Quotulatiousness

November 8, 2019

Cooey: The Unassuming Canadian Workhorse

Filed under: Cancon, History, Weapons — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 6 Nov 2019

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Cooey is a brand name that will be immediately recognized by Canadians, but pretty much unknown everywhere else. Founded in 1903 by Herbert Cooey, the company would produce a series of simple and practical firearms that became hugely popular and common in Canada. The basic models were the single-shot .22 Model 39, the bolt action magazine-fed .22 Model 60, and the break action single-shot Model 84 shotgun (and the Model 64 semiautomatic .22, made after the company was sold out of the Cooey family). These are not particularly exciting firearms, but they are ubiquitous across Canada, having served Canadian families reliably for a
century now.

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Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85704

November 4, 2019

The Ross in the Great War: The Mk III (and MkIIIB)

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 1 Nov 2019

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While the MkII (1905) iteration of the Ross rifle had resolved most of the major mechanical problems from the MkI, it retained a number of characteristics that the Canadian (and British) military was not fond of. In particular, it was not suited to the use of stripper clips. Starting with experimentation on sporting rifles, Ross substantially redesigned the action for the final 1910 pattern – aka the MkIII.

The MkIII used a rotating bolt as before, but with six locking lugs in two rows of three, instead of two large lugs as the MkI and II. The magazine was replaced by a conventional single-stack design, with a stripper clip guide built into the receiver, and with a nicely adjustable rear aperture sight. This would be the model to equip the Canadian infantry who went to Europe to fight in 1914 and 1915 – and it is there that a new set of problems would begin to plague the Ross.

In keeping with its sporting legacy and reputation for outstanding accuracy, the MkIII Ross was made with a rather tight chamber, optimized for the excellent-quality Canadian production .303 ammunition. Britain had been forced to massively increase ammunition supply as the war lengthened, and British standards had widened to accept ammunition that was really of rather questionable quality. The SMLE rifles used by British forces had chambers made to accommodate this, but the Rosses did not. Canadian ammunition was supposed to follow the Canadian troops, but it was usually diverted to other services because of its high quality, and the Canadians left with ammo that was difficult to chamber or extract in the Ross.

This led to men having to beat open rifle bolts, which led to damage to locking lugs, in a viscous circle of escalating problems. By the time of the German gas attack at Ypres, Canadians were ditching their Rosses for Lee Enfields by the thousands, despite specific orders to the contrary. General Haig finally had enough of the issues, and ordered the Ross removed from combat in 1916, to be replaced by the SMLE (which was finally available in sufficient numbers to arm the Canadian troops).

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Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85704

November 1, 2019

Ross MkI: Canada’s First Battle Rifle

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 28 Oct 2019

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Sir Charles Ross was heir to a very wealthy Scottish family, and was a talented if temperamental engineer. He took an interest in firearms and their design, and worked with American and English connections to produce a line of his own straight-pull sporting rifles. Upon returning from the Boer War he looked to expand into the military market.

At this same time, the Canadian government was looking to replenish its arms supplies after the war, and requested Enfield rifles form the British. The request was turned down, as Britain did not have enough supply to spare any for the Canadians. The Canadians were expected to construct their own factory to make rifles of he standard British pattern. Well, the Canadian government was not eager to invest that sort of capital into the project. They investigated buying arms elsewhere, but the consensus was that Canada’s armaments should come from either Britain or from within Canada itself. No good solution was apparent until Sir Charles Ross stepped in.

Ross offered to fund the construction of a factory himself, and use Canadian labor and industry to manufacture Ross rifles for the military. This seemed like an excellent solution — for zero initial cash outlay, the Canadian government would get rifles both designed and produced domestically! The rifles would be chambered for the standard .303 British cartridge, thus handling the British objections about arms compatibility (Ross pointed out that the British themselves used something like 7 different patterns of rifle at the time).

In 1902, Ross and the Canadian government signed a contract for 12,000 rifles to be made in 1903 and 10,000 per year thereafter, at the price of $25 each. In addition to the Canadian military, the Royal North West Mounted Police also adopted the new Ross rifle. Deliveries did not actually begin until 1905, and when they did plenty of disturbing problems arose. The rifles proved fragile and unreliable — and a weak bolt latch periodically allowed the bolt to fall completely out of the rifle on parade drill — not a good start!

Only 10,000 of the Mark I Ross rifles were made, and an improved Mark II pattern would follow as quickly as Ross could make it a reality.

Many thanks to the private collectors who allowed me access to their rifles to make this video!

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85704

October 26, 2019

Chassepot Needle Rifle

Filed under: France, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 30 May 2015

Sold for $1,150 (with three other rifles).

The Chassepot was the French answer to the Dreyse needle rifle, and also the only other needlefire rifle to see major military service. It was adopted in 1866 and served as a primary French infantry rifle until being replaced by the 1874 Gras rifle, which was basically a conversion of the Chassepot to use self-contained brass cartridges. The concept of a needle rifle is that of a breech loading rifle using paper cartridges. A primer was set in the base of the cartridge (inside the paper), and upon firing the needle-like firing pin would pierce the paper cartridge and detonate the primer and powder charge. The system always had trouble with sealing the breech, but was still a significant improvement over muzzleloading rifles.

October 23, 2019

The Guns of John Pedersen

Filed under: History, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 10 Apr 2015

Sold for:
$34,500 (Pedersen Device)
Failed to sell (Model 10 shotgun)
(Model 12 in a later auction)
$1,610 (Model 14 carbine, with one other rifle)
(Military Ithaca 37 in a later auction)
$2,588 (Remington 51 pistol with one other pistol)
(Irwin-Pedersen M1 Carbine in a later auction)
$16,100 (Vickers-Pedersen rifle)
$74,750 (Pedersen GY rifle)

John Pedersen was one of the more prolific and successful gun designers in American history, having even been described by John Moses Browning as “the greatest gun designer in the world”. And yet, many people only know about Pedersen from his unsuccessful toggle-locked rifle or his WWI Pedersen Device that never saw action. In truth, Pedersen’s work included a number of very successful sporting rifles and shotguns that many shooters would still recognize today. While looking through the guns at Rock Island on my most recent trip there, I realized that they had examples of virtually every one of Pedersen’s guns — so I figured I should do an overview of the man’s work.

October 22, 2019

Papers Behind the Pistol: Mauser’s Archives on the Model 1910

Filed under: Business, Germany, History, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 21 Oct 2019

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Courtesy of the Paul Mauser Archive, we have a very cool opportunity to look at the documentation and paperwork behind a production pistol design, from beginning to commercial sales. This sort of documentation is rare for pre-WW1 German small arms in general, and the Mauser Model 1910 pistol is a very rare example of a complete set of archival papers surviving. So, what we can look at is the whole development process from behind the scenes at Mauser. Initial design drawings, blueprints, glass-plate photography, internal assembly instructions, costing, corporate-level final approval, marketing, and final print manuals. Thanks to Mauro Baudino for supplying these original documents for me to show you!

The Paul Mauser Archive (http://www.paul-mauser-archive.com/in…) is a wealth of information for researchers, and make sure to check out the recent book on Mauser coauthored by Mauro Baudino and Gerben van Vlimmeren:

https://amzn.to/2LIXH3p

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85704

October 20, 2019

Webley Model 1904

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 24 Feb 2015

Sold for $109,250.

The Model 1904 was basically the first working automatic pistol made by Webley (there was a 1903 toolroom experiment, but it didn’t really work). Like all the Webley automatic that would follow, it was designed by William Whiting. The 1904 was the company’s first effort at making a semiautomatic sidearm for the British military, so it was chambered for the .455 cartridge (a special rimless version made by Kynoch, after early experiments using the .455 rimmed revolver ammunition caused lots of problems stacking in magazines). It is a rather huge handgun, and uses a short recoil mechanism with two separate locking blocks. This particular one is s/n 23 – very few were made before it was rejected in military trials and Webley redirected its efforts toward smaller commercial pistols.

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October 8, 2019

Big Iron: Development of the Colt 1848 Dragoon Revolver

Filed under: History, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 23 Aug 2019

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Sam Colt’s first foray into firearms manufacturing did not end well — after 6 years, he went broke and shut down production of Paterson revolvers and revolving long guns. His guns were too expensive, too fragile, and too underpowered to become a commercial success. They did make an impression on some people, however, and a few years later Colt would work with Captain Samuel Walker of the Texas Rangers to develop a much larger and more robust revolver. The US military purchased 1,000 of these Model 1847 “Walker” revolvers, and this set Colt back on the path to financial success.

Colt contracted with the Whitneyville Armory to produce his Walkers, and part of the contract was that Colt would own any tooling developed for the manufacturing process. The Walker was successful enough that it spurred a second 1,000-pistol order form the government, and Colt used the Walker tooling along with his newfound capital to set up shop in Hartford CT producing guns himself. He immediately made a number of changes to the Walker pattern, primarily making is a bit shorter and lighter (4lb 2oz, with a 7.5 inch barrel), reducing the powered charge to 50 grains (the Walker had used 60 grains), and improving the loading lever retention latch. This would become known as the Model 1848 Dragoon revolver.

Between 1848 and 1860, a total of 20,700 Dragoons were made, 8,390 of them for the US military. There would be three main variations, called the first, second and third types today. In today’s video, I will show you all three and explain how they differed from each other — and we will also take a look at a rare long-barreled version as well as one with an original shoulder stock.

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Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

October 2, 2019

Marston 3-Barrel Selectable Pocket Derringer

Filed under: History, Technology, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 18 Aug 2019

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William Marston was born in the UK in 1822 and emigrated to the US in the 1830s with his father, who was a gunsmith. William became a naturalized citizen in 1843, and in 1844 went to work for his father in the family business. He would later open his own shop, and became successful making a wide variety of firearms — mostly concealable pocket pistols — until his death in 1872.

This is one of his 3-barrel derringers, with a pretty neat auto-indexing system. This one is in .32 rimfire with 3″ barrels, although 4″ barrels and .22 rimfire versions were also made. Production began in 1858, but really picked up with the addition of an extractor in 1864. That improved model would see some 3300 examples made.

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Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

September 26, 2019

Hiram’s Extra Light Maxim Gun

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 7 Aug 2019

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Designed in an effort to compete with the then-new Colt/Browning air cooled 1895 machine gun, the Extra-Light Maxim weighted in at just 27 (maybe 28) pounds for the gun, and 44 pounds with tripod. This may sound heavy, but it was a remarkable improvement over the 100+ pounds of most models of Maxim with mount. The water jacket was replaced with an air jacket (necessary to support the muzzle), and the whole gun was narrowed. The mainspring was moved to the inside of the receiver, allowing lighter construction but complicating disassembly and removing the ability to tune the mainspring tension to fit a particular batch of ammunition.

The concept proved to be a commercial failure, as the air cooling lacked the sustained fire capability that militaries were looking for. A total of 135 examples were made, but most were sold in small orders for testing, with no major contracts forthcoming.

Many thanks to the Royal Armouries for allowing me to film this tremendously rare artifact! The NFC collection there – perhaps the best military small arms collection in Western Europe – is available by appointment to researchers:

https://royalarmouries.org/research/n…

You can browse the various Armouries collections online here:

https://royalarmouries.org/collection/

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

September 20, 2019

Huot: Canada’s Ross-based Prototype Automatic Rifle from WW1

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Bloke on the Range
Published on 18 Jul 2019

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BlokeOnTheRange

Due to a shortage of Lewis guns and a glut of withdrawn Ross Mk.III rifles once the Canadian Expeditionary Force had been completely re-equipped with Lee-Enfield SMLE rifles, Monsieur Huot proposed to modify Ross rifles into an automatic rifle / light machine gun (LMG) configuration.

5 of these are known to exist, this is number 2, and is in the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada museum in Vancouver: https://www.seaforthhighlanders.ca/ho…

Many thanks to them for the opportunity to handle and film this exceptionally rare piece! Please give them a visit!

September 17, 2019

From Bolt Action Lee to LMG: The Charlton Automatic Rifle

Filed under: History, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 26 Jul 2019

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The Charlton automatic rifle is one of very, very few examples of a conversion from bolt action to self-loading rifle actually working reasonably well. Typically this sort of project founders in expense and unreliability. Charlton, however, was able to take his vision for providing the New Zealand Home Guard with a new weapon made form obsolete surplus and bring it fully to fruition, with 1500 guns made. They were never fired in anger, but allowed New Zealand to put all of its Bren guns into the field while retaining the Charltons as emergency weapons in case of Japanese invasion. Sadly, virtually all were destroyed in a warehouse fire after the war, leaving them extremely rare today.

Many thanks to the Royal Armouries for allowing me to film and disassemble this very scarce automatic rifle! The NFC collection there – perhaps the best military small arms collection in Western Europe – is available by appointment to researchers:

https://royalarmouries.org/research/n…

You can browse the various Armouries collections online here:

https://royalarmouries.org/collection/

For the whole detailed story on Charlton manufacture, and to download a copy of the manual, check my web site article here:

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/light-machine-guns/charlton-automatic-rifle/

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

September 14, 2019

How Does It Work: Lever Delayed Blowback

Filed under: Technology, Weapons — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 11 Jul 2019

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Lever-delayed blowback is a relatively uncommon action system, although it is applicable to a wide variety of firearms and has been successfully used in submachine guns, rifles, and light machine guns. It uses a principle of mechanical disadvantage on a fulcrum lever to force a mass to accelerate rearward while the bolt remains closed. This allows the effective weight of the moving parts to be amplified, resulting in a lighter firearm.

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

September 13, 2019

Why You Wouldn’t Want to Fly The First Jet Airliner: De Havilland Comet Story

Filed under: Britain, History, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Mustard
Published on 1 Dec 2017

Air travel before the Jet Age wasn’t always glamorous. The relentless noise and vibration from a piston powered propeller aircraft often made long flights even more exhausting. Most aircraft also couldn’t fly high enough to avoid bad weather, so air sickness was more common.

After World War Two, as part of an effort to develop its civil aviation industry, Britain stunned the world by unveiling the world’s first jet airliner. The de Havilland Comet was sleek, quiet, and flew higher and faster than any airliner of the day. As piston propeller technology was reaching its limits, the conventional thinking was that jet engines were too unreliable and produced too little power relative to their fuel consumption. But the de Havilland Comet proved that jet travel was the future. When the Comet entered service in 1952, it immediately began breaking travel time records and became a point of national pride for Britain.

The de Havilland Comet was perhaps little too ahead of its time. With such a clean sheet design, there were still lessons to learn. When early Comets suffered from catastrophic depressurization incidents, the entire fleet was grounded and their Certificate of Airworthiness was revoked. Flaws in the design of the aircraft’s fuselage were resolved in later Comet versions. However, the rest of the world was now catching up, and manufacturers including Boeing and Douglas began to offer their own jet airliners. While later version Comets served airlines reliably, they were outsold by competing aircraft. There’s no question However, that the comet paved the way. The British had taken a massive risk and brought the world into the jet age. #DeHavilland #CometAirliner #Airplane

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August 31, 2019

General Motors Diesel: The Modern Power (1937 and 1942)

Filed under: History, Military, Railways, Technology, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

PeriscopeFilm
Published on 6 May 2016

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First made in 1937 by General Motors and then repackaged for the WWII war effort, DIESEL THE MODERN POWER tells the story of the development and principles of the diesel engine. The film uses live action and animation to show how the diesel engine works, and live action footage of Sherman tanks, streamlined locomotives, switching engines, ships, and more.

The film begins with an historical overview that includes a brief lesson on how to make fire, including two stones, rubbing pieces of wood, and even the “fire syringe” that was used by the people of Southeast Asia. The syringe is used to demonstrate the operation of a piston in an engine.

At 14:30, 600 hp diesel engine are seen at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago. At 14:46, the Burlington Pioneer Zephyr is seen running from Chicago to Denver. Mainline passenger locomotives are seen, providing up to 6000 hp. Diesel switch engines are seen at the 15:30 mark.

At 18:40, lumber equipment, oil pumps, and earth moving equipment are seen — all driven by diesel engines.

The Detroit Diesel works is seen at the 19 minute mark. Diesel powered submarines, mine sweepers and coast patrol boats as well as fleet tugs, are also seen.

A two-stroke diesel engine is a diesel engine that works in two strokes. A diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that operates using the Diesel cycle. Invented in 1892 by German engineer Rudolf Diesel, it was based on the hot-bulb engine design and patented on February 23, 1893. During the period of 1900 to 1930, four-stroke diesel engines enjoyed a relative dominance in practical diesel applications. Charles F. Kettering and colleagues, working at the various incarnations of Electro-Motive and at the General Motors Research Corporation during the 1930s, advanced the art and science of two-stroke diesel technology to yield engines with much higher power-to-weight ratios than the two-stroke diesels of old. This work was instrumental in bringing about the dieselisation of railroads in the 1940s and 1950s.

All diesel engines use compression ignition, a process by which fuel is injected after the air is compressed in the combustion chamber, thereby causing the fuel to self-ignite. By contrast, gasoline engines utilize the Otto cycle, or, more recently, the Atkinson cycle, in which fuel and air are mixed before entering the combustion chamber and then ignited by a spark plug.

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