"The hand of the destroying angel," Minié rifle with firearms and weaponry expert, Jonathan Ferguson

Few weapons, if any have had a greater impact on history in a shorter space of time than the Minié rifle. Introduced in a limited capacity in British service during the Crimean War (1853-56). The Minié with its revolutionary ammunition had a devastating impact against Russian troops during the conflict.
Join Jonathan Ferguson as he examines the system's development and adoption with the British Army, and how its new ammunition would change the shape of weapons development moving forward.
This episode is a collaboration with our good friends at Real Time History. Subscribe to their channel here: / realtimehistory
Sources
- Brett Gibbons, The Destroying Angel: The Rifle-Musket as the First Modern Infantry Weapon (Independent, 2018).
- Hew Strachan, From Waterloo to Balaclava: Tactics, Technology, and the British Army 1815-1854 (Cambridge: CUP, 1985).
- Christopher H. Roads, The British Soldier’s Firearm 1850-1864 (London: Herbert Jenks, 1964).
- See also Brett’s shooting video - • Shooting the Pattern 1...
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[@papercartridges6705]

Thanks for a great video Jonathan, and your kind words. I have shot my P/51 on three occasions, with the proper Minié ammunition and base cups, which was sufficient to confirm that when properly handled, it is a very accurate rifle. Hitting a 4-foot target at 400 yards was not difficult by any means. As much as I enjoy shooting it, the P/51 is such a rare and irreplaceable artifact that I am loathe to cause any damage or wear to it by shooting it more than perhaps one or two more times in my lifetime, and consider myself more of a temporary custodian, rather than the owner!

[@peteslinn482]

Well said, Brett. There certainly aren't that many left...

[@benrobertson7855]

I totally understand this thought process,I have a extremely fine .39 fast twist custom hunting rifle from the 1860s which was given to a ancestor by the Royal Navy,has our family crest engraved on the patch box….love to shoot it ,but am torn by the “use “damage,so I shoot my original military whitworth instead,much more robust and I think ,if properly cleaned and oiled,which I would want to do every 6 months without fireing,…it keeps it on the table,so to speak and makes sure it’s oiled and protected,not just hidden in the safe…. As a side ,I use a original bronze Pritchard mould,very loose in my .577 but works a treat,for such big windage…surprisingly…!

[@matthaught4707]

That rack of EM2s in the background is the real flex here.

[@Chiller11]

Yes a little distracting I think.

[@laredoshannon3541]

As someone who has carried an Enfield pattern rifle in American Civil War reenacting for years, another note is that on most battlefields over here you are always in range of accurate rifle fire as rarely do you find a stretch of field further than 500 yards without trees or houses obstructing you. In other words without entrenchment you are always in lethal danger

[@hoodoo2001]

A lot of wooded areas were not wooded areas back then and there were fewer houses. Wood was still a primary fuel and construction material for folks and woods were often cleared/thinned out with many stumps. This was in areas near towns and farms of course. Also, many of the forests of the time were original growth and as such thickets as such as we see today were not as common. My mother remembered as a girl of being able to look deep into original pine forests where the pine needles were think on the ground and retarded undergrowth. Trees tended to be larger but fewer. Troops could engage at longer distances regularly. Of course engagements at range tended to get smoke shrouded. And of course in many cases whenever a unit established a redoubt, breastworks, and trenched and such which were common for troops not steadily on the move (which was most of the time), large sections of woods were cut down to lenghten the distance from which formed troops could be engaged. The cut down trees served not only as fuel for the units but also as reinforcement of whatever type of breastworks etc were constructed.

[@Rutherford_Inchworm_III]

One of my classmates did a study in college that showed people who don't shoot or frequently attend/play gridiron-sports games tend to considerably underestimate how far 100 yards appears to the human eye (by 30-50%). TV viewing of games/matches was not helpful for gauging correctly. They almost all expected it to look much shorter. Having qualified with an M16, a man's upper torso looks smaller than the tip of the front sight at 300y. Stupid far to shoot at unmagnified, really, and stupid hard to hit. And yet Civil War rifle combat regularly occurred at those distances (and further!).

[@Chiller11]

Most American Civil War engagements occurred at less than 100 yards. The soldiers on both sides were not trained to adjust elevations and shoot at ranges that were possible with their rifled firearms.

[@britishmuzzleloaders]

Great video Jonathan! One day the P51 will have it's day on BML.... One day.....

[@michaelscholfield5643]

What an absolute flex to have what must be the largest collection of EM-1 rifles in the world casually on display in the background 😆 Awesome video as always Jon, thanks for all the great content

[@johngreen-sk4yk]

Em2,s mainly

[@jameskirk7762]

Hi there. Good eye both of you. Was about to comment. Greetings from Germany

[@wills2140]

Good spotting the EM's on the racks in the back. Serious flex by Royal Armouries and Jonathan Ferguson !

[@eoinoceallaigh2472]

it's probably all the Em rifles in existence

[@peterclarke7006]

​@@eoinoceallaigh2472 he said in the game stop "cursed weapons" video the the RA have nearly every em1 and em2 every made, to the extent that he was able to dedicate two chapters of his bullpup book to them. And they're such glorious-looking guns I might plan a trip just to see them.

[@realtimehistory]

Thanks Jonathan, great insight. This rifle seems to be a perfect object to illustrate the Crimean War, with one leg still firmly in the past (Wellington approved!) and yet already showing what devastating effect technological innovation could bring.

[@Archaeonomy]

Nice to see a video on this rifle, it was used here in New Zealand. I have one of the bullets on my shelf next to me. We also had the belted Brunswick here before everything became P53s and later Sniders.

[@uncletiggermclaren7592]

Hmmm. How did you find THAT then? Not doing any naughty metal detecting around historical sites I hope?.

[@Archaeonomy]

@@uncletiggermclaren7592 Nope, it is part of an archaeological assemblage, and the shelf contains my comparative collection. I am an archaeologist specialising in Wars sites.

[@Archaeonomy]

It is certainly an issue here in NZ, quite a few battle sites and redoubt sites are pock marked with holes from the destructive illegal diggings of fossickers.

[@uncletiggermclaren7592]

@@Archaeonomy Sure is. My brother owned a scrapyard in Hamilton, and two of the guys who used to sell us scrap were quite straight forward about it. They would find an old colonial site, map it out, then and rent a bobcat and dig up the long-drops and the dump. They wanted old bottles, mainly.

[@Archaeonomy]

@@uncletiggermclaren7592 The Waikato is well known for it. HNZ staff want to do something about it, but are too cash-strapped to allocate the required resources. Prosecutions are expensive.

[@Everythingblackpowder]

That was a great video. I just finished reading Brett Gibbons' The Destroying Angel.

[@Whimpy13]

You've probably already read The English Cartridge 😄

[@peteslinn482]

A definite must-have book for anyone interested in this period, imho.

[@michaeltelson9798]

So this was the weapon that the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders used as the “Thin Red Line” during the battle of Balaclava in 1854.

[@GrumblingGrognard]

(JUST) The wood on this firearm is SPECTACULAR.

[@jediknight1294]

I'd love a alternate history where the Whitworth became the standard rifle. That evolution from the minie ball was terrifying

[@uncletiggermclaren7592]

British Air Ministry after Dunkirk : "Issue P-42s to the new Pilots". Pilots : "OH WOW, we are getting the latest generation of American Fighter?".

[@anselmdanker9519]

Thank you Jonathan for a great presentation. This is the only one on the Minie 'rifle' I have seen to date.

[@derekp2674]

Thanks Jonathan and team, that was really interesting. With regard to the terminal effects of the pattern 1853 bullets, I was once at a shooting match between two teams who were both equipped with P53 rifles. At one point a stray-ish shot impacted one of the 4" x 2" wooden uprights of a standard Bisley 200 yard target frame and completely wrecked it. That caused a long delay before that target re-appeared to receive its next shot, because the butts crew had to get a replacement target frame from the store.

[@Book-bz8ns]

The Minié ball is absolutely devestating. I used to have a reproduction .60 "Zouave" rifle. With about 70 grains of FFF, its a monster. I cant imagine facing these in battle. Have a look at some pictures from the American Civil War.

[@bigtrev9043]

Grateful for this vid Jonathan. As you say there's barely any other material on this rifle. The Paper Cartridges vid is good for the very same reason

[@TrondBørgeKrokli]

"Hard to overstate my satisfaction..."

[@davydatwood3158]

When Jonathan says "Guys in green being all stylish and hiding behind trees," did anyone else hear Robin Williams say "You go out in the jungle and I can't *see* you! If you're going to fight, *clash*!" ? No? Just me then? Well. Okidoki.

[@ulissedazante5748]

I salute your citation. Not sure the austere Victorian army would be amused by a sloppy colonial airmen, but the concept is indeed the same.

[@stamfordly6463]

The Marquess of Anglesey was of course Henry Paget, Earl of Uxbridge, the cavalry commander at Waterloo.

[@knutclau705]

Oh, lovely to see a rifle of the highland brigade!!! The poor recipients of their fire, 600 yards range aginst the 150 or so of the russian smoothbores... I seem to recall that the 79th Camerons had only 9 KIA (and about 900 or so due to disease), in the whole conflict, being in action on the Alma and the whole siege...

[@causewaykayak]

1851. Great Exhibition.. Lots of engineering on show. Nice to get your latest shiny gun in front of an admiring world.

[@andrewbarthel8224]

Great video as always. Thanks Jonathan!

[@tomjoseph1444]

The idea by the generals that men would not charge with a longer range gun is a fairly common ignorance by senior officers. In America they were against repeaters because troops would use too much ammo. There was also a general in charge on procurement who was against anything that did not give him a kickback. This is how England ended up with the Lewis gun. In WWI, the British did not want their pilots to wear parachutes because it may encourage pilots to bail out before the plane was definitely going to crash.

[@sorokahdeen]

That was a brilliant watch. Fascinating information. Thanks!

[@TheDubsmannie]

Back in the '80s I fired a friend's P/51 at 100 yards and found it as accurate as the P/53. I had a Belgian 1842 rifle, (almost identical to the French Model 1842), which fired the same bullet. This was a 680 grain .69, cast from a L.E.M. mould. So, the British and French infantry could use each other's rifle ammunition in the Crimean War. I currently have two P/51s but have not fired them. One is dated 1852, has 4-groove rifling and is sighted to 900 yards. The other is dated 1854, has 3-groove rifling and is sighted to 1,000 yards, so these rifles were modified during their short service life. I have been unable to find out when the rifling changed. At some point I will carry out a test to see if there is any difference in accuracy between them. Certainly the 3-groove rifling was continued in the P/53 and I have read that the 4-groove rifling tended to 'square off' the expanded bullet, making it less stable in flight. Any bullets I have recovered still look pretty round, so I am sceptical. Has anyone else done any comparative testing between 4 and 3-groove rifles? Although Jonathan does not know of any 'trade' P/51s, a friend has one made by Cook, so they do exist but are even rarer than the regulation rifles. I also have an American Mod 1817 Wickham rifle that has been converted to percussion and rifled in 1861. It has 3-groove rifling and takes the same 680 grain bullet but I cannot find out whether French Minié ammunition was available during the Civil War, or whether patched musket balls were used. Because of the increased accuracy of the Minié bullet, the French reduced the barrel length of their rifles to 34 inches and fitted them with yataghan sword bayonets, so they still had the length to unhorse cavalry.

[@F1ghteR41]

Thanks for an insightful comment. As for the rifling, it is being suggested that an odd number of grooves is beneficial in terms of accuracy, since a bullet is pressed into the groove on one side by the land on the other, which provides less upset than the even number of lands would and better gas seal. This is the idea behind the Enfield rifling and its modern variants, so here's where I would look for comparison.

[@davewest5776]

a friend of mine went metal detecting close to tedworth house found some minie balls from when the local milita were practicing most of the shot had no damage

[@censusgary]

So the Duke of Wellington was worried that giving the infantrymen rifles might make them too uppity? That’s one of the most British things I’ve ever heard.

[@Richard0292]

He was right.

[@johnfisk811]

A rifle musket is, as you say, a long infantry long arm which was made rifled. A, period, rifle was made as a specialist rifle and not for general infantry issue. The rifled musket was an existing musket which was later rifled such as the Altered Pattern Sea Service Pattern1842. Crudely the rifled musket has a gert big heavy musket bore sized conical bullet whilst the rifle musket had a (then) small bore. e.g. the AP 1842 rifled musket had a 0,758” bore and the P1853 a mere 0,577” bore.

[@ToreDL87]

I get it, so its like the 1842 Springfield RIFLED Musket, Rifled = modified with rifling, vs say.. 1861 Springfield Rifle Musket, Rifle = Manufactured with rifling. Rifled = Modified with rifles in the bore, Rifle = Manufactured with rifling from the get-go.

[@Chiller01]

That may be how it’s used. Grammatically rifled is an adjective thus modifying or describing a noun. It has to have an accompanying noun ie rifled musket. Rifle is a noun;ie a person, place or thing or a verb, ie one can rifle a barrel. Accordingly, there should be no rifle musket. You don’t modify a noun with another noun or verb.

[@tomhenry897]

Love all the weapons in the rack

[@Frostfly]

Real Time History does great work. The Crimean war Doc they have done is very good too (it's on Nebula early) I'm glad They Roped in several other creators as well.

[@brianargo4595]

I had to have a chuckle at "rifle, rifle musket, and rifled musket, both are fine"

[@jp-um2fr]

Me and a 303 were in love. Got my silver with it. No17 at the range. Everyone said it had a bent barrel, I told them it had because every s*d used to reset a gun to suit themselves. They didn't touch no 17. I wonder where the old lady is now after 50 years. Probably a row of soup tins in a landfill.

[@s76fitz]

Your Lighting has improved by 400% .

[@krockpotbroccoli65]

Wha saw the 42nd. Also I love long form deep dive content. Fascinating history.

[@edwardscott3262]

I'm curious if he has any examples of the explosive bullets of the time to show off. An interesting one I like is they took .22 cal black powder blanks and stuck them in minie ball bullets backward shortly after S&W came up with the bored through .22 rim fire. An amazing bit of inventiveness to me and such an easy if not perfect solution. Here in America such bullets were common until smokeless powder provided high velocity bullets. They were common for buffalo hunting and came in loaded buffalo calibers still once cartridges took over.

[@killerpanda27]

The alternate universe where we got fsds small arms instead of rifles makes me excited

[@sharonrigs7999]

I can't believe that they had double barrel .71 rifled muskets and pistols in limited use in India. Touching off both bores at once would be deadly at both ends 😅

[@Willy_Tepes]

There was another solution to this problem. In Norway they replaced the breech plug with one that had a projecting spur. When the ball was rammed down against it, the spur would make the ball expand and grip the rifling.

[@stuartburton1167]

I think that is the Thouvenin system used by France.

[@peteslinn482]

The issue there is consistency - Unless you hit the ball with exactly the same force with the rammer every time, it will engage the rifling more or less, leading to lesser accuracy,

[@Willy_Tepes]

@@peteslinn482 This is not hard at all. Your argument reveals that you have no experience with muzzle loaders. The ramrod is made of steel and is sent down the barrel with a swift flick of the wrist. The force is very consistent. And remember, a round ball is no longer round after it has been seated in ANY muzzleloader. Conical bullets fixed this issue, but as you should realize, this was a transitional stage of development before the first breach loaders.

[@peteslinn482]

@@Willy_Tepes It's a widely held belief, but it's great that you are here to so very politely put me right...

[@Willy_Tepes]

@@peteslinn482 I try to be as polite as I can. Sending a steel rod down a barrel can be done with very good consistency and 3 times seems to do the trick.

[@jesseusgrantcanales]

I hope to get one of these through the Rifle Shoppe, once I figure out the site to order one myself and see the cost.

[@sgtmcd]

I had to watch due to Iron Maiden’s song The Trooper

[@5skov]

what wood is the stock?

[@sandmanhh67]

Do a Brunswick Rifle vid please Jon - interesting rifling system IMHO

[@mikepette4422]

but does it go PEW ? or PEW PEW ?

[@rwdyeriii]

It goes PEW every 20 seconds.

[@chrismigut9702]

If they only were in service for 4 years and all pulled out. Where did they go after? Where they sold off to some other country or just scraped?

[@tomhenry897]

Maybe dumped on a colony Must all been gone by the civil war otherwise would have been sold to the Americans

[@johnfisk811]

It would be nice to see the Russian rifle of the Crimean War by way of comparison. They did Sterling work in the hands of their Finnish marksmen.

[@F1ghteR41]

I believe the rifle you're talking about is the so called Lüttich/Littich _(i.e. Liege)_ stutzer (люттихский/литтихский штуцер) of 1843 (modified with the so called Hessen rear sight in 1848-49), which is very closely based upon the Brunswick rifle. From what little I've read on it it was only put in production in Russia in 1849 (with previous ones ordered, you guessed it, from Belgium), at which point it was already outdated due to the development of the Minié ball and first combat deployment of the Dreyse rifle. It therefore came as no surprise that it was replaced in less than a decade by the Pattern 1856 rifle, which was somewhat similat to the Enfield Pattern 1853 in that it was designed for the use of Minié ball and had therefore reduced calibre (6 lines, or 0.6'', as compared to the 0.577" of the P1853). So, it's a similar story to the P1851 discussed here. And I don't think Jonathan could easily show one, there are only a handful of them with any sort of provenance, and the closest would be in the National Army Museum.

[@johnfisk811]

@@F1ghteR41 However, unlike the original British Brunswick Rifle, of which it is a copy, it was considerably updated with new sights and completely new ammunition to give them a far longer range.

[@tomhenry897]

Didn’t British muzzleloader do a show on them?

[@Ashmoleon2006]

where i live its a somewhat common hobby to go out with a metal detector and hunt up Minié balls in civil war battlefields.

[@tommeakin1732]

On rate of twist: I believe overstabilising a projectile can also compromise it's accuracy at long range. I believe it's due to an over overstabilised projectile being very good (too good) at keeping it's tip pointed at the spot it was fired in, and if you're firing at long range, you want the tip to follow the arc of the round as opposed to staying trained on the clouds. Also, unnecessary spin will just be bleeding potential energy from the round. Just thinking about this now, a lower velocity round would probably need a slower rate of twist as the rounds trajectory will be a lazier arc

[@PeterSt1954]

After the first volley far would close-packed ranks of soldiers be able to see anything at distance to shoot at? Black powder gives dense smoke. Skirmishers, in the open, might be able to see well enough for aimed shots but I doubt if the rank and file would find sights useful after the first volley.

[@josephwalukonis9934]

It honestly depends on the wind conditions. If the day is still the smoke will obscure visibility after a few volleys. I watched an ACW reenactment a number of years ago (Manassas, VA USA) from the side at a distance and for a number of minutes everything was obscured. You could not even make out the flags.

[@allanpickering6939]

A couple of years ago I was watching a KZbin video by a lady called Nichola White who is a Thames mud lark and she had found a minie’ bullet on the foreshore but didn’t know what it was so I emailed her and she was grateful to find out what it was . It looked to be quite a large bore and had the groves around the circumference and a hollow bottom she may still have it may be worth an email her channel is Nicola White mud lark hope this helps.

[@rabokarabekian409]

More guns solves every problem guns create.

[@tacfoley4443]

No mention of Robert Taylor Pritchett, whose bullet design you are holding at around the four-minute mark?

[@paulancill3872]

Do you have anything with a plug barnet?

[@terry7907]

Must be the King’s English. In America, we would say “hard to overstate the importance “ of something that was really important.

[@chaimafaghet7343]

Really? From what I've seen the equivalent is something among the lines of "bussin no cap".

[@Richard0292]

​@@chaimafaghet7343😂

[@wills2140]

I do enjoy these videos from Royal Armouries ,but... it is too dark to see all the details Jonathan talks about. That dark cloth on the table takes away light and hides most of the rifles details, especially when seen from above. Change the backdrop to a lighter colour - like red or maroon - and this would improve.

[@davidtrail4731]

The range was such that the first victims of this rifle were some cattle in a field beyond the targets at the firing range

[@patrickbenjamin9056]

Odd question: What would you say was the likely firearm (rifle) carried by the English cavalry and foot soldier during the Crimean War?

[@capt.bart.roberts4975]

Re:the bayonet, nobody ever said ruperts were very bright.

[@iirainey]

I read that the Ottomans attempted to put rifling into former smoothbore barrels. I thought that sounded crazy because of the issue of barrel thickness. Do you think that is possible? Or that it may have been a hopeful experiment of the Ottomans?

[@peteslinn482]

The British did it to quite a few muskets, leading to Minie style rifle-muskets with HUGE bores :)

[@tomhenry897]

Anything to,save a buck

[@josephwalukonis9934]

The Ottomans were not the only ones to do this. A friend of mine has several French Napoleonic era muskets that were later rifled.

[@AchilleBelanger]

@@josephwalukonis9934Americans did that too

[@nigelbarker8726]

Goes down smaller, comes out bigger. As the actress said to the bishop.

[@thunderflashmartin]

my god the man can't finish a sentence before going off on a tangent

[@LastGoatKnight]

Such an ironic name for this rifle. Mini-é, yet it's, just by guessing, is almost 2 metre long (for imperial measurement users, roughly one M82 Barett is its length or one leg (not foot, leg))

[@paleoph6168]

Well it is French.

[@ulissedazante5748]

For the non metric wierdo, I guess you have to use the banana scale. Seems to be eleven bananas + 2 and a half for the bayonet.

[@sebhartley4906]

Still waiting to see a punt gun? - surely you have one in the collection ? ;) Then you really would be taking up the whole table… and more

[@kanrakucheese]

Well, the channel's second most viewed video is one firing (a blank).

[@capt.bart.roberts4975]

"They couldn't hit and elephant at this dist..."

[@bernarddavis1050]

That was General Sedgwick, US Army, on the receiving end of a round from a CSA Whitworth sniper rifle. Among the most famous of Famous Last Words.

[@samholdsworth420]

Hello Jonathan 😍

[@gwtpictgwtpict4214]

Video on the origins of the name Brown Bess is not tedious. Just saying.

[@capusvacans]

"People aren't made of wood?", unless of course if they are witches, that is a well known fact.

[@nilo70]

Judging from the angle of the hole in that barrel , the shooter missed the owner’s head by about 40 inches. The owner had to change his underwear afterwards…. Cheers From California 😊

[@lutzderlurch7877]

It‘s perfectly common for early guns to have the bore somewhat off center, or the barrel outside dimensions uneven. If you set up your sights right, this doesnt affect you

[@bunyip38]

While it is true that people are not made of wood, it appears that with almost double the penetration of wood at 250 yds the rifle would have been very effective against witches.😉

[@chooseyouhandle]

Shameless plug for real time history

[@18robsmith]

'tis a big boooogga Need to get one into the hands of either Rob or The Chappie to demonstrate the effects on some poor, unfortunate lump of wood.

[@tomrogers4667]

I have a .50 caliber 1862 musket with a royal crown. Your country funded the civil war here in america!!!

[@nilo70]

Bunch of Right Bastards 😊

[@sejembalm]

1:34 Shooting video from Paper Cartridges: Shooting the Pattern 1851 Minié Rifle kzbin.info/www/bejne/gZ-rY5mEdrOCY80

[@salty4496]

:)

[@Reedgray248]

First comment

[@pyeitme508]

Aoa

[@JustanOlGuy]

[@PaulP999]

I don't know if anyone from Armouries ever reads these comments but if they do can I say that I'd be very interested in an episode that detailed how muzzle loaders (and later weapons I guess) are rifled - by what means, such as expanding reamers, multiple strokes (and how one gets the same previous cut?), any tech advances in such....maybe if others would also like to know they could add a like..??

[@benrobertson7855]

This is great,bugger I am off to work,….later…..love this era,a p53 was my first muzzle loader,so critical to our countries history…any stuff on the whitworth wound be appreciated….best regards from New Zealand.

[@ianray8823]

...am I just now noticing the wall if EM2s?!?!

[@CanalTremocos]

2:17 I imagine "We don't have that many here at the Royal Armories" means they have a dozen of them with sequential serial numbers starting at 001.

[@TheVirtuoso883]

"call it what you like" Behold! My wooden explosive freedom tube

[@chrisvankeeffe4006]

Jonathon! I could not believe the number of EM2s you have stashed away behind you, and you don't want to share you greedy man.

[@wilsonlaidlaw]

Jonathan, did the different calibres of the P51 and P53 rifled muskets cause logistical problems during the Crimean war or were there so few of the P53 muskets there, that it did not matter?

[@NomadShadow1]

25:29 “people aren’t made of wood”, unless they are witches

[@zoiders]

I have long been aware of how the Minie rifle and the Minie ball round changed the face of warfare and above all engagement ranges that led to the slaughter of the US Civil war but I cant stop trying to get a better look at the rack of XL65 E4 Light Support Weapons to your left, I assume you fire them occasionally which raises the question of who loads the 4.85mm ball for you? Do RG still have the dies and presses?

[@Chiller01]

That’s quite a front heavy pike I would think. I couldn’t find statistics for the Crimean War but The average height of a 1914 British recruit was 5’5”. His average weight was 8 stone or 112 pounds or 50.8kg. A very interesting transition period for small arms. Some historians (Hess, Grimsley, Noworthy) argue that though many American Civil War troops were armed with rifled muskets they weren’t trained to take advantage of the technology. Most musketry took place between troops in close order line formations at ranges between 90-110 yards roughly. The difference in accuracy of rifled vs smooth bore muskets is negligible at those ranges and accuracy is less critical than volume of fire when shooting at a close order enemy formation. The pickets and troops trained as sharpshooters did utilize the new rifling and projectile technologies to extend their effective ranges but not so your average 11 bravo.

[@bernarddavis1050]

It is a sad fact that the British Army recruits of 1914 were on average significantly shorter and lighter than those of the Napoleonic Wars - the grim result of 19th Century industrialisation, urbanisation, overcrowding and poor diet which produced a race of stunted starveling runts, at least among the so-called working class. Australian troops arriving on the Western Front were on average four or five inches taller than their British counterparts, and were astonished to see "Bantam" units made up entirely of men who did nor even reach the regular minimum British Army height requirement of 5'2".

[@allangibson8494]

The US Army had a breech loading rifled musket as standard issue from 1819 to 1955

[@allangibson8494]

The US Army had a breech loading rifled musket as standard issue from 1819 to 1855. (The Hall M1819 in flintlock and then caplock after 1843).

[@allangibson8494]

@Robert Stallard No breach loading rifle or pistol had effective breach sealing - they were all just like modern revolvers - leaking at the breach muzzle interface. This did reduce muzzle velocity slightly but not by the amount you think. This leakage issue wasn’t solved until brass cartridge manufacturing was perfected in the 1860’s (centerfire cartridge rifles had been around since Pauli’s rifle of 1811 but the cartridges were too hard to make for military adoption). The M1819 was however expensive as it used fully interchangeable parts (including the breech block which could be swapped between rifles and even swapped from flintlock to percussion lock). The M1819 Hall Rifle was also used by the Argentinian Army. The US Army of the period was tiny and so was the number of weapons they held. The civil war expanded the number of firearms required so the 50,000 Hall rifles and carbines produced were rapidly swamped by other designs. Minie ball rifles were much cheaper if far less tactically useable.

[@brianfoster4434]

Very interesting history from the Prime Minister of Guns.

[@F1ghteR41]

Once again, I would like to thank the team for covering this rifle, it's from an era of firearms development which - despite its key importance - is rarely ever discussed to the extent it deserves. 15:28 I hate to nitpick here, but while it may very well be that it once _was_ so, nowadays the usual reason for avoiding fast twist rates is reduced lifespan of said rifling. With much lower pressures produced by black powder and unjacketed lead bullets it was, as far as I can deduce, not a problem, but we've gone away from this situation so far with modern technology that, in my humble opinion, it deserves some elaboration for the benefit of the audience. 22:42 The French one was Mle 1842T, as far as I know. 23:50 Very interesting data, thanks for sharing, Jonathan. 26:43 The figures I've seen indicate that only about 5% of Russian infantry was issued with rifles at that time. Also, as a testament to the effectiveness of Minié rifles, Russia adopted them as Pattern 1854. 27:02 By the way, what would that mean at that time? Were the rifles decomissioned and sold as surplus, converted to the 1853 pattern or simply scrapped?

[@klan792]

Not going with too fast of a rate of twist is still to avoid “over stabilizing” the bullet to this day. The Greenhill Formula from later in 1879 allowed calculating the ideal rate of twist for accuracy for a given load. Basically, the shorter the bullet, the slower the twist. Pushing the bullet faster also requires the twist be slower since it would otherwise rotate faster. There’s no noticeable barrel life difference between a 1:12” vs a 1:8” 5.56 barrel. If there were, it would still be a moot point when the 1:12” barrel fails to stabilize something like 77gr loads. The bearing surface of the bullet and the pressure/heat have more to do with barrel life. A 1:8” match barrel will last far longer shooting 52gr loads vs shooting 77s. That is proven by countless NRA/CMP High Power competitors doing just that. Even today, muzzleloaders have slow rates of twist. Patched round ball .50 cal is best from a 1:66”-1:72.” Rifles in .50 cal meant for sabots and conicals are 1:27.” The 1:48” is a sort of hybrid that can shoot everything, but not well. Patched round balls have to be fired kind of slow out of them to not overstabilize.

[@F1ghteR41]

@@klan792 You're indeed absolutely correct, but I was speaking in more general terms here. Keeping in mind that the twist rate is basically dictated by the shape and the speed of the bullet, you would want to avoid the combinations that require particularly fast twists to prolong the barrel life, unless absolutely necessary, mainly for high accuracy. You might even want to under-stabilise your bullet with slower twist rate just to avoid complications, which was, for example, frequently done in Soviet firearms. This is what people take into consideration when discussing firearms designed for common cartridges like .243 Win and 6.5 Creedmoor, whereas intimate knowledge of muzzleloaders is, in my experience, much more limited.

[@jediknight1294]

​@@F1ghteR41the other issue of course is fast twist and heavy rounds at slow velocity cause issues with the projectile fragmenting

[@danesorensen1775]

All this talk of rifle trials overseen by the Duke of Wellington gives me the mental image of redcoats shooting at a ballistics gel dummy, probably made of lard or something because Victorian.

[@williamavery9185]

Sargent Jones from Wallming on sea home guard used one these with a bayonette. They dont like it up em he said.

[@bernarddavis1050]

Sergeant Jones would almost certainly have used a Martini-Henry .45 calibre lever action breech loader. Similar bayonet though.

[@williamavery9185]

@@bernarddavis1050 I know was just kidding !

[@SvenElven]

How long were people's arms back then?

[@FINNIUSORION]

Pretty sure he meant hard to overstate. Not hard to understate lol. Not that he needs me to correct him, I would be happy to speak half as eloquently as this man.

[@allanburt5250]

Cheers Jonathan interesting one 👍

[@schiz0phren1c]

Was that the Dreyse known as the *"Needle gun"* or *"Needle Rifle"* Jonathan ? or was that a later model? thank you for this video Sir, excellent information on a very important weapon!

[@hoodoo2001]

The weapon of the "Thin Red Line" in 1854 at Balaklava.

[@cosmo9882]

Holy poop 1000yards. Awsome. Thank you.

[@jponeill2151]

Huzzah! I got one right!!

[@James_Earl_Cash]

I find it very refreshing that there is seemingly no quarrel between the leading firearm themed channels on KZbin. Just experts and enthusiasts sharing the same passion and oftentimes collaborating on videos.

[@photoplanet]

Respect for History breeds respect for others and their opinions.... And in cases such as this, when Jonathan has collaborated with Ian McCollum, there is clearly respect and common direction of thought between the two - And I would say they are the experts in the field, one from a museum perspective, the other being 'Look at what we have this week - Let's see how it shoots'...

[@handpaper6871]

"An armed society is a polite society..."

[@boydgrandy5769]

Even the Brown Bess flintlock could throw a ball 800 yards with enough remaining energy to kill a man. It's just that, once fired, the ball could travel on a ballistic that the shooter could not control, as the ball came bounding down the barrel to exit at a random angle to the line of sight. The Minie' ball should have revolutionized infantry tactics as soon as it appeared on the battlefield, but it took the US Civil War to teach (American commanders anyway) field commanders to have their troops fight from cover at range. In the 1850s and well into the 1860s, all the best men swore by the tactics of Napoleon, failing to recognize the accurate lethality of the new rifle musket, so they lined their battalions and regiments up line abreast for massed volley fire. AT the beginning of the war, both sides were poorly equipped, often with smoothbore guns that were often loaded with buck and ball, so Napoleonic tactics made sense. The Enfield P53 was not the first rifle used by the US or Union Army, but it was purchased in large numbers in 1861 and 1862 to reequip the troops, and these remained in large numbers through the war, only being outnumbered by the Springfield Model 1861 as US production ramped up. Once the muzzle loaded rifle was standard issue, the effective range of the infantry individual multiplied by at least three times and the wounds delivered by this damned hollow based soft lead ball were horrible, resulting often in immediate amputation because of the destruction of the bones they struck and, based on the condition of medical science at the time, the wounded and new amputee probably would die of infection anyway.

[@josephwalukonis9934]

Very true. But I think that modern surgeons would have a hard time saving the limbs as well due to the shattering of the bone and a big chunk of bone missing with nothing left for them to resection to. I remember seeing news reports from the Soviet War in Afghanistan (1980s) that showed a very large number of Afghan amputees.

[@corneliussulla9963]

Im the proud owner of a Parker-Hale P1853. I love this thing.