breechloading flintlock

[keving]

What do you guys think of this. Nice looking rifle and really unique.
[url] www.woodcentral.com/shots/shot83.shtml[/url]

 

Well, technically it ain't a muzzleloader, but it is a flintlock! Regardless, I think that is very cool. It's a beautiful gun... and the guy did something very imaginative. Kudos. He's obviously very talented.

 

[SCATTERSHOT]

pretty ingenious mechanism. Wonder if he's related somehow to Patrick Ferguson?

 

[Norskie]

I got a kick out of a line in the text, something like: if the British had had guns like this we'd still be British. The did. It was the Ferguson. They didn't use it. Ain't the military mind great?

 

Similar systems were in use a long time. My personal favorite is a matchlock from gunmaker Peck in the mid 1500s. You flip the tang lever up (the rear sight at the end serves as knob) and insert the cartidge from the rear. The pan also serves as a handle and locking stud. You insert the cartidge with the pan standing upright and then rotate it 90 degrees to the right.

 

[mmahlock]

The Ferguson wasn't the only breach loader. This one was tried out by the British Army and was rejected and it wasn't the only one. The reason was the level of precision necessary to build breach loaders and the number of moving parts. (Not Soldier Proof)

 

[Stophel]

The "Ferguson" rifle was NOT invented by Ferguson. I have seen more than one other rifle that worked precisely the same way made long before Ferguson came along. He was supposed to have come up with some particular little innovation, but I don't know what it was.

As alluded to above, the problem with building breechloading guns in the 18th century was the lack of the precision machinery needed to make them.

As for the Ferguson rifle, it was infamous for fouling up the breech screw.

The Hall rifle breech tends to leak badly. I've been told that you don't want to stand next to someone shooting a Hall rifle!

 

[WRussell]

The thin, secondary lid for the pan is an old idea too. It was used as a safety, similar to a snaphaunce, so the frizzen could be out of the way and still keep the priming covered. There was a small catch so when you closed the frizzen it hooked onto the thin cover and made it act as one piece when you pulled the trigger.

Not to detract from a very nice, innovative piece of work. The guy has talent.

 

[benvenuto]

Fergusson was working on improving an idea by La Chaumette.

La Chaumettes French patent was for a pair of pistols which could be screwed together to make a carbine. Bad idea, but it contained (like the famous Rollin White patent) the germ of a good idea: the threaded breechplug with the triggerguard attached.

La Chaumettes pupil (or partner?) Bidet went to England and popularised the rifle there. It and the other screw-breech rifles became THE rifle to own in mid 18th century England.

Patrick Fergusson was obviously familiar with the drawbacks and added an extra groove for fouling, and a flat spot machined on the screw where it aligned with the back of the barrel. I wont talk about tappered screws and leather washers.

Many other designs of screw breech guns are known back to the 1500's. The book "Espingarda Perfeyta" from 1715 mentions how well known they were in Portugal at the time. La Chaumettes, though, was the first not to require a wrench to load :winking: