Chaffee Reece Model 1882: A Good Idea on Paper...

Patented in 1879 by Reuben Chaffee and General James Reece, the Chaffee-Reece rifle is an excellent example of how an idea that seems good on paper can easily become untenable in a fielded rifle. The main design premise of the rifle was to have a tubular magazine in the buttstock which held the cartridge out of contact with other, as opposed to being pressed together by a magazine spring as in a conventional design. This would notionally prevent any possibility of recoil or other forces causing the bullet of our round to impact the primer of another and cause a detonation in the magazine.
In initial testing by the Army in 1882, the prototypes were appealing, and a field trial of 750 rifles was requested. Chaffee and Reece were unable to find a commercial manufacturer willing to take on the production (except Colt, which offered to make just 200, and at the cost of $150 etc), and they ultimately turned to the government-operated Springfield Arsenal to built the guns. A total of 753 rifles were made by Springfield in 1883 and 1884 (interestingly, not serial numbered) and delivered for testing.
That testing went quite badly. The magazine was a very complex system, using two sets of basically reciprocating racks to shuttle cartridges up the magazine as the bolt was cycled, without allowing them to contact each other. It proved very prone to jamming and breakage, and was both extremely difficult to keep clean and very susceptible to, as they would have called it at the time, “derangement”. It was handily beaten by the Winchester Hotchkiss 1885 pattern rifles (among others) in field trials, and that was the end of its potential for adoption. The rifles were eventually sold as surplus, and bought by the Bannerman company, where they remained in stock and available for purchase until at least 1907.
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[@Mason_Walsh]

"if I remember correctly" Inconclusive proof of immortal vampirism.

[@kenstr321]

$150 in 1882 is worth about $3500 today. So $700,000 for 200 guns you're basically making them cover the price of a new full new production line. Differently sounds like something Colt would to.

[@adamkoch3424]

I think I'd have more faith in the Mauser that took Mauser's eye out... Than this rifle lol.

[@vthegoose]

Hey at least it was only his eye and not his arm or life

[@madrenwillims4391]

@@vthegoose ah yes, good thing he lost half of what's the bare minimum💀💀

[@grifter3680]

4:48 you know a guns complicated when Gun Jesus himself refuses to disassemble it XD

[@thegoldencaulk2742]

"I may be Gun Jesus, but I can't work _that_ kind of miracle"

[@JohnLeePedimore]

Serial #666

[@rnrailproductions5049]

TheGoldenCaulk nice profile pic of Mike! Lol

[@matthysfourie1962]

What's the title? Is it this channel or Inrange?

[@grifter3680]

i think its "Gun Jesus and the Chiappa Holy Trinity" or something

[@thatsubarulife9817]

$150 back then is around $3700+ in today's market...very expensive

[@bl4cksp1d3r]

@@CiceroFMYT it's expensive for someone who can't afford to spend that money on a gun

[@pbgd3]

Recall its tooling cost. Making 1 or 2 prototypes or even 20 small production a machinist makes those parts one off. To make 100 you make jigs and fixtures. To make 1000 you make gang tooling and castings.

[@kylemichaels3373]

@@pbgd3 Doesn't matter. Manufacturers don't see it that way. I've worked in a machine shop for 12 years and they don't care. Once the tooling is paid off they still charge exorbitant prices. What cost us $30 in labor and material to make we charge $2500 for! Fuck Capitalism.

[@kylemichaels3373]

@@CiceroFMYT I can buy a damn nice custom hunting rifle for under $2000. $3700 is prohibitively expensive for 99.9% of people. It's also a total rip off unless said gun has a lot of hand fitting and finishing. If 95% of the work is done by machines and non skilled workers like 99% of today's firearms it's just a $400 gun that the manufacturer is charging $3700 for to make a ridiculous profit. Fuck Capitalism.

[@bl4cksp1d3r]

@@TheOriginalShoneBoyOnYT right thanks, and I'd have to live in USA which would make me. .... poorer than now lol

[@blueband8114]

Shame about its problems, as its a nice looking rifle.

[@leiladekwatro3147]

If this gun jams and blows up would it be called "reece's pieces? "

[@jackshanley29]

8:32 "Don't cringe", A much simpler request if all content on KZbin was of this quality, Gun Jesus.

[@richardanderson2742]

Having had the privilege of shooting one of these, I have to question whether the folks authorizing production actually handled/shot one. I can’t believe anyone acquainted with the less than hygienic conditions in the field (regardless of era) could possibly see this mechanism as feasible for general issue. I don’t know exactly when portable air compressors were invented, but use of this rifle without a handy air nozzle at about 140psi isn’t practical.

[@LazyLifeIFreak]

Dear Gun Jesus: Was there ever a magazine style like the P90, only on the underside? ~ Disciple of Gun Jesus.

[@SneakyZaku]

potentially the PP-19 Bizon has a similair mag?

[@joshuaford4460]

SneakyZaku the pp -19 uses a helical magazine like a calico, which isn't a horizontal box magazine like the p90. I would love to hear an answer to this question though...

[@SneakyZaku]

Ah, I see. My apologies, im not exactly the best at identifying modern weapon mechanics, eheh.

[@joshuaford4460]

SneakyZaku I apologize if I worded my previous comment harshly. If I did, it was not my intention. Just trying to help a fellow Gun Jesus follower out!

[@Jmcculloughc1350]

Well I think the idea sounds good but you run into the problem of increased difficulty loading and the inability to mount underside attachments without making it further complicated. With it on top you only have to mess with the scope mounting. I think in SMGs/PDWs it not that big of a deal to put it underneath as in a way it makes sense and the idea of when you grip the magazine it puts pressure on it is clearly not an issue since there are plenty of SMGs where you have to grip by the magazine. This reminded me of a picture I drew a long time ago where I tried the idea out on a carbine 1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZTpBdMnGq5Q/T3zpHdmFYgI/AAAAAAAAACM/ffm_LyQPj_k/s1600/4-4-2012%2B8%253B35%253B19%2BPM.jpg and as you can see, it probably would work its just probably not the most comfortable and you wouldn't be able to have grips or underslug weapons but I think the idea in my head would be that it would be a cheap militia weapon where it's ready to use out of box and you don't really need to worry about attachments or customization or something like that. Though, looking at it again, 50 rounds of 5.56 like that would probably really mess with the weight possibly and the gun probably wouldn't be balanced very well. (This was before I knew Gun Jesus and while I think he had his website but before he was popular enough to be known)

[@CommodoreFan64]

I'm sure every grunt who handled one of these was glad they never made it threw the trials, and as always Ian awesome video. :-)

[@pavelkulkov6114]

Why don't you buy a cheap chinese endoscope? It will literally cost a few bucks and will make undisassembleable weapons like this much more fun. Just a thought.

[@troy9477]

".....The (bolt removal) instructions are kind of frightening....." Yikes. If Ian says that, it's very legit. Which means the designers did not give adequate thought to field maintenance and cleaning. Black powder is dirty and corrosive; everyone knew back then that rifles needed regular cleaning. Especially military rifles, which often see heavy training or field use. Geez. Eggheads must have been designing guns. That seldom works well. Great video as always. Thank you

[@erikmclaughlin5084]

Troy Ortega I'm honestly a little bit disappointed he didn't share what made the instructions so sketchy. I'm certainly not questioning his assessment but now I'm really curious what Ian considers a particularly frightening disassembly procedure.

[@ihave_noidea]

Erik McLaughlin It most likely has to do with the length of the rod in the buttstock and the spring tension it's under. Seeing as how the rod is at a fairly odd angle as well that'd make for an easy recipe for bending the rod. Speculation on my part though, I am no more familiar with this rifle than the rest of us.

[@tamlandipper29]

Troy Ortega - unless I misheard, this was designed by a major and a general.

[@Boreasrex11]

Ian, how many times have you had to shine a light into a hole like that and invite the audience to use their imagination? Why don't you get a bore scope to put in you kit bag?

[@oldgysgt]

The action of this rifle reminds me of the model 1870 Berdan II single-shot bolt-action rifle.

[@slateslavens]

The $52 cost in 1881 to produce the rifle equates to about $1224. So adjusting 1881 dollars to 2016 dollars, the sold for double the cost to manufacture it. Convert the $2300 back to 1881 dollars, the selling price was about $97.75.

[@jokuvaa2552]

soo, no mud test?

[@efishe22292]

I'm surprised that was such a concern when the .45-70 is a flat nosed bullet

[@AlaskanQueenInExile]

You know it's a good video when over half of it is purely the history.

[@CygnusGalactic]

Gun Jesus blessed us with his soothing voice once again. All praise Gun Jesus!

[@RammsteinFan1122]

Amen!

[@monroetoolman]

And he did bring forth yet another rare and unique rifle, and it was good.

[@three-stripes]

FacePalm260 His voice is so pleasant. I often have trouble sleeping, however I can listen to Ian's lovely voice and drift off. Praise be to Him!

[@wingwangtingtang]

Jon M. Ian is great for that someone else with a really oddly soothing voice like that is Steve on Steve1989MREinfo he reviews rations from ww1 and up and even eats stuff from them he even got and tried some hardtack dating from the civil war

[@mdc2296]

So I watched this video this morning and thought it was really cool. Was out and about later and stopped at my local gunshop, and lo and behold, they had one of these on the rack. Too pricy for my blood though.

[@jbt369]

Nice lines.

[@BushcraftingBogan]

That bolt reminds me of a Mosin bolt.

[@derekv1183]

Steve Curtis me too

[@alexgorin3089]

Steve Curtis same

[@mattjohnson7775]

was thinking the same thing

[@slateslavens]

Yep. I was looking for this comment before I posted the exact same thing. The entire receiver is very reminiscent of a Mosin... Well, actually, since this predates the Mosin Nagant "three line rifle, model of 1891" by about eleven years, I suppose it's the other way around.

[@doctoreff1]

The rear of the bolt is reminiscent of a Mosin 91.

[@sheridanlefanu3353]

Why did the early cock-on closing rifles like this one and Berdan II rifles have to have so much spring tension to overcome in order to cycle the round? Is it the two piece construction of the bolt have something to do with it, such that the heavy cocking piece needed a stronger spring?

[@jackmcslay]

Is there a good reason why fully encased rounds were not adopted as a means to prevent problems with chain detonating tube magazines?

[@wauser5456]

So does this mechanism advance all cartridges forward 1 position? I'd imagine it has to because the bolt throw isn't long enough to bring a cartridge from the back to the front in 1 go. I feel like that would be very clunky moving the bolt forward with all 5 cartridges.

[@CyberCriminal777]

Your voice is made from the sounds of every gun ever made firing at the same time.

[@pikeywyatt]

when i win the lottery.i shall move to the USA .( if they will have a 70 +and his dog ) and open a gun workshop and rebuild all of these wonderful old guns.With Ian,s help.

[@IndianaJoneFan24]

Should have just done what the French would later do, cut a small groove into the end of the cartridge, around the primer, so that the tip of the bullet rests in the groove rather than on the primer

[@1hillbilly]

Reminds me of the Rube Goldberg Model of 1901

[@CAepicreviews]

4:02 That sounds like a gun I would love ;)

[@richardkirka5977]

The US military markings would be the only saving grace as a collector's item.

[@IonoTheFanatics]

06:12

[@a_shuchu_601]

Iono Sama rifle went 'pah' because it didn't have enough 'umph'

[@grifter3680]

Iono Sama Gun Jesus blazes it

[@timknapper6990]

If you think about it this and the spencer rifles are the first bull-pup.

[@random_estonian5356]

So is there eny way for you to take a look at, or talk about the Estonian, M23 Tallinn Arsenal Submachinegun?

[@thegreenman2030]

A good candidate for an InRange TV mud test. :)

[@danieljob3184]

It's like a bolt action rifle, designed by someone who had only ever seen a blurry photograph of a bolt action rifle!

[@jamiec5565]

When FW says something is frightening to disassemble, it makes you wonder. Although, at $4,500 at the top estimate, this seems like a cheap gun for what it is. Do we know if Ian is thinking of getting this thing as its so cheap and unique?

[@ericbouchard7547]

What do you get when you cross a light tank and a candy brand? I have no idea, but probably not something as silly as this rifle.

[@slateslavens]

Chaffee Taffy?

[@coreymerrill3257]

I remember this design from my g.s. course,and also one that tilted the cartridges ,so the meplat of the rear-most cartridges ride on the rim of the front-most ones. The idea didnt get far.

[@SkyPilot54]

nice

[@MakeMeThinkAgain]

Pretty.

[@Fattothesack69]

I just got one of these I gotta fix the firing pin

[@CelticSaint]

Have you reviewed much in the way of 17th - 19th Century weapons?

[@chuckbridgeland6181]

So, I'm guessing a mud test is not in the works for this one. :-)

[@CHMichael]

So pretty

[@Spiz103]

Did anyone attempt to build a rotary magazine rifle for these trials, in the style of the Johnson M1941?

[@jackandersen1262]

The Austrians would build a few rotary magazine rifles (Spitalsky for an example),that would culminate into the Mannlicher Schönauer rifle. However, I believe that was submitted for the trials that resulted in the adoption of the Krag.

[@eladcohen1988]

They could have made the magazine tube in its normal place (underneath and parallel to the barrel), but give the magazine tube a cone shape so that the rim of the cartridge can't make it to the bottom of the tube (instead, the rim stays up), and the tip of the cartridge nest on the bottom of the tube. So that the magazine acts normally but the cartridges are in an angle, and the primers aren't touching anything..

[@Hirosjimma]

He ment a trough with a cone shaped cross section

[@tombogan03884]

Actually that seems like a pretty good idea, let the cartridges lay out of parallel, when spring pressure was applied it would either work good or jam up beyond repair.

[@troy9477]

Elad Cohen -Or a slight spiral shape to the inside of tbe magazine tube, like Remington (i think it was Pedersen) did with the Model 14 slide action, 20-some years later. By all accounts, it worked fairly well

[@TinyDrPhil]

Yeah, but it is damn gorgeous though.

[@capt.jonesbrig3279]

Did you demonetize this channel as well, or just Inrangetv? Only curious as there are still ads.

[@ForgottenWeapons]

Just InRange.

[@capt.jonesbrig3279]

Ah, thank you.

[@brentwalters8921]

Nice lines to it, nightmare internals.

[@ZGryphon]

Very like a number of people I knew in high school. _heyooooo_

[@reecegranada2790]

Wow a gun named after me

[@pietzeekoe]

So did it have the same problem when loading as the Evans rifle? By that I mean that the rifle needed to be cycled for every cartridge you loaded and that the rifle could be topped up without having empty spots in the magazine.

[@ForgottenWeapons]

Good question - I'm not sure.

[@MB-ms3ud]

I own one. You do have to cycle every round out. in theory you could top if off as long as you have the bolt open, but feeding and extraction are so unreliable I dont think a Soldier would ever take it off single shot except as a last resort.

[@Mikesman1000]

The aesthetics of this gun though

[@rslover65]

I've never seen a 45-70 military round that had a pointed bullet. How much of an issue could magazine discharges actually be?

[@cvmaniac7286]

Lining bullets up tip to primer followed by a hard enough bump could set off the whole magazine tube. That was fixed by making bullets tilt down some so the tips hit the bottom of the rim when loaded into a tube magazine.

[@douglaspurcell4192]

The outfit that got stuck with these should have gutted the tube feed junk and just made it allow for one cartridge. One in the chamber with the bolt not locked and one underneath for a follow up shot would make it ok for a cheap hunting gun. Then maybe they could have got rid of them.

[@ianmacfarlane1241]

Why would anyone want a cylinder magazine anyway? Doesn't make sense to me.

[@craigfurey942]

How the hell were guys supposed to open that magazine door on the butt in the field? That had to be a complaint.

[@ForgottenWeapons]

The rim of a cartridge would probably work just fine to open it.

[@thefuzzysheep3859]

Basically a more complicated and not as working version of the Lebel magazine?

[@darwinang3399]

looked like a mossin nagant

[@gerythionargarys7848]

I wonder how Ian feels about being Gun Jesus, lmao.

[@deepwoodskentuckian]

I honestly wonder how history may have been different had the US military switched to bolt actions for the army and Lever actions for the calvary by the 1880s

[@KingKurotrol2000]

It would be hella expensive to arm soldiers with that kind firepower but i think it would have been a great idea

[@KingKurotrol2000]

Instead they just converted existing muzzleloaders into breach loaders which was also a valid choice

[@betaich]

Why didn't I get a notification for that video?

[@lakewooded4929]

Because KZbin doesn't like you . . .

[@smokeytokyo4553]

If they would have put a magazine on this rifle like the gear 88 had or something like that I'm pretty sure the U.S. military would have adopted this rifle. It is a beautiful rifle tho

[@toolthoughts]

Why do you think there was aversion to a box magazine, enough to make such a complicated system?

[@ForgottenWeapons]

The box magazine was only invented in the late 1870s, and was patented by Lee at first.

[@toolthoughts]

Oh I see it was a patent issue. Wasn't there at least one box magazine design from the 1860s, though I think it was more of a hybrid box and tube magazine? Have you come across one of those? The inventor's name escapes me now.

[@reeper_761]

The reciever looks a lot like a mosin nagant to me

[@pinecone9619]

Looks similar to the label

[@VirgilHawkins1]

That bolt looks a lot like a Mosin bolt . . .

[@stevePHXD]

The bolt looks like a Mosin Nagant bolt to me. Any actual relation/inspiration there?

[@JordanFlayer]

Looks like a copy of the Berdan rifle that the mosin was somewhat based on

[@jacobvsest]

Yep, a botched attempt to build a magazine rifle out of Berdan II

[@vance8832]

Uh, the Mosin Nagant wasn't made until 1891.

[@phille7669]

Was the Chaffee tank named after him?

[@ForgottenWeapons]

No, the tank was named after a different Chaffee.

[@MrBioniclefan1]

Forgotten Weapons Good

[@murderousintent7838]

That tank was named after Adna R Chaffee the American general who did.a large part of integrating tanks into the American military

[@bokvarv1926]

Was there anything that actually worked well on the gun at all?

[@salvadormedina9099]

Ian, What is your and Karl's favorite flavor of ice cream?

[@LuminaryCursorem]

"Its loaded through the butt"

[@keithstudly6071]

Sorry but the fact that it was "loaded through the butt" (4:06) made me think, didn't they get into trouble when they did that to prisoners who were on hunger strike after 911? Things were very different in 1879!

[@richardkirka5977]

No safety on the rifle, but it sure has that mandatory magazine cutoff. Army brass, and their civilian managers, had their priorities straight. You can always draft more guys, but a wasted round is wasted forever.

[@donjones4719]

Nice point. But as for the safety - once the bolt was decocked the trigger was safe, right? The only danger would be slam-fire if dropped, I suppose, although we don't know the firing pin set-up. But idk if many rifles were safe from this in that era - I suspect not. It appeared the trigger had to be pulled to decock it - not, let us say, ideal.

[@randywatson8347]

It just goes "poof"

[@MrBioniclefan1]

Synthusiast I know right and I wonder if I could improve it

[@MrBioniclefan1]

Synthusiast I know right and I wonder if I could improve it

[@drmaudio]

A good idea on the drawing board, but it is pretty hard to top the reliability and simplicity of the spring.

[@patriotenfield3276]

If mosin nagant had a single shot half brother

[@xdgamer2765]

This looked more of a berdan ii, the fact that the official prequel, berdan i, was originally done in america.

[@JKC40]

you need a lipstick cam with led light.

[@RobertPilla]

."..Loaded through the butt..."

[@reecebrennan4006]

Ha me name is in it

[@iLLeag7e]

It's funny how the RIA is trying to sell it but it's so horrible.

[@TheMoistestNugget]

the french jusr used better shapped casings lol

[@Viper2132]

Looks like the Mosin Nagant copied the action of this rifle. Interesting

[@Jesses001]

Hum....would had made a good navy gun, ha.

[@mikebabb2155]

Ian that it is pronounced Chay-ffee not Chaf-fee. If I am incorrect I apologize but I have family with that last name so hearing you say Chaf-fee is kind of painful.

[@calvingreene90]

Different families can mean different pronunciation.

[@Greasymarsupial]

Gew 88 meets gew 98 meats mosin

[@MrBioniclefan1]

danger doggo Lmao too funny

[@davidbrennan660]

Needs penguins........ .

[@peterhopkins4748]

Ian, I think that 'derangement' sums up the minds of some of the gun designers in the late 1800's early 1900's. Love them or hate them they did come up with some interesting stuff even if it was not practical or safe. Perhaps you should detour slightly and do a video or short series about how to usefully improve a useless rifle, or useful attachments for useless weapons. In other words how the bayonet saved the day. Praise the Lord, all hail Gun Jesus. Remember though in the words of Monty Python, you are not the messiah just a very naughty boy.

[@wallaroo1295]

I see so many elements that would become the Lee-Enfield line of firearms. That bolt... it's very Enfield... Drop a Lee box magazine on, and problems solved... I wonder what became of them.

[@thevoxofreason8468]

"They go up the butt"? "Up the hole"? "You have to use alot of force to shove it in"?!?! What channel am I watching?!?! I'm joking. Sorry I couldn't resist. Hey, at least your not shoving a phallic symbol in there... HEY WAIT A MINUTE! :)

[@rodfast8196]

It's gun porn . Hahahahahaha

[@mikep3180]

do you have any civil war muskets

[@gre3nishsinx0Rgold4]

Early comment wut wut!.. I love you gun jesus

[@panzerzh9864]

Americans truly are natural born advertisers! )) Just how easy could it be to sell the LEAST successful rifle of all times?!

[@JACKSONLEWISOFCANADA]

a good idea poorly executed....

[@hugohom2280]

The title sounds like communism

[@piketubeman]

Nice stock, shame about your action.

[@robertkubrick3738]

Conical bullets for rimfire, hollow points for center-fire. Problem solved. Yawn.

[@lucaspollack-hoyt7985]

So like communism?