Huot: Canada's Ross-based Prototype Automatic Rifle from WW1 

I was thinking the same thing 😉

I very much doubt that, sure he'll be excited that other presenters are doing a similar thing which shows the level of interest & demand for quality historical explanations of weird & unusual weapons.

he'll probably get his hands on it somehow. lol

You spelt "gun jesus " wrong. Lol

Steel- XL Spelt is a cereal grain, spelled is the past tense of to spell.

its funny you say molson, because molson is (or was) right next door to the seaforth highlander museum. I mean, literally next door. there are big tanks backing right to the building.

@@PigEqualsBakon They have just shut down their operation and moved to Chilliwack this year. Molson is NOT served in any of the Seaforth Messes.

@@weaponscurator1412 I figured it wasnt, I used to work on the area and it was always funny to me seeing the old building, the fancy new one and the brewery tanks RIGHT THERE

In the comments to the write-up about the Huot Automatic Rifle on Forgotten Weapons, someone in the comments posted a link to the original Canadian Patent application. In that application, the function of that lever on the bolt handle appears to be a means to either fire automatically from an open bolt, or to fire single shot from a closed bolt.

@@TacticalTightwad Or it could have been a bolt lock to fire single shots which would then be cycled manually like the straight pull ross originally did. That seems more simple than a select fire on something like this.

Definitely for ceremonial purposes.

@@TacticalTightwad Pretty obvious that if it's function was to knock the sear down and out of the way then the gun becomes run away full auto. What fun. :)

@@scruggs6633 The original patents are here (it's a long url) brevets-patents.ic.gc.ca/opic-cipo/cpd/eng/patent/193725/summary.html?query=%28Huot%29+%3CAND%3E+%28ISD%3E%3d1910-01-01%29+%3CAND%3E+%28ISD%3C%3d1945-03-02%29&start=1&num=50&type=advanced_search If you click on the black box marked "Documents", you see three entries. The document "claims" describes the operation of the gun. Claim 9 specifically says: "9.- In a gun, a breech bolt, a firing pin therein, a common operating means for said bolt and firing pin, and a single sear arranged to engage either the bolt or the firing pin." Reading all of the claims basically described the operation of the rifle in both automatic rifle (semi-auto) and machine gun (full-auto) modes. You can also click on the Drawings and see drawings with all parts numbered, and when you click on Description you get an explaination of the operation with reference to each numbered part described.

Damn that's cool!

Your prayers have been answered. 13.12. =)

Gun jesus told me to come here in another video handed down from on high....😂

The Seaforths Highlanders museum of Canada in beautiful Vancouver.

Do not worry, he is not Gun Jesus but one of his many apostles

Some say he sent over 2000 letters to Sellier&Bellot to make .303 with proper rims, and that he is not afraid of the dreaded Garand ping. All we know is he's not Gun Jesus, he's Gun Jesus' English cousin!

@@vaclav_fejt CLARKSON!

@@vaclav_fejt EPIC!

Hahahahahahah just thinking the same!!!!

I giggled

Tha ould be th pissin contest...

Was this in Atlantic Canada?

We have the leather case, although it is in need of repair.

Hahahahahah

Switzerland surely

Don't call me Shirley

It is Switzerland's Forgotten Weapons. He lives in Switzerland.

He might have moved there you fucking goon.@@lordofromuluslordofromulus8375

They have.

@@fafhrdkreig4739 surely it was excellent

They have at least twice I think.

With pencil, paper and lots of erasers *and maybe based on how it all turned out a little too much whiskey too*.

Many hard nights of trial and error.

At least in my country, engineers are still required to learn how to do technical drawing by hand before learning CAD.

Just at a glance the loading port for the drum is to the left right under the the big chunk of reciprocating parts.

Adam Dean The Swiss has Adolf Furrer insisting on all SMGs and LMGs having toggle locks at the time.

Exactly how I view it. A slightly curved 10 or 20 round box magazine would have made it a much better balanced and practical weapon without weird side bulges impacting on balance. Amazing how resistant many armies were to simple box magazines for their battle rifles. Noting also the barrel length still needlessly long even at the end of the war when field experience should have filtered back (but clearly hadn't yet) that shorter barrels are actually better.

It’s a light machine gun though. Not terribly effective as a light machine gun with a 10 round mag, even a 20 round is awefully light for that application. This seems more like a Chauchat or BAR type automatic rifle.

@@CTXSLPR this is true, but box magazines would've made it much less awkward in shape and size. Also it would mean less milling as well as less material to make it cheaper to convert. And the quicker reload speed of a box mag would probably make up for the higher capacity rotary mag. And it might be possible to use 25 or 30 rounders in certain situations, like a prepared placement where you have vertical clearance. This would make it more like the BAR than a dedicated LMG but for the cost it might have actually made it worthwhile.

That long stripper clip is not some weird loader, and the ratcheting assembly of the magazine takes the primary wear part of a box magazine (the feed spring) out entirely. The important thing to remember this was a prototype developed primarily by a private inventor. Testing and trials to develop it would have yielded fixes to issues like that. The british government decided to double down on the lewis gun because it was a known quantity. With a little bit of work this could have become fantastically better, and cheaper, than the Lewis.

My thought is once you disengage the sear, you now have a run away gun with the firing pin not being caught on each time the bolt goes forward. Curious about the interplay of the sear with the disconnector, or did they even put a disconnector into the design?

@@kenibnanak5554 Well, no because when you let off the trigger a seemingly separate catch keeps the bolt open. I guess I'm wondering if there isn't some tomfoolery going on in the trigger assembly making the trigger not effect the original Ross firing pin at all: all it would do is allow the bolt to drop. The bolt would then need some way let the firing pin forward at the right time to fire the thing, and a good way to do it is to have a tab that releases whatever catch is holding the pin back just as the bolt fully closes. I guess having that tab fixed would work as well, but like i said perhaps being able to disengage it is another safety feature. edit: also there is no disconnecter, its full auto only

Depends on when you were in, I have had old timers come and tell me they were doing run downs at Vokes with it in the 70s, but afterwards nobody knew enough to care and it sat in the sad safes that we had before the move for decades.

I was in during the first gulf war.

It was there... sitting in the museum safes in the weapons vault.

Curatorship of the Museum changed around 2010 and it was basically a sweeping away of cobwebs.

I Probably didn't know it was at that time then.

Nope.

@@BlokeontheRange Did they add a disconnector?

Well, inexpensive at least. I'm not so sure about *good*.

practical tool room experience maybe, but clearly almost no field experience or attention paid to reports from the trenches about what the end result should have as the goal, beyond use the Ross as the template.

Trials documents from France indicated a very positive response, and an order for several thousand was placed in 1918.

@@weaponscurator1412 As a former grunt, the first thing that comes to mind, particularly regarding the circumstance of the period, is where is the bi-pod?

@@foamer443 I don't recall seeing a picture of one with a bipod. It's possible the bipod for the Lewis gun would work, but I would have to compare measurements.

I know for a fact that a folder of photos like this exists

A Lee Metford as an automatic rifle is even weirder - the New Zealanders got it to work.

Prototype. It just needed to work as a "proof of concept" and then be later refined for production.

@@weaponscurator1412 That was exactly what these ones were, there was more specifications by Enfield that would've made it a much, much better weapon.

Yet that drum mag seams easily convertable to take a right hand belt feed using German 49rnd or US desintegrating steel belts

Otokichi786 The Bloke and I do our channel as a hobby, Ian does it as a job. Subtle but important difference.

No. Trust me, we tried everything we could think of...

Err, recoil is a thing mate ;)

No

No, it really isn't that. It fires from an open bolt, and that little thingy there certainly doesn't do anything like that.

Nope. It doesn't hold anything back.