanks for making this info more widely available to the larger public!
11:22 If you look up Machine Thinking's vid "The Origins of Precision" you'll find out why it was so hard for early industrialist to calibrate tools so that one factory's parts would match another's. Not to mention that they didn't have logical, international standard units of measurements to calibrate with.
One can reach a much higher level of precision by hand than most people understand. As an example people who hand grind telescope mirrors for reflecting telescopes. It is possible to produce very flat surfaces by hand using The Three Plate Method in which three flat surface plates are produced using two plates to check the third and alternating which plate you are scraping by hand. Scraping is an art all in itself. The trick is of course developing the set of standards and measuring tools required for two individuals in different locations to produced parts within tolerance that will work together. Some would say the development of the first screw cutting lathe really jump started the Industrial Age. Some would say the steam engine. In reality it was a number things working together.
@@mpetersen6 when I setup the micrometer blocks on wheel dressers I rebuilt I'd dial them in by swiping the blocks by hand on some 600 wet or dry sandpaper on a surface plate. A light pass would take off very little material. That was after they were surface ground to within 0.0005" You'd go the rest of the way by hand.
The lack of standard units was a problem into the 1950’s. The US still has two different standard inches (a metric one from 1959 and an imperial one). The 0.303 rifle is a 0.303 because London and Enfield used different standard inches (Enfield had a slightly bigger one).
@@allangibson8494 the US standardized on the industrial inch long ago. The industrial inch was the defacto standard since 1896. The US never used Imperial measurements. Ever. The difference between the industrial inch and the old US inch was academic in machining anyways. It was 1.7 millionths of an inch longer than the old imperial inch and 2 millionths of an inch shorter than the old US inch. No one works to the millionth of an inch either. A ten thousandth is normally close enough. Heck +3 thousandths is usually spec.
Paul Frederick The US and UK had different definitions of the inch until 1959 but there were about forty definitions of what an inch was in use during the 1800’s in Europe (one of the drivers for the adoption of metric units). It carried on long enough for machine tools like lathes to not make interchangeable precision threads during WW2. That was why for things like rifles you had go/no go gauges supplied from a central location. The Scottish Inch was 25.4406 mm for instance (and James Watt used this in his engines). Enfield used the Geneva inch (as did a lot of other machine tool builders).
Some 30 some odd years ago while studying various actions for a future career in forensic ballistics I recall reading a bit about the Hall. Leave it to Ian to give me a whole new appreciation for Hall and his contributions to firearms manufacture. Thanks Ian.
Three ball bearings come to mind. The Brtish version is the feather and anvil. The Royal Marines were isuued with feathers and anvils. Three days later all the anvils had been brocken with the Fearthers.
Merritt Roe Smith's "Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology: The Challenge of Change" has a great account of Hall's time as head of the rifle works and the resistance he faced locally in achieving interchangeability. Really neat to see a surviving example of his rifle after reading about it. Thanks Ian!
Thanks for this video. As a teenager doing some yardwork for a family, the homeowner pulled one these Halls from a garage shelf to show me. The stock wood was fairly deteriorated in the area of the lock. Your video explains why.
It's also cost, the lines of infantry firing in volleys was deemed adequate enough that it was more trouble then it was worth to give common soldiers expensive weapons that would require different training
@@TheHacknor I guess that makes more sense. I just never considered the fact of loading. It guess the loading downside is also why rifled barrels were never popular until cartridges, or was that just coincidence?
@@Cristian-nn5jj Well, 'better' is relative for things like this: a hunter or a target shooter might be happy to trade increased accuracy for a slow rate of fire, an infantryman not so much.
Lock a Marine in a room with three solid steel balls. Come back the next day and he'll have broken one, lost one and stolen the third. I'm particularly impressed with how smooth the bottom of the lock mortise in the stock is. Those hidden areas often look like they were hacked out with a screwdriver and a hammer in old guns. Even new guns are often rougher than that Hall.
Wow, now this is a very interesting gun. I was quite surprised by the level of technological design for the period. The only problem looks to be fouling around the locking surface. If not cleaned regularly, it would make the opening of the breech quite difficult. Other than that, this must have been a wonderful firearm in that period.
I'm Norwegian, and once I saw how this thing worked It immediately reminded me of the Kammerlader. Would there be any possibility that the systems are in any way related?
It's highly possible that Norway was working on something similar in terms of function after this rifle or took partial inspiration that resulted in the Kammerlader.
I highly recommend you check out Bloke on the Range here on RU-vid. He just did a video about the Kammerlader covering development. He is sort of like Ian's brother from another mother.
I always thought the two were a perfect case of covergent evolution, as I believed there was not enough evidence to tie the two together. Anyone know anything to the contrary? I love the nitty gritty details of tech development.
I can say ditto to the whole sentiment, although my people were originally from Perquimans County, NC and no possible relation. Still, that is one drop dead gorgeous piece of firearms engineering.
@@halo7oo I know I have relatives in America going back to before this time period but I don't think I am actually related, never checked..if John Halls' father was from England or Ireland though then it is highly possible..i mainly said it because Hall is a family name going back at least 200 to 400 years on my father's side is all.. English nobility shield is either a singular black dog or three black dogs..
I’m a lifelong history and firearms buff. This Ian character never ceases to amaze me with yet another something I was totally ignorant of. What a great piece of firearm and industrial manufacturing history. Good on ya!
I saw a Hall in the firearms collection of the Smithsonion when I was about 13 and was absolutely fascinated by it. Thanks for providing the background and showing how it worked.
Until I discovered forgotten weapons I thought the definition of gun nut show the picture of me in the dictionary but now I have to concede that the page would have to go 2 Ian Kudos and excellent video
Hall's 'American System' for interchangeable parts, once refined, means higher quality, mass produced goods can made at volumes that can make the product accessible to most people. The development of machine tools to make the parts is his genius, tools that could make parts with high tolerances that allow interchangeable parts.
I wonder what Napoleon would have thought of these if someone presented one to him in 1812 Edit: I also like how it looks like you can swap out those locking blocks for the chamber if they wear out
Fun fact: apparently four of these were in service aboard USS Constitution as early as 1813, and some ships on the Mediterranean Station were equipped with them by 1921. It seems like the Navy has a bit of a tradition of doing things before the Army. (Outfitting USS Constitution during the War of 1812, page 10. Published by the USS Constitution Museum.)
I read 📖 about the Hall rifle in the first book 📙 about guns I read. I read about it's gas leakage "problem" as well as the block firing mechanism being used as a improvised self-defense pistol. I would 😍 love to see a video of Ian firing a Hall and it's "pistol" variation.
*shudders at the thought of southern humidity* It really depends on where it is stored. Most "factory" floors I've seen look rather dry as long as there is active work being done. That said... yeah, I really would like to know how the parts were stored.
That would be so much easier to load than a muzzle loader. You just pour in the powder and then push the ball in with your thumb. No need to use a ramrod at all. Brilliant design.
That's what I'm curious about: do you use a ball that is perfectly sized-- or do you use a slightly oversized ball and cram it down with a ball starter? A swaged fit would prevent the ball from riding up off the compacted powder charge.
It’s a shame Hall’s production was as slow as it was. This in more substantial numbers would be a major game changer in early flintlock/percussion if this was the army standard, rather than a “DMR” of their day.
Wow, that is fascinating. I can see it now .... EW and S are taking note ... how can I make this work here .... Would love to see a firing of some of the Hall 1819's vs. both other rifles of the immediate era and of civil war early variants, demonstrating rate of fire, accuracy, amount of smoke produced, range annnd amount of stuff the average infantryman needs to carry on the line. ..... of course, I'm not asking for much here ....
As a Mainer I might be biased but why is it every student in this country isn't tough about John H. Hall. This dude was ahead of his time but only by 20 or 30 years and I'm willing to bet he inspired a lot of the generation to follow. Henry Ford has nothing on this guy.
So I'm curious. When loading these rifles, did soldiers simply push the bullet in with their finger and close the breech? Not having to fish out the long damn rod every time would be *significantly* faster.
With that vertical flash hole, and powder getting down it, this would have had a long lock time. As a flinter, I take precautions to keep powder out of the hole. There is a term for when you get powder down the flash hole. We say that it was a 'fusey' shot, meaning that you caused a fuse like action. When I do this I can literally hear the hiss of the powder burning in the flash hole.
I see the lugs on the receiver are replaceable; presumably if excessive wear caused issues they could be replaced with oversized lugs tightening the seal.
Fascinating. My first exposure to the Hall was back in the 70's when I used to visit Ft. Tejon in California, which was home to the US "Camel Corps" and their "Dragoons" were issued Hall Carbines (in percussion) during the 1840's. I was simply amazed.
Great video on the Hall. I have two of these. On another subject, I have a Model #1 Dreyse pistol, similar to the one you featured in the past. I'm having a hard time finding much information on this gun. Do you know of any references? Thanks. 🌝
First of all thank you Ian for your invaluable contribution to informing and educating on a subject that is more often than not treated for it's wow factor than what it actualy contributed to human history. Just for that you should receive an award or a medal of somekind. I am not a gun enthusiast as some would call it. I am french canadian an as you might know our gun laws are not exacly permissable but I have owned guns in my youth and shot a small variety of them but my true interest in them is in they're contribution to humanity. They're purpose (militarily) is to end lives but couterintuitively they have givin us alot of avancement as you demonstrate in this video and it's that aspect more than anything that interest me. The fact also that you are the real deal and are a true erudite on your subject and are passionate about it is always spellbinding to watch. Again thanks alot for your work and for the rest of the readers of this comment that still reading this, go to Ian's patreon page and contribut, it's realy worth it.
yes, but he was shooting a kammerladder underhammer swiss breach loader kinda thing Iraq Iraqvetren 8888 has one Mark Novak restored to shooting order both have posts on it
Flinters keep a 'flint wallet' with spare flints, and potential flints. They also know how to quickly sharpen their flint on the gun. I can expect ~20 strikes out of a well sharpened flint, but if I do a mediocre job of it I get 5. It is not much more difficult than fussing around with percussion caps.
you also can fire a smooth bore musket MORE then things with moving parts or rifling. the fouling that comes from many shots can clog up the works and this was a very large fear of armies at the time. That some of these interesting and innovative designs would clog up after hard use.
Hi Ian, in the rather scandalous and questionable Mexican War memoir “My Confession” by Samuel Chamberlain, he often mentions taking out the breech block out and carrying it as his backup gun, using it as a derringer in his various bar room fights and conquests. I’ve always wondered whether this was plausible, any thoughts? I haven’t had a chance to monkey with one enough to try it.
I can see it working since that breech block is what the bullet and powder are loaded into. With cap and ball revolvers they can be fired with just the remaining cylinder walls as it’s barrel
