The British version of the Dreyse needle rifle with firearms and weapon expert, Jonathan Ferguson 

Yes. Metallic cartridges predate the Dreyse needle rifle, but mass-manufacturing on the scale needed to supply an entire army was simply not yet feasible. Still, it was an awkward system, and as soon as mass-manufacturing of metallic cartridges was feasible, the needle rifles were obsolete.

Dreyse was an apprentice working for Pauli in Paris who developed twin barrel centerfire metallic cartridge rifles in 1812. The rifles were rejected by Napoleon as being too complicated logistically to support. The other problem with them was that they lacked extractors for the cartridges but otherwise looked like modern double barrel shotguns other than having a rifled bore.

@@Bird_Dog00 i also think they were expensive at that time, not until in 1871 with the Mauser rifle.

@@allangibson8494 thats cool, first breach loading rifle tho by the british the furgesson and that was in 1770s? 🤔🙂

@@marvintodeo5221 The Ferguson had issues with powder fouling that made it marginal as a sporting weapon… The biggest issue with cartridge guns was metallurgy of the cartridges. Cartridge brass is actually hard to make - the 30% zinc content is hard to consistently achieve because it wants to evaporate from the mix at smelting temperatures…

Due to doctrinal demands of the time, that seems sensible. When you're massing fire at another massed group of opponents, ROF seems superior to accuracy.

@@tommyscott8511 the weakness of the rifle musket was that, to take advantage of its superior long range accuracy, it was necessary for the soldier to estimate or have estimated for him, the range to which to set his sights. In the din of battle, through gunsmoke, that was very difficult. An opponent pressing forward could get under the parabola of its low velocity bullets if sights weren't carefully and continually adjusted. The weapon could be deadly in the hands of dispersed marksmen but they hadn't the rate of fire to stop a charge.

The American civil war shows the limitations and good uses of the rifled musket.

@@noneofyourbusiness2997 maybe but neither side made us of breechloaders on a large scale. Prussian tactics gave a combination of firepower and shock, as Austrian rifle musket fire was incapable of holding them at long range. The French experience of 1859, when they had the edge in being completely rifle-musket armed, was to stress the rapid advance or the zouave rush, rather than stand off shooting. That was the lesson the Austrians took too, with their subsequent Stosstaktik. Paradoxically, the limitations of the rifle-musket favoured the attack and the needle gun added superior punch at closer ranges to that attacking doctrine, countering the bayonet charges that the French and Austrians had learned to use. In entrenched positions, behind obstacles, the range and accuracy of the rifle-musket was likely to tell and there were plenty of such situations in the latter years of the ACW.

There were more factors to be fair like Prussia starting to adopt smaller unit tactics, a general staff and in general modern command structures while Austria was still largely stuck with Napoleonic tactics. But yes the needle gun was almost certainly superior.

* Versuchs-Kompressionsgeschoss

I have one that was converted to 12ga, interesting gun

@@Bhartrampf Sounds very interesting.

Ian of Forgotten Weapons (as well as Othais and Mae of C&Rsenal) reviewed the Dryse needle pistol if i remember right. Don't know or remember if they covered the rifle.

Making the Zündnadelgewehr responsible for the outcoming of the Prussian-Austrian War is very popular but too much simplyfied.

@@peterstadlmaier3107 It was a book for 12-year old language students, not 18-year old history students.

Amazing - I'm not jealous at all. (I do lie on occasion)

hey jolly ol´ chap, the chassepot is superior in every way, known fact. what kind of lead do you use in your cartridges ?

@@mikehoare6093 Lead hardness or bullet type? I use pure lead and the bullet varies on the type of cartridge I’m making. From a period correct profile to a good ole traditional 405gr 45-70 bullet.

Given that the Russians in the Crimean war were lucky to have functioning flintlock weapons, I'd say the British and French had an advantage either way.

@@jordansmith4040 Yes I know that. So if the British would've had these technologically advanced rifles their advantage would've been much bigger.

@@hendriktonisson2915 agreed.

One of things to keep in mind is cost and production time. A muzzleloader is cheap and easy to produce. Interchangeable parts was a thing of the future. Even within the same factory, every gun was almost hand built. It took a specialist to fit the parts together. With the Brown Bess, that's pretty easy. With the Needle Gun(rifle), production is slowed greatly, and costs go up. That's not even considering the ammunition problems. Since the British were more advanced than the Russians, I can see why the decision was made to stick to what was tried and true. Interesting hypothesis though.

@@williamromine5715 I would think that replaceable/interchangable parts would be essential for the production of breech loading rifles. It had been developed by this point, so it's a matter of integration.

😃😆😅🤣

That wasn't their only example, just their oldest of that type.

It seems so! How novel.

i think its the modern reissue.

Thank you for the Hobbes

WOW - I'm jealous.

Look up channel “paper cartridges “ or channel “capandball”

Having shot both id say the martini was a better gun. Not as easy to clean but one smooth action opens the breach ejects the empty cartridge casing and re-cocks the weapon. Smoother to load as well. Not trap door floping around no exsposed hammer in the way.

@@justacentrist4147 which is to be expected the martini Henry was a purposely designed breechloading rifle, while the trapdoor springfield was a conversion from a muzzle loader to a breacher loader, more analogous to the earlier trapdoor conversion Snider- Enfield breachloader

As noted before, the Martini-Henry was the next step ahead with fewer actions and motions in firing. The Trapdoor would be the equivalent of the Snider-Enfield. But would that have been a big enough difference to make a real difference in a large battle? My money is on it not mattering. But if I had to personally bet my life on one, Martini all the way for the fewer actions required. For the muskets, it was almost certainly close enough for it to not make any difference. The Americans found some issues with the Springfield and updated them, but the recent British updates were still filtering through the system at that time. In the end the Americans modeled their muskets on the French, and those were well proven to be effective. In the end, it is rare that a major military rifle and it's counterparts weren't close enough to not make a real difference. For example, the amount of ink and bits devoted to G98 vs SMLE and Kar 98 vs No4, while you can argue until the cows come home which is better they were both close enough that if you swapped them it would make no difference.

There are needleguns in the way your younger self thought, they're sometimes called flechette guns.

Yea

Well yeah, the Schleswig-Holstein Uprising(this is in fact, one of the two commonly accepted names for the conflict, the other is the "Schleswig-Holstein War", it is never referred to as a Revolution.) was, in fact, an uprising, which the Prussians supported, but were not a direct part of. It might have ended up being called a revolution if it had actually succeeded, but it didn't, and Denmark retained control of Schleswig-Holstein. (It's also not generally considered to actually be directly related to many of the other uprisings and revolutions happening around that time period.)

It’s only a Revolution when we do it. -every country ever. The Spring time of nations didn’t get that far in Britain, so it didn’t concern us as much as it would a place like Austria, Germany, or France.

@@Anglomachian This wasn't actually connected to the "Springtime of Nations" though, those were a bunch of uprisings where the people tried to overthrow Monarchies, the Schleswig-Holstein Uprising was basically a group of Local Germans that wanted Schleswig-Holstein to be under German and not Danish control, with a lot of support from the German Confederation.

Its not a revolution if you lose.

Cleaning the barrel with brush or piece of cloth?

cleaning and clearing a stuck round

in the field yes, at the range it will fire 4 times.........

Should have; it was a much superior weapon of war. It just couldn't overcome the negatives of the rest of the French problems.

You have to stop to reload a Winchester repeater, you can fire a Martini at a steady rate as long as you have ammunition.

@@snowflakemelter1172 Winchester have 15 shots though and Henry have 18 And how long does it take to load them

How widespread were repeaters in that time in the US? The US military afaik fielded a new Trapdoor rifle as late as 1888, when european nations were rushing to bring out their second generation of repeaters. Many armies of that day were reluctant to adopt a repeater for several reasons. They would mostly go for breach-laoding single shots until the 1870s or even 1880s.

@@Bird_Dog00 Repeaters were used in the back end of the Civil War. They were used at both the Battle of Franklin 1864 and Battle of Bentonville 1865 I believe Roosevelt Rough Riders in the Spanish American War were using Breech loaders but I could be wrong

@@Bird_Dog00 I know the Turkish Army used a mix of Breech loading and Repeaters at the Battle of Pleven in 1877 against the Russians

The SMLE was introduced more than *50 Years* later, and is not relevant to common British design practices of the mid 1800's

@@Ghelasin I am aware of this, was just making a joke... apparently it didn't land.

@@TheWarmotor I don't know if it landed, but I was grooving to it.

@@Celebmacil Thank you, friend :)

@@Celebmacil That is worth much love.

nope - King Charles the Third, King of [many places, including King of Canada]

Your comment would be correct and indeed respectful. I went to a chirch service to commorate 9/11. Horribly overlooked over here

In 1848 revolution attempt, a number of Zündnadelgewehre was stolen from a Zeughaus ( house for storing military equipment) by revolutioners in Berlin. This stolen rifles found their way outside of Prussia. No Spys involved.

I suspect Queen Victoria asked he cousin for one. Prince William of Prussia was in London in 1848 (slightly involuntarily).

The brits had good relations with alot of the german states(including but not just Prussia) that adopted the Dreyse near contemporaneous to Prussia

It was a poorly kept secret known as the "light percussion rifle" to mislead the competition. Pretty much all the surrounding countries had got the details of it by the time it became general issue. Espionage is nothing new.

They were first used in a revolution so mostlikely via the same way the french got their hands on it (rather than family ties as another commenter suggest), feeing/exiled germans from the 1848 revolution that are stopped by borderguards on their way to settle somewhere else.

Steve Nicholas has commented 9min ago. You commented 7min ago. With no way to proof who got here first, considering that one can reach the video, but not comment first, I have no choice but nominating Steve Nicholas as this video's "FIRST".

@@whoelsebutmeofcoursei Are you sure about that?