Thanks for checking out my channel! Here you'll find historical shooting with a focus on 19th century black powder military rifles, with the occasional earlier smoothbore or later smokeless powder rifle mixed in, for good measure.
Things you will see here: lots of long range rifle shooting with historically correct ammunition, and an emphasis on representing these arms in the historical context they were developed in. I try to balance the history and context of a particular rifle with the fun part of shooting it!
What you WON'T see here: modern stuff (there's a ton of other great channels about that), shooting aluminum cans at short range (again, lots of other great channels doing that), and people who don't know what they're talking about.
Thanks for stopping by!
Brett
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I'll take Catfish over Lutefisk anytime!
Totally agree, I love this rifle.
Keep in mind that it was never intended for the average Soldier to be firing as an individual at targets over 250 yds. Certainly, skirmishers would operate to the front and flanks of a battalion or brigade, in accordance with (IAW) doctrine and drill, but even they would usually engage enemy skirmishers in the open at less than 250 yards. A look at most Civil War battlefields which have preserved as much of the actual terrain as possible will show you that, in most cases, on a black powder shrouded battlefield, 500 yards would be a rare target. As I said, the individual Soldier was not intended to engage individual targets at, usually, over 250 yds. Instead, a firing line of a company or battalion of Soldiers in a two rank line nearly elbow to elbow would fire either in volleys or at will against similar targets or even small or deep columns of attackers. With such a target, aimed fire was possible out to 1000 yds with proper rangefinding, usually by officers and NCOs. There were actually devices that worked like an ART scope, where putting one end of a sliding bar at the top of a head and the baseline bar at the waist, would give reasonably accurate ranges. Flip the device over, and it would do the same for mounted targets. As smokeless powder made for higher velocities and greater ranges, you still had armies training their infantry to fire volleys as platoons, companies or battalions at massed targets out to two thousand yds as WW1 approached. But, yes, the Spencer and its copper cartridge could not withstand the pressure of the heavier charges used by muzzle-loading or single shot rifles like the Sharps, Merrill or even the M1840 Hall rifles. This meant a lower maximum effective range. And this wasn't smokeless powder. Black powder pretty quickly gummed up the works of breechloading firearms, making them slower to load and fire unless cleaned. Even the M1861 was supposed to be cleaned every 40 or so rounds (which is why the basic load was 40 rounds). The question isn't about the Spencer. Lincoln didn't see one until 1862 (IIRC), so they wouldn't really have been available at the start of the war. The first combat use I am aware of was at Cavalry Field at Gettysburg. There were three breechloading mechanisms which were at least moderately successful during the War, these being the Merrill, Burnside and Sharps. And in truth, the late Hall-North firearms were not unsuccessful either. So why didn't Ordnance go with one of these. Well for the same answer as the Spencer. By late 1861, the Federal government had raised over 500,000 volunteers that need arming. Hitting the warehouses, there were about 290,000 M1842 muskets, 150,000 M1841 rifles and around 60,000 M1855 rifles and rifle-muskets along with other odds and ends, like ~5,000 Hall M1840 rifles. The Army needed shoulder arms and they needed them fast and they had already lost the Harper's Ferry Arsenal. It was faster and cheaper to replicate the machinery and distribute it to contractors to manufacture the M1855 and, later, the M1861. There was an Enfield production line not yet delivered to Great Britain and Remington had its own version of the M1855 ready for production. By 1864, IIRC, over 1.5M M1861 rifle-muskets had been delivered with something like 900,000 P1853 Enfields and 350,000 Lorenz rifles and rifle-muskets. At that point, the Ordnance could have taken a deep breath and handed out contracts for Sharps and Spencer rifles, both being in production as carbines. But they didn't. Which is another question for history.
Don't have any concrete data, but it is my firm belief that smoothbore "inaccuracy" is a holdover from, and directly related to, the English soldiers and their manual of arms for the Brown Bess and the Enfield. They used significantly undersized balls to allow for continued shooting even when heavily fouled. Anyone paying attention knows that "undersized" equals "inaccurate" no matter what is being shot. This continued with the early settlers using undersized balls and linen tow for wadding. These techniques are definitely much less accurate. HOWEVER, when a ball is properly fit to the bore, accuracy is markedly improved - proven time and time again.
I have got a question. As a string to tie the cartilage, can I use a string made from a sisal material ?
If a long bow can fire 10 arrows a minute why did they move to firearms?
It takes about nine minutes to teach someone how to shoot a musket, compared to a lifetime of constant practice with a longbow.
Well the contradiction of film vs film? Let me explain. The sharpe clip shows them spitting the ball yet at the bite part several are seen spitting the folded long piece of paper. So are they biting the right part then saying its the ball. When its not. Also no ones mouth is black from powder.
Theres multiple stories of pirates, French Marines, and lots of other soldiers besides fireing from over 200 yards with smoothbore .69 muskets and picking off their enemies
Hey I have a question Can we use steel in place of lead for the bullets ?
No, it would destroy the barrel and could not shoot accurately.
I didn’t realize until recently that the Pritchett was actually used some during the American civil war, because I’ve never seen it portrayed in movies. It seems like a better system than the minié.
To be fair, it could have been for showmaking purposes - ramrods are fiddly items, espiecially on camera or in kneeling/lying down/irregular formatiosn, and doesn't give the impression of a crack team of sharpshooters laying round after round into a French unit. And besides, Sharpe isn't necessarily saying that what he's showing them is good firearms practice - he's trying to impress his superior officers, and to accomplish a task given, whilst also saving his new unit from being brutally, physically punished. Simmerson (the officer) doesn't care for the soldiers under his command, so Sharpe doesn't care about the rifles- only accomplishing the target time of four rounds a minute.
By the way - What is this white/yellow powder like layer covering this old lead balls and other old lead stuff ? Possibly lead carbonate ?
I am no chemist but I am expertly advised that it is a form of lead oxide. This white powder was used to color lead paint. It’s also very toxic since the oxide of lead is more easily absorbed than elemental lead.
Makes sense because lead has no elasticity. In a bore that's getting progressivly narrower to the muzzle, a bullet would have better contact over the whole barrel length. On a constant bore diameter and grove depht it may start to wiggle after a while (if the expansion of the bullet don't happens over the whole barrel length). Never the less i wonder how they did this progressive depth rifling !?
They had a cam-like device that made the blades draw deeper cuts at one end and shallower at the other. The same thing can be done on conventional rifling engines, by using thin shims and gradually increasing them (laborious though!)
Well done. This was an interesting video from beginning to end - I didn't even look at the clock once!
Why would swaged bullets be gyroscopically stabilized? I didn't understand this comment. Swaged bullets are no more uniform than a good cast bullet imo, so I can't make any sense of the comment.
I put this on at work for background and ended up listening and looking out the window letting my imagination run wild with it. Great presentation. Are there any formal studies or works dedicated to comparing/contrasting Petersburg and Sevastopol?
Vielen Dank! Liebe Grüße aus Österreich!
I have a question if you don't mind! I understand that the Enfields sold to the CSA and other places often included a mould to pour and cast your own bullets with every 10 or rifles purchased, and also to be sued at distant outposts of the British Empire. I am very curious to know more about these bullets. As I understand it, the historical bullets from the armory were all swagged using presses like your corbin die system, and had the perfect semi sphere nose from the compression system rather than a snipped tip you often see from cast minies. What size were the minies coming from the moulds, did they have the same dimensions as the undersized .550 that came from the factory? If so, did they expect the men to make their own plugs for the bullets in camp? With the undersized ball, did they also have to perfectly make cartridges to utilize the paper sabot to make the bullet actually work? Just thinking about it I assume they gave the guys in the field a mould that was closer to the first generation Pritchett to be more friendly in a low supply area like a campaign camp rather than the later generation Boxer but I could be totally wrong. Thank you for all your incredible research and hard work on this topic, we are incredibly lucky to have you doing all this! Just ordered all your books on Amazon btw!
American dribbling shite. The guys in flip flop motor bikes and Bush hats sent your elite on Galaxy C17 back to your GREAT USA Your slavering president Biden can't put a sensible sentence together. Who are you two armatures to hijack and comment on a sad day for Scots subservient to there masters.
Superb work Sir .... even for a Blanket Stacker 😊. A most interesting and informative channel - as always we tend to simplify much in military history in respect to weaponry (I have seen much the same regarding armoured warfare 1939-1942 too - with incorrect assessment of the British 2 pounder and German panzers etc) Well Done 😊
the line tactic was special. Not the fasted loader dictated the fire rate, it was the slowest one. Salvo fire was the tactic, not a chaotic single fire. The long lines in 3 columnes, sodiers in a distance of 1m to the another marched forward to the enemies lines. At a distance of about 150 m the lines stopped, the first row knied, the second stayed and the officer gave the command: aim and then fire. But only the first and second row fired because it was too dangerous when the third row fired too for the soldiers in the second row. Ears head and so. The muskets at that time wasnt really bad precise. The chance to hit an aime on a distance of 150m was 15 to 1. So the lines, the third row in top, marched 20m forward, 2nd and 3rt rows reloaded and fired again and so on. 4 shoots a minute was not able in a battle. Humans are not machines and when comrads beneeth you are falling, cannonballs rip off legs, heads and so on soldiers get nervous or even in panic, make loading mistakes, and all drill cannot really help.
to be fair the muzzle loader was averaging a shot every 20 seconds. thats 3 a minute which is the standard for elite soldiery in the 18th and early 19th century
Interesting, so next time someone corrects an American about their pronunciation, they can confidently say that this is it's own thing made by different people with minimal connection to the name being corrected to. Minnie is basically an uniquely distinct colloquialism born from misunderstanding.
My ancestor fought in the battle of Königgrätz 1866 where this rifle was used for the first time by Prussians. He served in Austrian light cavalry and survived the battle.
You didn't really mention the technique that came in my mind when I asked myself that question. Why can't you just keep it in your offhand? I mean, I can see myself holding the ramrod and the gun together in one hand, hold it flat against the barrel. Maybe a little bit unpleasant / unhandy, but seems handier than to pull it in and out. There isn't any risk of losing it either. I've never held a musket before though, maybe it's not as easy as I picture it. Sticking it in the ground or leaving it on the ground is obviously a recipe for disaster. But holding ramrod in your hand seems very much possible to me, might knock out 3 seconds off your reload.
Looks like the black powder tastes good.
4:54 at least he got that roll in pulp fiction
Vertical stringing equils 1 of two things. You either have compromised powder or uneven gas seal. Either of those will also have some effect on windage as well.
Kriegshandfeuerwaffen sounds like a mouthful but my basic understanding of some German words leads me to believe it translates roughly to “hand firing war weapons” or “war firearms” is that correct?
Thank you for protecting the free World. Your research and dedication to passing on your knowledge is awesome.
Do a video about Whitworth rifle and bullet?
I did, maybe two or three years ago?
@@papercartridges6705 I can not find it on your channel😁
oh no this reminds me of going to promotion boards.
When we use them, we throw the ramrod until it bounce back. At 50m accuracy is within half a hand, load 55-60 grains, 55 is more pleasant
Why did they load muskets standing up, when they could load taking a knee with the muzzle at the hip? Some skirmishers used to do this.
One of the points you mentioned heavily was the importance of BRM for infantry soldiers so they can effectively utilize a rifle. You also mentioned in another video how the Union Army largely lacked this training and as a result preffered smoothbore percussion muskets firing buck and ball cartridges to rifles. Did the regular US Army of the Antebelum and post civil war recieve and conduct basic rifle marksmanship instruction in their initial and unit training?
In 1860 the U.S. Army was 20,000 soldiers. They were supposed to do rifle training but most of them were posted on the frontier, in small outposts where there was no perceived need or emphasis for any long range rifle training. At just the Battle of Shiloh in early 1862 alone, there were 24,000 total casualties, or 4000 more casualties in one battle than there were soldiers in the entire army about a year earlier. With huge armies of hundreds of thousands of troops, armed with every imaginable kind of gun, it was impossible to do any training of value once the war began.
Well Austria losing the Austro-Prussian war hard and France losing the Franco-Prussian war hard had more to do with Artillery than infantry rifles. The Prussians had Krupp rifled breach loading artillery that basically wouldn't be out of place on a WWI battlefield. Austria and France were still largely using muzzle loading artillery that wouldn't be out of place on a Napoleonic battlefield.
Respectfully, that’s not accurate. The Prussian artillery was muzzleloading in 1866, the latest Krupp breechloaders were not fielded in time for their impact to be really felt in the war with Austria. You are correct that Prussian artillery was decisive in 1870, and I would agree more than the far-outdated Dreyse by that point. There’s also a vast difference between the primitive breechloading guns of 1870 and WWI, especially in three aspects: modern nitrocellulose propellants, high explosive bursting charges, and recoil absorbing mechanisms that enable the gun to be repeatedly fired without re-aiming. A Krupp gun from 1870 would be a relic antique in WWI. We have to be careful to understand these weapon systems in context and avoid the common temptation to exaggerate their capabilities and modernity.
i went by your shop today the outside looked cool. you should do a shop tour vid
Might do that when I get home in about a month! Hope you’ll come back when I’m open!
It's interesting that Lundby was seen as such a big confirmation of the Dreyse's superiority. It was a company size engagement that was characterised by the utter lack of tactical enguinity by the Danish commander, that seems to have done this mindless attack to restore his own honour for leaving his men early during the Battle of Sankelmark. He approach an entrenched enemy with a head on bayonet charge in a 10 man wide 16 ranks deep marching column walking down a hillside. The volleys were fired at around 90 m, 70 m, and 50 m and it's only the closest one that had devastating effects. The Prussians could've had smoothbores and it would still have been a slaughter. It's a bit strange it's a called a "battle" in English. In Danish and German it's just called a fight/skirmish.
I’ve also noticed that! In English we also tend to refer to the “battles” of Trautenau, and the smaller engagements of the Campaign of the Main, when in German they are usually “Gefecht.”
Excellent as usual. Small point re Prussian tactical doctrine. Austrian attacks were usually met by a two (occasionally four deep eg Huhnerwasser and Podol) deep, kneeling/standing line. Firing was by controlled volleys, generally rapid fire only employed as pursuing fire.
You are quite correct. The Prussians only very rarely employed uncontrolled Schnellfeuer, and almost always used volleys. In this they were somewhat behind the trend in the rest of Europe, to avoid mass line fire.
Have you tried them in a Pedersoli Lorenz? I’m curious how well they’d do
I only have original Lorenz rifles but I would think that they’d perform the same in the Pedersoli, as it has the same four groove rifling, just not quite as deep.
Absolutely splendid disquisition ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
The French did not defeat the Austrians in 1859 using bayonet tactics - read von Moltke’s critique of the war. Wawro’s book should be read and quoted selectively. The ‘slick with grease’ anecdote is unsubstantiated. Otherwise a most informative, knowledgeable and interesting video. Thank you.
Infantrymen were really using minie ball rifles **effectively** at ranges of up to 500 *yards?* From my understanding, the minie ball had extremely parabolic ballistics which made it very difficult to hit anything at ranges over 150 yards, to say nothing of the smoke that would've obscured any contemporary battlefield; how the hell is that possible?
Covered this extensively across several videos on the channel. Comes down to training.
This content is absolutely fantastic! You do an excellent job marrying the technical side of warfare, with the theoretical and practical applications.
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This should really have come with a medical caution
Oh yes. Everyone who watches my channel, does so against medical (and psychological) advice.
Great channel. Subribed :)
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