Alternate Muskets

[Stephen]

We all know the evolution of firearms from firelocks and wheelocks, to flintlocks and then caplocks.

But do you think it posible for someone centuries ago to build a musket lock that works like the pizoelctric ignitions used on babeques. It would just require a precusion cap like hamer to strike a quarts crystal which would then send a spark along a couple of copper wires down the fusehole. It would make muskets quicker firing by removing the process of filling the flashpan or placing a cap. It would also make early revolvers like the Puckle gun or Arkabus revolver more practical.

Nitric acid was discovered in the 1640's but gun cotton was not discovered until the 1880's Which was the used in the French Lebel rifle which had almost double the muzle velocity of black powder weapons. A nitric acid socked paper cartridge would not need to be torn open when ramed down the barel. Gun cotton also has the advantage of not clouding the shooter in smoke.

Leonardo Davinci made a couple of sketches of bullet designs that look allot like Minie Balls, it just involve casting a simple lead shape so I see no reason why they could not be made if he or anyone actually bother trying out any of his ideas.

With all these inventions combines would it make the English Civil war as deadly as the American one? And turn the swashbuckling age into the gunslinging age?

 

[tallwingedgoat]

That's very interesting. I'm certain a piezo ignition for musket can be built, you probably don't even need the copper wires, just a spark gap in the chamber. This might be easier to make than percussion caps (which require chemistry knowhow), assuming the piezo electric phenomenon was discovered early enough.

What's more the ignition could be used for a number of fuses, from artillery and rocket shells, to land and sea mines, or hand grenades. It would have broad applications.

As for guncotton, I recall they had some problems with it until smokeless powder was derived from it soon afterwards. The process of making it was pretty complicated though compared with black powder, and its not just the chemistry. Not being a chemist but I think the biggest problem would be to produce sulfuric acid in highly concentrated form.

Minie ball can be made much earlier. However the rifled barrel is far more expensive, something like 10X price of smoothbore. Something like the Nessler ball would be more economical. It fired a similar round through existing smoothbores, and was half way in performance between round and Minie balls.

 

[Minchandre]

The piezoelectric effects of quartz would require a reasonably large random discovery, but other random discoveries of a similar sort have happened, so why not?

Guncotton is harder; production of nitric acid before steam and mass production is going to be very hard; we're limited to a reaction of two not-crazy common minerals (though they aren't very rare, either), followed by a somewhat lengthy purification process. Not to mention, the vapors will kill you. No, I suspect black powder will stay king, though there might be some refinements made.

Rifles are of course the most important, however: a musket can't really hit anything at range, whereas a rifle can. The problem, however, is not only production (which is a big problem, especially with poor quality steels), but loading. Muzzle loading a rifle is a time consuming process that's good for neither the bullet nor the barrel; historically, rifles only really catch on around the same time as breech loading...which means cartridges. Which means mass production. Short of bringing the entire Industrial Revolution forward, there's not much to be done.

Also, you mention the American Civil War: note that while there were some rifled cannon, most of the guns there were muskets burning black powder.

 

[Alexius]

Also, you mention the American Civil War: note that while there were some rifled cannon, most of the guns there were muskets burning black powder.

There's no link between whether a gun is rifled and what propellant it uses. The standard weapons in the ACW were the Springfield Model 1861 and the Enfield Pattern 1853. Both were muzzle-loading rifles using black powder as propellant, ignited by a percussion cap.

In fact, everything (including the Parrott rifles and other rifled cannon you mention) used black powder then, as cordite wasn't invented until 1889!

 

[67th Tigers]

In fact, everything (including the Parrott rifles and other rifled cannon you mention) used black powder then, as cordite wasn't invented until 1889!

A guncotton based propellant was tested by the British in 1863, but was not adopted.

 

[tallwingedgoat]

Guncotton had a too fast burn rate and was thus dangerous. Sometimes the canon blew up. The combination of high cost and safety problems would make its adoption difficult. It's a still a huge step away from cordite. Guncotton would make a far better explosive or rocket fuel than bp though.

 

[67th Tigers]

Guncotton had a too fast burn rate and was thus dangerous. Sometimes the canon blew up. The combination of high cost and safety problems would make its adoption difficult. It's a still a huge step away from cordite. Guncotton would make a far better explosive or rocket fuel than bp though.

It was rejected for that very reason, although the lack of smoke and the much cleaner barrels were cited as reasons to move away from black powder.

 

[Stephen]

So how did the nessler bulet differ from other holow based conical bulets used in rifles like the minie ball. I always thought that anything other than roundball or arrowlike dart would be very inacurate in a smoothbore due to tumbeling.

 

[Minchandre]

There's no link between whether a gun is rifled and what propellant it uses. The standard weapons in the ACW were the Springfield Model 1861 and the Enfield Pattern 1853. Both were muzzle-loading rifles using black powder as propellant, ignited by a percussion cap.

In fact, everything (including the Parrott rifles and other rifled cannon you mention) used black powder then, as cordite wasn't invented until 1889!

I am aware. Sorry if I implied that rifles used smokeless powder (which I can see now, the eway I worded things). I just meant that, the OP compared a world with cordite-burning rifles to the ACW; that's not the case.

 

[tallwingedgoat]

So how did the nessler bulet differ from other holow based conical bulets used in rifles like the minie ball. I always thought that anything other than roundball or arrowlike dart would be very inacurate in a smoothbore due to tumbeling.

The Nessler ball was very much like a Minie ball, but it was shorter, being only a little longer than its width, with a nipple in the hollow butt, presumably for weight balance. Minie balls are stabilized by spin like modern rifled bullets. Nesslers were fired from smoothbores and were stabilized by the shuttlecock effect of its Minie like hollow butt. Air resistance forced the butt to stay in-line behind the heavier head. Accurate fire was said to be four times further than round ball.

There are some shotgun slugs that still use the principle.

 

[Stephen]

The Nessler ball was very much like a Minie ball, but it was shorter, being only a little longer than its width, with a nipple in the hollow butt, presumably for weight balance. Minie balls are stabilized by spin like modern rifled bullets. Nesslers were fired from smoothbores and were stabilized by the shuttlecock effect of its Minie like hollow butt. Air resistance forced the butt to stay in-line behind the heavier head. Accurate fire was said to be four times further than round ball.

There are some shotgun slugs that still use the principle.

Interesting and counterintuitive. I finally managed to find a diagram of one.

I would of thought the shuttle cock effect would work better on a longer bulet with a bigger cavity and a heavier pointier tip like the rifle bullets. The niple in the base looks like it would set the point of balance further back as well.

 

[tallwingedgoat]

You would think so. This is a common 12 gauge shot gun slug:

In any case the Nessler was combat tested in the Crimea with the muskets of the day.

 

[Thande]

I had this idea a couple of years ago and posted a thread; The Dean promptly decided to test it. It works, as the damage to his garage will attest.

 

[tallwingedgoat]

I had this idea a couple of years ago and posted a thread; The Dean promptly decided to test it. It works, as the damage to his garage will attest.

So what did he use, something off the shelf or of his own design?

 

[The Dean]

I had this idea a couple of years ago and posted a thread; The Dean promptly decided to test it. It works, as the damage to his garage will attest.

It was the shed not the garage and there was no collateral damage. A piezo electric igniter I dismantled easily set off the propellant I took from a .22 cartridge.

 

[Tomac]

It was the shed not the garage and there was no collateral damage. A piezo electric igniter I dismantled easily set off the propellant I took from a .22 cartridge.

A question came to mind when I was starting my grill (which has a piezo ignitor) during a light rainstorm.
Would the piezo ignitor also make the weapon more effective in damp or otherwise inclement weather?
It's been a long time since I fired a flintlock or a percussion cap and I know that they have problems in wet weather (less for the percussion and even moreso with a matchlock).
Thanks,

 

[Stephen]

So the consensus is that if someone in the past hapened to discover how to make sparks from piezoelectricity from quarts that the quartzlock musket should work well. Maybe even better than percusion caps.

An earlier discovery of holow based bullets would still leave rifles as a rare spacialist weapon until the industrial age due to the expence of rifeling. But bulets where the hollow takes up a large portion of the length work well in smoothbores aswell performing much better than roundshot. And nosler loaded smoothbores although still less acurate have a slight muzlevelocity and rate of fire advantage even over minie rifles.

Gun cotton is to unstable and expensive to replace black powder. And creating cordite requires quite advanced chemistry not available till the late 19th century. But would it still be posible prime the base of a paper cartidge with nitric acid so that it dose not need to be torn open before it is ramed down the barrel. getting rid of the flashpan should make the napolenic era record of 4 rounds per minute more comonplace but I estimate that if the paper cartridge dose not need to be torn open that could be increased to 6 rpm.


There are some early examples of flintlock revolvers like the colier revolver 1818, the puckle gun 1718, and the Revolver de Rueda 1580. If the Quartzlock is as compact as the percusion cap it could make early revolvers and pepperbox guns slightly more practical. Although they would obviously still be very expensive in protoindustrial times, do you think this would make them more popular amongst the aristocratic elite? Adding a bit more gunslinging to the swashbuckling age?

 

[Tyr]

Sorry to say it but if a weapon wasn't adopted IOTL at some point there's usually a good reason for that. (This argument most normally used against sci-fi/fantasy weapons such as those big klingon blades)

 

[Orioes]

How would the lock function? Would the crystals be disposable (like percussion caps) semi-disposable (like flints) or intended to last the service life of the rifle?

As has been previously said industry not innovation is going to be your primary problem. The quartz has to be located, mined and refined for quartzlocks. Rifling is expensive. Nessler and Minne rounds can't be (to the best of my knowledge) made in a shot tower. This means in my opinion that these technologies will end up as a weapon for specialists and elite troops (like flintlocks , grenades, carbines and rifles all were at one point) until you reach a point that you are industrialized enough to produce them cheaply in quantity. I do see a role for them as the firing mechanism on naval guns if it is invented early enough. They won't have the randomness of a powdered quill and if you can pierce the cartridge with the leads you don't even need priming powder.

Anyway very cool idea. I would love to see piezoelectric grenades, rockets and revolvers in an American Revolution or Napoleonic Wars era TL. WWII circa 1812.

 

[Landshark]

I had this idea a couple of years ago and posted a thread; The Dean promptly decided to test it. It works, as the damage to his garage will attest.

So now you're not just causing explosions at your own place of work up but have started influencing other people to blow their own homes up?