Why does this musket have a strange spring lock? With firearms expert Jonathan Ferguson. 

“To start with this is French”…yeah, that makes perfect sense.

A weird, French firearm? I won't be suprised if Ian appears from offscreen and takes over the video while being extremely happy

Clock spring musket, jonathan? Just call it by its street name: the Time Piece.

I have a request for Mr. Ferguson, seeing as you are the keeper of firearms AND Artillery, do you guys have any interesting pieces of artillery in your collection we could see? I love these videos please keep them up, utterly fascinating to see all the different ideas that have been presented to the world.

There is always a special place in my heart for fancy antique guns, that look like the baroque equivalent of something invented in a crackshag.

Thanks Jonathan and team - that design gives a whole new meaning to "coilgun" 😃

Props to ya Jonathan for rocking that calculator watch. I haven't seen one of them in years.

I love these sort of last ditch type weapons, designed to be easy to produce in times of war. They always have such creative design. The triger seems oddly similar to a crossbow.

When Gun Jesus visits, I would lock that up or swap it for his soul

I'm always taken aback by how much variation there are in examples that I would've thought to have been relatively standardised.

What can you tell of the rumored UK's SMG tests conducted during late 30's for UK military? I have heard that e.g. the Suomi m/31 with front legs you have there in IWM reference collection was one of the SMGs that were tested and evaluated with e.g. Thompson SMG.

This looks like one of those weapons that are made by people who aren't soldiers

The ease of making this thing is entirely outweighed by the difficulty involved in growing the extra hand needed to actually operate it. 😁

Royal Armouries needs to get this man a better mic set up. Cool video anyways though.

What strikes me about this design is that the hammer and the frizzen are both 'floating' on their clock springs, which would make me concerned for the consistency of their striking geometry.

Due to the difficult cocking and priming this looks like something you'd use behind cover. When under siege or behind a barricade.

This is now my favorite video you have done so far, thanks

Every time I watch this man I learn something quite significant either from history of general terms lost to time. Listen to him for hours. Fair play Sir. Fair play

“To start off, its French” *Ian has entered the Chat

Wonderful as always, interesting piece.

I suspect that this is a proof of concept rather than a ready for use musket. Thank you for showing us this and the oak stock with little apparent (?) chemical reaction between the oak tannin and iron parts.

I have experience as metal worker myself. If i look at this spiral spring and how to make it. Other types of spring are easier to make, in my opinion. What could be the decisive factor is the heat treatment.

Clever lock work. Thanks for the video.

Keep up the great work 💪

Weird mechanism. Thanks for showing us.

and, to complete the list: a redsmith works in copper and copper alloys, and goldsmith and siversmith are obvious. Note on V-springs: harder to make well, but much lighter and safer.

Oh hell this came out on my birthday, happy late birthday to me for finding this I suppose. (Also thanks for the vid, always entertaining!)

Casio Calculator watch. You rule Jonathan!

Love the content and the history lesson, if yall ever get to do a coop with Ian my life would be complete

First proper description of "whitesmith" that I have heard.

I'd be a nervous nelly trying to load that, especially under pressure in a a field with cold hands. I wonder how many accidents there were when people were trying it out!? Brilliant video as always, thank you.

Make do with what you have, makes perfect sense in the context.

Fascinating! I always thought it's harder to build a clock than a gun, but apparently it's the other way around

if you have one could you do a video on the TP-82 Cosmonaut survival pistol? most fascinating gun ive ever heard of

him: why does it have this? me: i dint even know something like that existed

That was a little hard for me to watch - the camera was fighting something, I suspect the lighting in that store. the subject matter so interesting that I kept with it.

Could we maybe sometime have demonstrations of you firing various firearms? Pretty please

It is hard to imagine those elaborate coil springs being cheaper than the V springs in a normal flintlock. Just train your clock smiths and white smiths to make an ordinary flintlock I am sure it would not take too long most of their skills would be transferable.

i was under the impression that a whitesmith worked with tin and pewter

It has a spring lock to spring a surprise on the owners enemies.

A very-early French Revolution era last-ditch gun! I never knew these existed so early!

These need music. Like jazz or lo fi or something. Love the vids as always 🙌

I thought it would be a "fire a volley autonomously through the night" things like the idea of the old hydraulic Maxims.

Great channel and if you want this stuff to be less scary understand it is the way because WE ALL KNOW you fear what you don't understand more then not.

Kept as an example of what not to make.

back in day Government notice All clock springs must be given to the local officials for weapon production

Was the designer of this thing the ancestor of French automobile systems designers? I'm thinking of things like the Renault R5's gear shift, and almost any Citroen suspension.

it would be cool to see if the spring was comparable to a commonly used size of clock spring at the time, especially if to the extent such springs could be canibalized, the reason it was so drastically simplified to the point of impracticality was probably to establish just how much you could remove, i'd imagine if they'd put the plan into use they'd have most likely opted to add a more conventional trigger, preferably with some kind of spring even if just a weak one to help the sear engage

audio seems a little off on this video

Very french indeed.. An interesting piece, and unnesseserily complicated, even for its day.

Very interesting. It seems that a "v" spring would be easier by far to make.

Actually many Japanese tanegashima matchlock musket uses windup springs.

I would propose we call it a coil lock or clock lock.

I wonder if you have it, my favourite historical firearm has to be the Giradoni air rifle. If you do I'd love to hear you discuss it.

Lets put some respect on my mans Casio DBC32

Its so weird that i built a rubber band gun supper similar to this

Makes me wonder if the trigger spring is installed wrong.

I feel like these videos deserve a much better camera/mic setup

A last-ditch weapon was probably intended to be used by a last-ditch trooper. They may not have intended for that weapon to be fired more than once. It could be loaded ahead of time, fired once during the battle, and then used as a pike with a bayonet.

in the terms of the French Revolution and it makes sense. I imagine these were ordered by jacobin / national guard leadership in order to be able to produce a flintlock that was capable of utilizing the skills of a cottage industry white smith, not a specified gunsmith (who were assumedly working for royal armaments and or harder to come by. Super cool stuff.

The thing that always strikes me about muskets is how you've got this combination of precisely man made tool, with a rock clamped in to make it work, lol.

Cool

If it indeed dates back to the revolution it could be an attempt at something to keep up production using the craftsmen they still had, as I would think many of those working in or for the arsenals left and joined the revolutionaries

@4:45 maybe this is a British misunderstanding of America but here a blacksmith deals with iron and a whitesmith deals with tin or precious metals like silver.

So a whitesmith was like a machinist, before the machines?

Is that like an old school firerate mod?

Lol 'colonies' ha ha. Great video Jonathan, as ever!

Could it have been a way to repurpose wheellock springs from old guns in armouries they would have no use for?

I can see no benefit to constructing that mechanism, rather than the conventional lock. The maker still has to create a spring ... coiled, rather than 'V-shaped'. I would not have thought that would be any easier to manufacture. Perhaps the idea was to pinch the springs from the clock mechanisms of the bourgeoisie, after having first sent the owners to the Guillotine.

Looks like a clock sping. He knows.

Should have got the Swiss Cuckoo upgrade

The clock glock from Languedoc

Before you scoff, ducks at that time had learned to dive at the sound of the typical tschk-thump of a flint lock.

They could have used flat springs just cut from spring steel strip, even simpler.

Yo can I donate a microphone to this museum haha. I love your guys’s vids but the audio quality leaves a little to be desired. Also, I’m not kidding, can I send a microphone to you guys.

Why wouldn't the maker fabricate a spring for the trigger? Certainly it couldn't of been too hard to add one on somewhere?

I was half expecting Ian to show up and push Johnathan off to side and take over filming the episode. But what an interesting gun nevertheless

Seems like a cheap wheel lock, which is unique in itself, they were usually expensive. But I don't think it is. Maybe for use with gloves. Maybe made with found parts.

There's a very artistic sense to this weapon. But gosh is it odd in form.

I have to wonder how many accidental discharges happened when using this thing under fire, fiddling about with that trigger system.

I'm not sure I understand why a clock type spring was considered easier to make - the heat treating principles are the same as a conventional V-spring, and a V-spring is a simpler thing to forge, surely? I've done a tiny bit of forging and heat treating (making tools, chisels etc) and I'd be a lot more confident making a normal mainspring... what am I missing here? Is there a metallurgical reason why a long thin clock spring is easier to produce?

Interesting lock. Speaking of ramrods, how were metal ramrods held in place so that they did not slide out of the housing while you were carrying the musket around?

The lockmaker stories are precisely what I like to hear Jonathan talk about. He got a little lost in the explanation of the whitesmith name but again the story itself was a tasty historical morsel that I'm here for. Try to structure the stories a bit more, separate them, clockwork spring first then the whitesmith story. The on bench examination was a.ok.

Someone had one of those 'I have an idea' moment, and actually went through with it. Then someone else, somehow, find enough value in it to preserve it in a museum? What a weird, useless, unusable contraption.

" im here to explain why its like this ..............................its french " enough said thank you for the video 😁

so this is the musket equivalent of a Sten gun.

The stock has wood worm. It needs looked at. It may have infected other weapons

Would this really be simpler to make than a conventional mainspring?

I've now found out that it IS possible for a single shot muzzle loader to scare me mechanically. I didn't realize that was possible.

How to make a flintlock without top quality springs.

It is interesting to see why some of the smart inventions did not work out. It is also illustrative of the disappearance of occupations with industrialisation and mass production - simply the amount of hand fitting required to make this thing work - occationally. You see something like that with Adolph Furrer, where gunsmithing got locked into the blind alley of the toggle lock. The Luger is a good example. Excellent pistol - only thing wrong with it is the degree of maintainance and the number of man-hours. If you consider the modern day pistols with tilting barrels - well it is the solution, which means you get what economists call a natural monopoly.

I very much prefer when you talk about these older, pre-20th century guns. I find them are far more interesting. There is much more experimentation involved. By the time WW1 is starting, everything has become much more standardized and manufactured.

"To start off this is French..." *GunJesus1 has entered the chat.

Clockwork Rifle ?

You are doing gods work. Said god being Vulcan, I expect. :)

The French have always carried on with an idea, even after they realised it was ridiculous, but would they admit it, not likely !

Mr Ferguson, I have two thoughts concerning this musket. First, I cannot see how the springs and trigger are attached, but I wonder if this lock could require lesser degree of skill than that required for the hand-made tools and operations in the drilling, tapping, threading, and in hardening and tempering compared to fabricating reliable powerful and highly tensioned v-springs and the rest of a conventional/classic flintlock, especially if bridled. I don't know how the skills and work entailed with this would compare with those in either version of miquelet. The second point is that I believe that this firelock might be safely managed with only moderate modification to the normal musket drill, assuming reasonable training and practice. The first step in loading would be to come to half-cock in a significantly different sequence: - Come to Poise Firelock, i.e musket vertical, lock about face level and oriented away from the soldier. This position could probably be modified somewhat, held a bit lower and/or rotated somewhat clockwise. - Continuing to grasp the firelock firmly with the right hand, bring the tip of the trigger finger to the back of the trigger and press it forward with pressure sufficient to enable the tip (sear? nose?) to engage the bents on the cock. - Supporting the firelock with the right hand, release the grip of the left hand and bring it back to the lock, and with (whichever finger seems appropriate in a proper military manner), pull the cock back until it engages with the trigger nose in the half-cock bent. Then, prepare to prime, again somewhat differently from usual: - Bring the left hand underneath and around to the right/lock side of the firelock and position the fourth (or third and fourth) finger(s) behind the hammer (/steel/friizzen) in preparation for opening the pan. - Pull the hammer open/forward with the finger(s) while proceeding to grasp the forend of the firelock with the thumb and remaining fingers of the left hand. - Bring the firelock down to the usual (Ready) position to prime (muzzle angled up, lock by the right hip). Priming is closer to normal: Supporting the firelock with the left hand more or less as normal while continuing to hold the pan uncovered and Grasp Cartridge, Bite, Tear, Pour Prime, and Pinch Cartridge (i.e. between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand) all as normal, then: - Extend the second (or the third and fourth) finger(s) of the right hand and position them behind the hammer in preparation for lowering it to cover the pan. - Release the hammer with the finger(s) of the left hand and with the right hand, lower it to cover the pan. Proceed to finish loading as normal. To Make Ready, repeat the above precedure for half-cocking at the Poise position to come to full cock, then bring the firelock down to the Ready position, rather than the usual procedure of coming to the Ready position and cocking with the right hand. Aim and Fire are like normal. Regards

france would just like to distance ourselves from this early attempt at steampunk design..

Boing-fizzle-BANG! . . . #"It's springtime, for muskets, & Zebedee."# (So sorry; it's my age : )

Woodworm? It must be a problem in such collections.