@@Taolan8472 my favorite gun I own is a blued marlin repeater with brass accents, there's nothing more timeless than a beautifully simple gun with some splash of color.
Over 50 years ago my uncle, who had a very large (50+) antique rifle collection, had a Merrill conversion. He told me that the loading procedure was, open the breech and load a bullet then seat it as far as it would go without powder. Now place the paper charge in and close. Compressing the powder but also ruptured the back of paper case. Cap and fire.
This seems to be one of the better conversions. Any reports or speculation of how good the gas seal was. Looks as if that "rammer" plug could have been fitted with a gasket of some kind as an obturator. Great content as always.
I was wondering about that, the groove in the breech plug looks like it may be meant to hold some sort of gasket maybe? Wrap some greased twine around there, better than nothing.
Richard Elliott At 5:12 it looks like there's a brass-colored fragment in the groove. Might have been a brass ring obturator at one time that embrittled and fell out? (EDIT) Damn, I missed the : key first time around.
@@markfergerson2145 Ian usually would mention this subject, especially after that Sharps burned the hair from his arm, but didn't this time. Disappointing. Still a great video on a gun we otherwise wouldn't even have known existed.
A few friends of mine collect Civil War era weapons. Those who have them highly prize their Mississippi rifles, because they are just such handsome and well built pieces. I never knew that Harper's Ferry made these conversions. Thanks for the new and surprising information.
@@evanwiltse6127 Not at all, Model 1816 muskets converted to percussion were used in the early years of the war, among many others. The last M-1 Carbines were built before 1945, yet they were still in military use well over 20 years later just as another example.
The Snider bullet was Hollow-base, and the original .50-70 bullets were cup base (amongst others). The expanding base bullet idea stuck around for quite a few decades before people finally came to the conclusion that you didn't really need it if your bullets were even close to groove-sized (technically, you don't need it for muzzle loading rifles either, but your bullet-bore tolerances have to be tighter (not good for military use).
As a Virginian, I always love hearing about guns that have come out of my beloved home state. Assuming you haven’t done one already, and if you could get your hands on one, I’d love to see a video on the Richmond rifle, especially with its ties to the Harpers Ferry Arsenal.
I can only hope that drawings, descriptions and such of the destroyed conversion rifles still exist. It's a darn shame for them and many other rifle experiments and prototypes to be completely lost to time
Wow that is so very interesting. I'm constantly surprised by the technology that was had historically. So often it seems that more modern ideas were tested long before it was generally accepted as a good idea and or made widely available by manufacturing capability.
Yeah, the limiting factors tend to be the limits of material science and also the "limits" people "in the know" put on various things. Like how in ancient China one emperor literally tried to send himself to the moon using rockets. His followers said he made it, his competitors thought him crazy and his subjects liars, and the idea of rocket travel was put on hold for a very long time until people started pushing the science of the day to the limit with people like Von Braun and Goddard finally making headway. But yeah, not a new idea, science and materials just hadn't caught up with the ideas yet.
Hi, Ian. So the burning of the armory was a serious setback for rifle design. This rifle was a great improvement over many of the rifles used in the Civil War. I like the looks of it. Thanks for sharing! Stay healthy!
Even if Harper's Ferry wasn't burned, I'm not sure significantly larger amounts of muzzleloaders would have been converted. Ripley was generally resistant to these emerging technologies fearing wasteful expenditures of ammunition
The constant paranoia about ammo is something I find incredibly odd. I'm pretty sure that firing 30 shots over the course of 4-5 minutes instead of 10-11 minutes would cause the enemy to break faster and could very well save ammo. Like, good lord what is that mans obsession with "wasting" bullets?
@DOUG HEINS But if we follow the logic that we can already see, aren't they ALREADY firing all of their ammo to little to no effect? And thus wouldn't an increase in fire rate actually increase their effectiveness by lowering the enemy's ability to retaliate and increasing the odds of a hit? I mean, if they aren't aiming, more fire rate is better.
@DOUG HEINS Yes, I understand what he wanted, but that wasn't reality. Soldiers will take cover if its provided, and evidence shows that they didn't do slow aim and fire because they were trying not to get shot, so getting faster follow up shots would be a net benefit as it's more lead downrange in a faster time, making it harder for the enemy to fire back or get into position. I get what he meant, but it just doesn't hold up at all and really any engagement with a unit with rapid firing weapons should have shown this.
@@hawkticus_history_corner The entire reason behind the train of logic of concise aimed shots whilst in cover or in Trenches is because of the Logistics at the time where garbage, the chances of the enemy being able to use a cavalry detachment and eat all of your supplies for the campaign was very high and very often occurred during the Napoleonic Wars and the US Civil War. So soldiers firing off all of their rounds in a single battle to "suppress" enemies would be a retarded idea because then the enemy regiments have to just wait unless they miss all of their volleys, then charge down the enemy as they have no ammo and your combat ability for your entire army is instantly depleted in an hour or 5. So precious use of bullets, powder, and caps was more important than even casualties of *any* rank, something that happened even until WWII.
Rip leg was a product of the “peacetime “ Army. A force constantly fighting skirmishes on the borders and frontiers of the rapidly expanding nation. Logistics was extremely limited beyond the railroads, so mules and wagons handled the last hundred miles or so, sometimes more. Practically, that meant troops often only had the ammunition on their persons to last a multi day patrol and any firefights that might happen along the way. There was often very limited ammunition for training as well. Repeaters under those conditions might have been unsupportable, and that was the mindset this man’s whole career. Suddenly having to support a mass army with lots of different weapons using multiple different cartridges cobbled together from all over the US and Europe was enough to drive anyone to distraction.
M1841 was very accurate. I have one still in its original 54 cal. and it shoots a 2" pattern at 100 yards...patched round ball. I shot a nice 9 pointer with it a few years ago. Very fun to shoot. The breech load conversion looks really interesting. The one I use was made in 1850 by Robbins and Lawrence, one of the contractors hired to manufacture them. It has a steel barrel and the original brass tipped ramrod.
I had an Italian reproduction of a '41 Mississippi/Whitney/etc rifle in .54 caliber. Even though it had a very simple rear sight, it was accurate and easy to handle and balanced great. The barrel had thick walls to give it some weight but it didn't feel heavy. I mostly shot patched round balls. The repros had very wimpy ramrods designed for Minie bullets which like you said were used on the converted, rebored to .58" guns. You do not want to try to use a ramrod with a tightly patched roundball or the brazed on tip might warp or snap. Another thing, the Mississippi rifle was also used by the Texas Rangers along with their Walkers. They would shoot their rifle and instead of bothering to reload, they would draw their Walkers and finish what they started. The Mississippi rifle with a roundball used the same amount of powder as the Walker could hold, 60 grains. Mine being a repro with more modern and better steel, could handle higher loads, but I never saw the need of it, because more powder, means more blow through and more smoke and flash outside of the barrel instead of behind the ball where it counted. :)
"In the very beginning, the 1841 was really kinda more of a jaeger rifle" Dang, all the way before light, Earth, seas, and man! But so sayeth gun Jesus.
That is a BRILLIANT conversion! Could have revolutionized the war effort, IMHO. Thank goodness there are still a handful of examples left for us to appreciate. Present - day black powder shooters would have lots of fun with a reproduction of one of these. I know *I* would!
I would very much advise always using paper cartridges in that design. There is a fairly large cranny at the rear and some nooks in front where loose powder flakes could accumulate should you load a few rounds by clumsily pouring powder in and hoping the knee joint rammer pushes it all. It probably won't. Eventually you will therefore have a potential grenade to he held against one's cheek when firing. Stick with paper cartridges. :)
I visited mr Knights museum in Florida and I’m pretty sure that was the day you were shooting the knights lmg. I know you were shooting something. I appreciate you putting the link in the Farquhar video.
My 1841, marked 1854, is my favorite 19 th century military arm, including a few 1816 conversions to caplock, a 1854 Lorenz and 1862 Richmond. The Mississippi outshines them all.
Hey Ian. Not sure if you noticed or if it's pointed out but there's a few visual artifacts or something in this video. Right at the end, there's a green flash on I think the top left of the video. I believe there was a similar thing earlier in the video too.
Ian not to correct but Harpers Ferry was not in Confederate territory after 1861.Historically the dividing line of Union and Confederate held territory in that area, was the Shenandoah river. Harpers Ferry is currently in West Virginia now. Not including The city of Winchester. Which traded hands three times. But the area surrounding the Town of Harpers Ferry remained in the part of Virginia that seceded to become West Virginia and at no time was Confederate territory after secession. They moved the tooling to Richmond very early on. You yourself spoke of this in other videos concerning Confederate arms. The tooling was moved twice more to South Carolina. Harpers Ferry was in the headquarters area for the Valley Campaigns. Which spanned from Berkeley Springs in the west through Martinsburg all the way east to Lovettsville Va.Franz Segel and Burnside commanded the Dept of West Virginia. In the area was encampmented approximately 60,000 to 125,000 UNION troops depending on the time.i happen to know this because I've lived in Northern Virginia all my life and the history was pretty much driven home. If it's any indication I live 43 miles east of Harpers Ferry. In the town where McClellan gave his farewell to the troops speech.
The armory may have been burned down but the tooling and machinery was sent to Richmond virginia and fayettvile North Carolina and they would go on to make about 60k-75k richmond fayettevill pattern rifles some of the few reliable domestically built rifle by the confederates
Huh, it's pretty much a Morse Carbine action but set up for loose ball and powder instead of cartridges. Interesting! I suppose the guys at Harper's Ferry really liked it.
I'd like to know whether the extra woodwork was original, part of the conversion, or a repair at some point. Looks like it would have been one of the faster shooting rifles of the time other than the tube loaders that were just around the corner.
Re WATCHING? I noticed the distance past touch hole the ram would be in battery. Then I noticed a view filmed of the face of the pusher piston looked to have a hole centered. While I also noticed the O grove on the skirt of the pusher piston. Could this whole knee jointed mechanism forward of the touch hole be part of the area exposed to BP gasses as they expanded? I would love to see the relation of the touch hole to all of this! I suspect the loading procedure was a bit different than as mentioned? "I Suspect" the arm was pulled out of position with an open breach, then a projectile was rammed forward and opened again, then a powder charge from opened paper cartage was dumped into the open breach rammed home and closed into battery before the nipple was caped. This "Suspected method" would leave enough powder for the touch hole area to start the powder train to the main charge.
Great video as always. One question, though. The "rammer" seemed to have a concave hollowing with a hole as the base of the chamber. Was this hole through which the sparks from percussion cap entered the chamber?
Something went wrong with editing, because it looks like it's been blinking a few times with a green screen and the content in a smaller portion of the screen.
The only obviously questionable element about this design I see is that there is some doubt about how well the powder is compressed given that the Minié ball was is designed to NOT provide much resistance until after the powder is fired.
being a breech loader, the Army would have had the ammo made special for the rifles, and would have required the bullets to be larger than the bore. The navy had some confusion between their muzzleloaders and the Jenks breechloaders, which were technically the same caliber (.52), but the breechloader needed the bigger projectile to work well. Expanding base bullets were in use for quite a few decades, eventually people came to the conclusion that so long as your bullet was remotely close to the groove diameter, you don't really need the hollow or cup base on the bullet (that also moves the center of mass back in the bullet, making it a little more stable in flight, albeit more difficult to stabilize than the Hollow-base bullets)
Even though the armory was burned down, I surely hope the brain- and workforce was pulled out before. Meaning, they could have done the same work elsewhere. Or did you mean all the stashed rifles ready for conversion were burned as well?
I'm curious as to the extent of the testing the various conversions underwent and if there was any clear "winner" as far as effectiveness, and ease and cost of conversion.
I would recommend reading "The Best Gun in the World" by Seigler. It is about the Morse carbine, but it does go over the testing of breechloading rifles of the time.
Imagine if you could travel back to any point in time... How far back would you go to tell the firearms design community that with the help of metallurgy, you can house powder & bullet in a single self-contained unit.
they were using paper cartridges in the 1600's, so earlier than that, I suppose. There were wheellock breech loaders from the 1400's that used replaceable chambers, the biggest issue with adopting metallic cartridges is the lack of industrial backing for them pre-1850's (even still, drawn cases weren't widespread until the 1870's in most places). In line ignition was more-or-less conceptualized by the early 1700's because there are quite a few inline flintlocks from the 1720's. Ease of manufacture, logistics, and the knowledgeability of the customers were the determining factors in the development of firearms.
Probably never going to happen, but could you make a video on pom-poms orlikens or bofors? They are anti aircraft guns but i dunno if you can make a video on it. Also I enjoy your videos.
I was wonder, looking at the breach, how they manage to ram the paper cartridge & ball home without destroying the paper cartridge.. then I saw something in the business end of the plunger indicating this may be a two loading process.. 1st the ball goes into to the breach.. it is rammed home.. then the paper cartridge is inserted & rammed home.. once the power charge is press up against the ball, it's time to half-cock & load the primer. am I wrong here?