Harmonica, or pistol? With firearms and weaponry expert, Jonathan Ferguson

[@estherstreet4582]

My favourite thing about pinfire is that you can make the cartridges really, really small, there are novelty guns that fire 2mm bullets and they're hilarious.

[@greycatturtle7132]

Yea 😂

[@korblborp]

tbf, there were *centerfire* cartridges nearly as small

[@clothar23]

​@@korblborp Technically a cartridge only has to be wide as it's firing pin. And can be as small as is physically possible below that.

[@martinh2783]

That was probably top teir tacticool back in the days.

[@the_neo_crusader]

It really was

[@vinceely2906]

They’ve spent so long on Bioshock 4 I’m pretty sure it’s not too late to squeeze this in.

[@TheSundayShooter]

Just when I started to doubt how many surprises could be left, Jonathan et al delivers another at the Royal Armouries!

[@RoyalArmouries]

We're happy to surprise :)

[@MorwenWhyte]

Straight to the top-ten steampunk-iest guns.

[@Kumimono]

I'm just thinking the carry configuration would make a cool novelty comb. An upgrade to those stiletto folding "knife" things. Also, while this Jarre made this nice harmonica, his descendants, Maurice and Jean-Michelle, were no musical slouches either. (I made that up.)

[@MisterMcHaos]

Methinks Pratchett had seen something like this before he wrote "Men At Arms".

[@stamfordly6463]

I'm sure I've seen a couple of longarms based on the principle on display in Leeds. I have actually also seen illustrations of them in something as random as Miller's Antiques Guide.

[@DrUmbreon]

"How many of you have played musical instruments before?" "Do harmonica pistols count?"

[@killerkraut9179]

Maybe somebody asks about the Starlin Orgel as well?

[@GeseppiOoodblast]

Is mayonnaise an instrument?

[@sim.frischh9781]

@@GeseppiOoodblast Well you can make someone sing if you use it right... or wrong...

[@GeseppiOoodblast]

@@sim.frischh9781 it put the mayonnaise on the skin or it gets the hose again

[@bostonrailfan2427]

looks better than a Chicago piano

[@palarious]

I want to see this in a video game so badly. The stow/draw animation would be glorious

[@carlettoburacco9235]

This is one of the reasons I like firearms engineering: they've tried them all. Given a handle, a trigger, a chamber, a barrel, a magazine, they can all be found in every shape and spatial direction: straight, curved, crooked, spiral, helical, single, multiple, horizontal, vertical, above, below. ............ and every possible combination. We really care about our guns!

[@kencampbell1750]

Are the barrels rifled? Also plus 1 for use of “footpad”.

[@luisantolafrancis519]

Jonathan Browning father of the famous John Moses Browning was a gunsmith that was known for its harmonica guns most of them long guns for hunting ,cap and ball weapons were all of them with 4 or 5 shot capacity they were not automatic index dow like this one but manualy operated between shots .Forgoten weapons has some video of those guns if i recall correctly . cheers!

[@derekp2674]

Thanks Jonathan and team. That is a fascinating item and the finish looks very nice on both the metal and the woodwork. But, for practical defence purposes, I would have preferred a decent revolver or, even better, a pair of decent revolvers. I don't suppose many modern guns use a harmonica style mechanism. But there is the Steyr LP50 repeating match air pistol, which uses a linear 5 shot magazine. This allows it to be used as a training tool for Olympic Rapid Fire events. Firing 5 shots in 4 seconds at 5 separate targets can be hard work!

[@ramills007]

Nice shirt! The pistol is very cool as well. Thanks for great videos

[@Cats-TM]

Impressive, it is a firearm, a piano, and a harmonica! You could play all sorts of music with that! Fun fact: Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture features cannons as a musical instrument, so, uhh, if you do not have cannons to hand technically you could use this, maybe.

[@bostonrailfan2427]

actually that makes sense for interior performances 🤣

[@adroy4169]

I don’t know if it is based on this same brevet but the Saint Étienne musée d’art et d’industrie, has a 3 or 4 shot harmonica rifle too !

[@derekp2674]

That is quite possible, as the inventor was based in Paris.

[@killerkraut9179]

I think one of the Browning build one as well!

[@robertsmith4681]

Kind of makes me wonder if contraptions such as these were the inspiration for contemporary strip loaded machineguns like the Hotchkiss.

[@derekp2674]

I wondered that too. I remember visiting a gun store in Albuquerque sometime around 1990 and they had piles of military surplus ammo for sale in those feed strips.

[@TemperedMedia]

Nice musical references in the video, needed some musical puns 😉

[@derekp2674]

I wonder if it originally came with a nice case, just like any quality musical instrument?

[@RoyalArmouries]

Don't fret, we shall always compose more puns in the future.

[@davidcox4436]

Oh, very good.​@@RoyalArmouries

[@P-Mouse]

i suppose you could load it with different length cartridges, in order to change the tone of the pipes/barrels.

[@Kevin-mx1vi]

I can't imagine a possible use for this pistol, but I like it. 😊

[@roadsweeper1]

You have some weird stuff on this channel but that certainly comes close to the top of the list in terms of weirdness lol.

[@Vincent-S]

The storage mode made me think that was Deckard's gun in Blade Runner from the thumbnail lol

[@okonkwojones]

Super same!

[@Paladin1873]

Now that's steampunk!

[@skisisisiz]

Need this in a videogame now

[@aidanfarnan4683]

I do love wacky steampunky harmonica guns. surprised no one ever made a machine gun where you feed in pre-loaded harmonica "Strips". Like a Nordfelt/Hotchkiss hybrid.

[@F1ghteR41]

That is an interesting concept indeed.

[@discountdvd]

Has anyone else been to see the new Reloaded presentation on the 4th floor at the armouries. I would love to see a video of the black powder millennium gun

[@pr0xZen]

Does the breech on artillery need (relatively) fairly frequent replacement like the barrels do? Is the whole breech system integral to the barrel being replaced, or separate? I imagine excessive wear there would quickly lead to microfractures, which could in turn potentially cause the breech to fail rather catastrophically for its operators.

[@simonwaldock9689]

What a wonderfully steampunk firearm.

[@frankkrunk]

I imagine a silent movie John Wick, drawing his very well-oiled Jarre and flipping it butterfly knife-style from "carry" to "ready to fire", one-handed. One advantage this gun has is that you never need to do a press check, you always know where you are.

[@sim.frischh9781]

The "storage configuration" of this gun looks like something you could make a great Star Wars Blaster pistol out of, i imagine a smaller weapon for some kind of Lady of higher rank wishing a light blaster she can easily fit in her purse yet still has some style to it when she has to use it, with the nice wooden grip and all, just fill the hole the barrel assembly slides in with some greeblies and fill the barrely while giving it a clear barrel on the front. Lots of potential there. Or simply size it up to rifle size and you got a really threatening weapon for a Bounty Hunter, with lots of intimidation factor. Good for non-lethal hunting.

[@44WarmocK77]

Downside: kinda unwieldy to hold and aim Upside: you got another 9 little buddies in case the first shot missed its target. ^^

[@rashkavar]

I wonder, was the idea that you could buy multiple barrel-sets and swap them out like an external magazine? That looks like it wouldn't be unreasonable to do with this sort of weapon - the barrel piece has a means of retaining rounds separate from the rest of the gun, you can pull it off entirely, it's flat enough to store in pockets comfortably - all things that are useful for external magazines. Timing wise that's not implausible, to my mind - Colt's revolver design dates to the 1830s so it should be well established as more stable sort of multi-shot pistol, en bloc clips are 1880s, so just a bit in the future, which probably means there were at least some people trying to come up with ways to load up rounds such that they could be batch-loaded for firing. The main method for that ended up being the various clip systems that fed into an internal magazine and was eventually supplanted by external magazines as is more familiar today...but every innovation that gets adopted has its weird offshoots that don't get all that widely accepted, and that kinda feels like what this is.

[@OmarKhanUK]

Crinkle Chip Cutter gun! Have a 90's Aeron Brno Match Air Pistol with a similar ratchetting magazine.

[@davydatwood3158]

I feel like this was more likely to be of use to the footpad than the victim - relatively easy to carry and hide, but mostly useful in situations when the weilder is starting the fight.

[@stamfordly6463]

I see Leonard of Quirm has been busy again.

[@PrototypeSpaceMonkey]

Thee Gonne.

[@stamfordly6463]

@@PrototypeSpaceMonkey I always thought that name was a bit snappy for old Leonard. This one should be more like "Device for Projecting Lead by Chemical Means for the Purposes of Punching Holes in Paper at Distance that can be Conveniently Stored in a Pocket". Maybe The Keeper should dig out one of the "organ gun" rifles from the collection as a special treat to mark the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May.

[@pawepluta4883]

Retainer lika a piano, barrels like a harmonica... Maybe it's a sign that it's time to talk about Schräge Musik?

[@NIL0S]

why horizontal tho ... Would have been a tad more balanced if the barrels slided down vertically as they discharge.

[@trippingpug5513]

Probably easier to store ready-to-use if it was vertical, too.

[@SaturnianDragon]

My understanding is that it's basically a double action revolver but the chambers are inline instead of circular arrangement Someone can probably upscale this design and give it a single barrel attached to the main frame/body, and let the linear chambers move one at a time to line up with the barrel. (Like a mini Fiat Revelli 1914 machine gun probably)

[@johnladuke6475]

Harmonica rifles seem clunky and awkward enough, but as a pistol that seems almost unusable with the shifting balance.

[@rickansell661]

Really needs an Ennio Morricone backing track.

[@rickansell661]

Thinking on... Sergio Leone's "Once upon a time in the Vest"? ... starting David Suchet, Lee Van Cleef, Jeremy Brett and many many more. With it's famous final gunfight in a Steam Pumping Station.

[@plonk420]

slightly unrelated, but are you related to Craig Ferguson perchance?

[@mr_2r54]

Harmonica or not, its going in my mouth

[@samholdsworth420]

That's what she said

[@RoyalArmouries]

The Curators wouldn't recommend it

[@Thisandthat8908]

Before Jarre had all that synthesizer stuff, he made harmonica guns.

[@Damnedlegion40k]

You're in a good position Jonathan to find old patents and designs, and have an engineer produce working patents, you could really bring historical guns to life. Imagine a hellreigle reproduction?

[@harryluckhurst7023]

I am registered blind, so I can only imagine how weird this gun must look. lol. How long were pin fire revolvers manufactured for?

[@fordprefect294]

so this is where BoomCo dart guns got their concept from...

[@timd729]

This is an 1800s magazine fed pistol. The magazine happens to be barrels welded together.

[@derekp2674]

Does this make it a "linear pepperbox" ?

[@Stevarooni]

​@@derekp2674Seems like it, yes.

[@jonathanferguson1211]

A magazine is a feed device, this is a pressure-bearing part. We don't even call a revolver cylinder a "magazine" so I wouldn't use the term here either :)

[@derekp2674]

@@jonathanferguson1211 Honestly, more or less those same thoughts occurred to me.

[@francesconicoletti2547]

A Quick Look on the internet shows there were 10 shot , 7mm pin fire revolver available in 1860. Top break. So quicker to shoot and quicker to reload with a barrel it’s probably more accurate as well. Unless these was a secret squirrel reason for this thing I don’t see the point.

[@Chiller11]

Should Charles Bronson have carried and played this firearm in Sergio Leone’s 1968 classic?

[@tomwinterfishing9065]

How jolly.

[@HeX64]

Early prototype Gonne, Unknown Inventor, Ankh-Morpork, Century of the Fruitbat

[@austinhuber3131]

Is our guy taking minoxodil? Looking good

[@calvingreene90]

A pepperpot harmonica gun.

[@kyrridas1573]

i love that period of time when people were desperately trying to invent ways to fire more than just a couple shots at a time. so many weird and interesting branches on the technological tree, almost all of them going nowhere but still interesting to see.

[@thomaseley8386]

It could have been more practical for an aggressive role either for either as an undercover agent or for criminal activity.

[@OffendingTheOffendable]

Toys found in early breakfast cereal

[@alangordon3283]

Absolutely bonkers thing .

[@_Twink]

I just got internet back after an interruption. A panda stream is the perfect thing to bring it all home 🎉

[@Yunners]

The profile looks like the Bryar pistol from Star Wars at first glance.

[@bostonrailfan2427]

it actually does, and there’s even a version with a rounded knob end!

[@cody-en7nt]

At this point it's more concealed than its worth....

[@TheVirtuoso883]

To the left, to the left... My weird harmonica fires from the chambers on the left

[@aussiebloke609]

9:33 Not quite patented, definitely not plastic...but still pokey. Jonathon, it sounds like you've been spending too much time listening to Othias. 😁👍

[@A1_42RF]

This is a cursed gun

[@RisikoAO]

Good lord this is impractical :D

[@RoyalArmouries]

and we love that

[@samholdsworth420]

What is this weapon?! Idk Jonathan thats why im here!! 😅

[@F1ghteR41]

9:23 It's kind of surprising that the ramrod isn't inserted in the bottom of the grip, it looks uncomfortable to one's hand in its position on the top of the grip. 9:54 Isn't it the other way around, i.e. isn't Webley basically a British knock-off of several Belgian designs?

[@jonathanferguson1211]

I was thinking (at random, following my mention of the Colt) the solid-frame Webleys like the 'Bulldog' with the pivoting captive central ejector rod setup, which were extensively copied by the Belgians due to their popularity. The better comparison might indeed be early pinfire and rimfire designs with axis pins designed to be entirely removed (along with the cylinder of course) to eject fired cases. In which case Webley were inspired by the likes of Francotte, but are not "knock-offs" i.e. copies in the way that the Belgian Bulldogs and RICs. Of course you weren't to know which Webley I was thinking of - delights of off-the-cuff presentation :)

[@F1ghteR41]

@@jonathanferguson1211 Ah, I see, thanks for clarification. It might also be useful to mention here to avoid further ambiguity that there were two distinct types of pivoting ejector rods on the RICs - the earlier ones, as far as Othias and the C&Rcenal crew managed to dig up, were patented by Perrin and Delmas, Parisian inventors, about 1860, and the latter ones used the 1872 Adams design.

[@jonnejaaskelainen]

Sure, I've heard about one man, one Jarre before.

[@P-Mouse]

more of a pan-flute than a harmonica though

[@sunil_de6856]

So it's basically a flat revolver

[@snowflakemelter1172]

Assault pan pipes.

[@Hiznogood]

Later a future relative took the full step and become a famous electronic musician, Jean-Michel! Of course I’m joking, but who knows?😉

[@okancanarslan3730]

Victorian era john wick pistol

[@lawrencemartin1113]

See what you did there...? "Play along"....with a harmonica gun that has a piano lid......😂 If you were attacked and had this for self defence, you would do far better to actually threaten to play a tune on it! What a bonkers device. ❤

[@OffendingTheOffendable]

The Belgium waffle gun of 1889

[@grahampalmer9337]

Sorry folks but that 'Minecraft ™' style animation is both cheesy & annoying 😕

[@acadianr2leger]

What an overly complicated little gun lol

[@gerry343]

What a monstrosity! With revolvers already proven, why would you produce a complicated and unbalanced weapon like this?

[@RoyalArmouries]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder 😉

[@gerry343]

@@RoyalArmouries I agree it appears to be beautifully made, but the concept is just clumsy.

[@killerkraut9179]

Releoding can be faster if you have spare mags by the right modell!

[@salty4496]

:)

[@WarblesOnALot]

G'day, Mate, lighting Lighting LIGHTING....! What you did Herein, Videoing a Small black shiny Little Gun-thingy, Front-lit (for the convenience of the Telephoto Close-ups)..., Held in front of a Black Jacket over a dark Shirt, With a dark Rectangular Shadow as a Background - between two Brown Display-Boards....; Would Win PRIZES in any Cinematographic Lousy Shitty Craptastique Lighting Competition...! For a Video to work, The Viewer has to be able to Percieve the Subject-Object. So, try a well- lit Black or blued Gun-thingy, held in front of A White or light Grey Lab-Coat, And stick another Light Brown Display-Board over that Central Shadow-Hole which you Left Sucking the Colour Contrast right out of the Entire Frame.... Just(ifiably ?) sayin', You have to be able to do better than this. Pull it up on your Phone, on YT, sit outside on even a cloudy day..., and tell me that this Video is worth Attempting to View, Please do, Won't you...? (!). Such is life, Have a good one... Stay safe. ;-p Ciao ! PS, It wouldn't work as a Pan-Flute, at all - unless the Barrels were loaded...; Because all the Pipes have to be sealed at the bottom in order to form a Resonant Cavity... When one blows across the open end... The greater the enclosed Volume, the deeper the Note produced....; and because when loaded, this thing would have 10 Identically short "Pipes" all the same diameter - & hence Volume.... It could only ever produce the same high-pitched Note, From each and every Barrel. I've owned a couple of Pan-Flutes, and played them sporadically for about 10 years, they were fun. ;-p

[@IntersexGamer]

Its neat for sure. Looking at it I cant imagine it had much of a range. I could see it being rigged up to fire all barrels at once and used as an assassin’s pistol. Outside of that it just doesn’t really seem like a weapon anyone else would carry. I mean even for any kind of self defense purposes you would have died before you got it in the ready to fire position.

[@idiotidiot5821]

That is so bizarre. Would love to see a western trickshot gunslinger mess around with a design like that