The Ferguson Rifle

GreatScottMarty

I'd love some help. I know very little about weapons tech.

I have been doing research on industrial evolution and such for my TL (see sig :D) and I came across the Ferguson Rifle (here's the wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_rifle ) I am wondering is this a dead end in weapon evolution? Is it plausible to speed up revolvers and breach loading cartridge rifles to the 1800s-1820s in the US (assuming the industrial establishment is there) and are they a natural offshoot of the Ferguson rifle? The tech seems to have been there since the 1690s at least for breachloading powder.

On a side note when/where does the US start building its own weapons? I believe Dupont is based in Rhode Island or Delaware? What sort of power is required for that? Coal or will hydroelectricity work?
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

GreatScottMarty said:
I'd love some help. I know very little about weapons tech.

I have been doing research on industrial evolution and such for my TL (see sig :D) and I came across the Ferguson Rifle (here's the wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_rifle ) I am wondering is this a dead end in weapon evolution? Is it plausible to speed up revolvers and breach loading cartridge rifles to the 1800s-1820s in the US (assuming the industrial establishment is there) and are they a natural offshoot of the Ferguson rifle? The tech seems to have been there since the 1690s at least for breachloading powder.

On a side note when/where does the US start building its own weapons? I believe Dupont is based in Rhode Island or Delaware? What sort of power is required for that? Coal or will hydroelectricity work?
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Note that even in the US Civil War, there are very few breechloaders.

OK. you have several problems. One is igniting the charge. The Ferguson was still a flintlock. you don't get percussion caps in any significant number until the 1830s (rare) or 1840's (more common) or even 1850s. Percussion caps are nasty things, if you don't have modern chemistry. As I understand the matter, the slightest impurities in mercury fulminate, for instance, can cause it to go off if you look at it funny. If you actually want brass cartridges, then you need not just caps but primer (some of the same/similar stuff in the base of the cartridge) that just makes things trickier.

Another problem you have is closing the breech. To get a breech that can break open for reloading and yet seal effectively to contain the exploding charge is tough, and requires really, really good machining. I suspect that the breech on a Ferguson was a loving work of art of a master gunsmith. I do know that people using Fergusons and other early breechloaders sometimes suffered powderburns and were even blinded by the escaping backblast of the charge.
One, semi-successful breechloader was the US Hall Rifle, but it was a very weird system - the breech popped up and you loaded it like a muzzle-loading breech.
Despite the success of this rifle (thousands were made), they were abandoned during the course (as a result?) of the Mexican-American war. And there were almost no breechloaders used in the US Civil War (yes, I do know that some cavalry units had Spencers).

The very fact that people spent decades and their entire fortunes on working on these problems, and the first seriously successful design is the 'needle gun' of the Franco-Prussian war should tell you something.

Cartridge breechloaders were used in very expensive sporting weapons, IIRC, where the cost was bearable, and where they could be maintained. Making hundreds of (expensive) weapons a year for Lords to hunt with is a VERY different proposition than making hundreds of thousands for grunts in the field to use.

Someone may come up with something, and no doubt shaving a few years here or there is possible, but a full decade, or more? I doubt it. Not unless you want it to be a miserable failure...
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

(Continuation of previous post)
I did a bit of research on this for my TL, and the best I thought I could realistically do was to equip say 30k US soldiers with Hall Rifles, about half caplock, about half flintlock. And even so, they're starting to find they're not miracle weapons.

I did find a way to get the Minié ball rifle (or close equivalent) a decade earlier, but that's just a fast loading rifle. Good enough in its own way, but not nearly as revolutionary as a good, true breechloader.

The crazy thing is that 'machineguns' are viable about as early as breechloaders, apparently. Look up Coffee mill gun, and, of course, Gatling.

The cartridges for early machine guns look like steel tubes where you plugged the bullet in one end the paper cartridge with the powder in side, and the percussion cap in the other end, then loaded these tubes into a hopper for firing.

It may be that the precision needed for those breechlocks were more affordable on a 1/battalion scale than a 1/man scale?


Is this any help?
 
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GreatScottMarty

Dathi THorfinnsson said:
Is this any help?
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Quite a bit. So if I understand you correctly breechloading cartridges are a long way off in the 1790s and Breechlocks are a dead end because of powder burns and the high-level of skill of skill required to make them. So in short, if I wanted to equip a frontier force in the 1790s I might as well use the Kentucky Long Rifle as opposed to a Ferguson because the Kentucky is safer and any gain in rate of fire is negated by the inherent danger correct?

So if a breechlock is used as the primary weapon isn't there going to be a streamlining and refining of production to meet demand? Also would the wide use of the weapon improve chances of hitting on percussion caps?
 
Beedok

Beedok

Just out of curiosity what about a double barreled rifle with one barrel fired and then the other? Is that as all plausible?
 
Cook

Cook

Banned
Beedok said:
Just out of curiosity what about a double barreled rifle with one barrel fired and then the other? Is that as all plausible?
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Yes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_rifle#Manufacturers_of_double_rifles
 

carlton_bach

Beedok said:
I was thinking of a muzzle loading variety. The double flint lock would probably be difficult though.
Click to expand...

That's not an uncommon idea. The Austrians even used a design with one rifled parrtel on top for accuracy and a smoothbore one below for speed in the 18th century. THey require two separate locks, though.

In the 19th century, you also see triple-barreled designs with twin shotgun barrels on top and a smallbore rifle underneath. Not sure if that's feasible with earlier technology.
 
NHBL

NHBL

Rapid fire...

Rapid fire will be difficult--but I see no reason the Minie ball couldn't be discovered much earlier. It requites no fundamental tech breakthrough in technology--just an idea. That won't make shooting faster--but will make long range shooting much more practical.
 

GreatScottMarty

NHBL said:
Rapid fire will be difficult--but I see no reason the Minie ball couldn't be discovered much earlier. It requites no fundamental tech breakthrough in technology--just an idea. That won't make shooting faster--but will make long range shooting much more practical.
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Due to the purpose of my US army in my TL I wanted a faster ROF. but you are right Minie Ball tech already exists
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

GreatScottMarty said:
Due to the purpose of my US army in my TL I wanted a faster ROF. but you are right Minie Ball tech already exists
Click to expand...
OTL John Norton in Britain invented a similar system in 1832, but the Ordnance office wasn't interested.

I suspect that it could have been pushed back quite a bit further. Maybe as early as the Napoleonic wars/war of 1812.
 

Kevin Renner

The earliest possibility for rapid fire from a shoulder fired weapon is IMO something like the Revolving Carbines carried by some units during the ACW. One of these could of been developed any time after Colt was issued his original patent. But one would have to carry a number of preloaded cylinders. They still aren't true rapid fire weapons but they are as close as you are going to get for a first try. Something like this

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/t...n/common/search/search-box.jsp.form23&Go.x=21
 

GreatScottMarty

Kevin Renner said:
The earliest possibility for rapid fire from a shoulder fired weapon is IMO something like the Revolving Carbines carried by some units during the ACW. One of these could of been developed any time after Colt was issued his original patent. But one would have to carry a number of preloaded cylinders. They still aren't true rapid fire weapons but they are as close as you are going to get for a first try. Something like this

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/t...n/common/search/search-box.jsp.form23&Go.x=21
Click to expand...

Yes, those were my thoughts, but we need a good cartridge and that seems to be the real holdup. And since that seems to be the hold up. I sped up the introduction of Lavoisier's experiments with Mercury Fulminate to America by about 20 years. I was thinking soem similiar to a colt revolving pistol but with a rifled barrel holding 6 shots and using a cap and ball method. Hopefully in time for my TLs War of 1812.

Any thoughts on Plausiblilty?
 

phx1138

Do you insist on a breechloader? Or are you satisfied with rapid fire? And do you want rifling or not? The 3 are interrelated in their effects IMO.

If you'll accept a revolver-type weapon, a snap-in/-out cylinder (actually quite common for revolvers before the swing-out became standard) is a viable option; it need not have only 6 chambers, either. (Frex, the LeMat had 9.) You do have to overcome the Colt patent, but this can be done with cylinder mods. In a pinch, you can adopt a turret gun.:eek: (Probably not.:p)

If you insist on breechloaders, it really demands metal cartridges. For those, the earliest AFAIK is the pinfire (patent 1812); if you've got an inventor developing a breechloader, it's possible he also develops his own *pinfire round (parallel OTL Smith & Wesson's rimfire). You could, just, maybe, get by with cardboard cases, but those are so suceptible to weather....:eek:

Rapid-fire smoothbore is one approach. Slower-firing rifles, with an early *Minie ball, is another way of achieving much the same effect, because it exposes the enemy infantry to fire more than twice as far away, effectively increasing the ROF. This has enormous & immediate impact on tactics & doctrine. (Compare Napoleonic Wars to, frex, ACW after Gettysburg. Or think of Pickett's Charge & realize the OTL standard issue Springfield rifles alone could stop it; just adding faster-loading conoidal slugs make that even easier.)

You've also got logistics to consider. Hi-ROF means hi ammo expenditure, & with horse-drawn transport, that's a big deal: more ammo means more wagons, which means more horses, which means more fodder, which means even more wagons... Before long, you've hit the limit of your ability to operate away from a rail line. (This really bit the Germans in OTL WW1.) This has very significant tactical & strategic implications. (If your enemy knows you can't operate more than x# mi from a rail line, or a river, all he has to do is control them nearby. Or cut them. {This may be asking for more sophistication than a 19hC general would have.:rolleyes:}) It was also in OTL AUS a reason (or an excuse:rolleyes:) to reject the Spencers & Henrys. It also changes the training regimen, from emphasis on aimed fire to emphasis on volume fire. (AUS was still training for aimed fire in WW2, when SL Garands had reduced the usefulness of & need for it...)
archaeogeek said:
even if Prussian doctrine called for rate of fire over accuracy, soldiers still aim, otherwise it's a plan to get entire brigades' worth of fire to go over enemy heads repeatedly
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An excellent point. One I overlooked...:eek:
archaeogeek said:
...you basically negated the majority of the advantage of the Ferguson, while artillery will still kill you at three times that at least
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Actually, it won't. In the ACW, the standard issue Springfield rifle musket could kill a man beyond the range of arty.
 
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