What is a Cows Knee?

In our last post, we studied tompions which are devices that were invented to prevent rain, snow, mud etc. from entering through the muzzles of flintlock firearms. However, the muzzle isn't the only part of the flintlock that must be kept dry, because water can enter through another place as well. Specifically, the lock, or more precisely, the pan of the flintlock must be kept dry as well. If too much moisture reaches the black powder, it will not ignite properly, so there must be some way to protect the lock.

Parts of a flintlock. Click on the image to enlarge. Public domain image courtesy of wikipedia.

We will study a device called a Cows Knee, that was invented for this purpose.

A Cows Knee is merely a cover for the lock, traditionally made of leather pieces which are sewn together. The leather used in the old days was usually cattle skin or deer skin, since these were cheap and commonly available. The leather is first processed to remove all the hair and fat, then it is tanned to prevent it from decaying, then it is further processed to soften it and color it if needed. Then, the pieces of leather are cut into shape and stitched together to form the cover.

Traditional cows knees came with leather thong straps attached to the ends, so that they could be secured to firearms and held in position instead of sliding off.

A Cows Knee with a single strap. Click on the image to enlarge

A Cows Knee with two straps. Click on the image to enlarge.

As the reader may note, the reason for the name is because it does resemble the knee of a cow, when it is tied to the firearm.

Some other materials that were traditionally used as alternatives to leather were heavy canvas cloth and wool cloth. Whether made of leather, canvas or wool, the material was oiled or greased both on the inside and outside surfaces, to repel water as well. The substance used was generally some animal grease or beeswax.

Some hunters would only tie the front thong and leave the rear one untouched. The reason for this was if they came across an animal and wished to deploy the firearm quickly, they could simply slide the cover forward or flip it over, thereby exposing the lock.

These days, some cows knees models also come with metal buttons or studs, so that people can press the ends together instead of tying knots with the leather thongs. These also make them easier to remove as well, since users don't have to fumble with knots. Some modern models are also made of plastic materials instead of leather or cloth.

A modern Cows Knee model with a stud fastener instead of thongs. Click on the image to enlarge.

Back in the days of flintlock weapons and black powder, these devices were commonly carried by hunters and soldiers of various armies. For instance, from January 29th, 1759, we have the record of an order given by General Jeffrey Amherst, Commander-in-Chief of British forces in North America during the French & Indian war: "And every Man, is to be well clothed, and be furnished with a good Firelock, Powder Horn, Shot Bag, and Cover for the Lock of his Gun, with three Pound of Ball fit for his Gun, and a good Blanket". The "Cover for the Lock of His Gun" mentioned here is what we call a Cows Knee these days.

Cows Knees are still carried by hunters who use black powder firearms, when they hunt in inclement weather.

What is a Tompion?

Back in the day of flintlock firearms, keeping weapons operating in the rain, snow and mud was an important matter indeed. For instance, soldiers could be told to advance to a specific battlefield position, in the middle of a rainstorm. Or a hunter could have been caught in a snowstorm in the woods and didn't want to unload his weapon, in case he met a dangerous animal. To solve this issue, a device called a tompion (sometimes spelled as tampion) was invented. We will study about this device in today's post.

A tompion is simply a cylinder, usually made of wood, which is pushed into the muzzle end of the barrel, and prevents rain, snow, mud etc. from entering the barrel. When ready to fire, the user simply pulls the tompion off the end of the muzzle and then cocks the firearm. Some tompions are made entirely of wood, some have a brass cap at the end, still others are made of brass, rubber and cloth etc.

The above image is a tompion made of wood, for a Springfield M1842 musket, such as those used by both sides of the Civil War here in America. Note the "69" written on the side, which indicates the caliber of the weapon it was intended to fit into. The head of the tompion is made a bit larger than the body, so that it cannot be pushed in beyond that point.

A .58 caliber tompion from a M1861 rifle. Click on the image to enlarge.

The next tompion we see is for a .58 caliber M1861 rifle used by both sides in the Civil War. Note that in both the tompions we have seen so far, they have deep slots cut into the body and the end of the body is slightly tapered. There is a good reason for this design: the tompion must fit snugly in the barrel. By making the end of the body slightly tapered, it is easier to insert into the muzzle. As it is pushed in, the slots allow the body to bend inwards to fit into the muzzle and provide a tight seal. In addition, moisture in the air could cause the wood to expand. The slots ensure that the tompion can be pulled out of the barrel without too much difficulty, even if the wood has expanded a bit.

The above images show tompions for an Enfield 1853 musket. The first image shows the complete Enfield tompion. Notice that it has a brass head cap and shaft and a body made of cork. The second image shows a tompion with the cork part removed. This type of tompion is adjustable. By turning the head of the tompion in one direction, it pushes down the cork and expands its diameter to make a tighter fit. If the head is turned the other direction, it reduces the diameter of the cork, allowing the tompion to be removed from the barrel.

The Enfield Tompion. Click on the image to enlarge.

The next image is of something called Wilmot's Patent Expansible Tompion, invented by George R. Wilmot of Meriden, Connecticut, in 1863.

Wilmot's Patent Tompion. Click on the image to enlarge.

It is made of brass and has two disks, in between which is an elastic packing material, consisting of a rubber strip surrounded by soft cloth. By turning the top, the disks can be moved closer or further apart, which causes the packing material to expand or contract, thus making it fit properly into the barrel of the firearm.

Using tompions, users could keep their black powder weapons somewhat usable in rain, snow, mud, slush etc. and prevent corrosion as well. They were standard issue to armies in America and Europe.

Not only were tompions used for firearms, they were also used for larger cannons as well. In fact, you may still be able to see them in larger guns, such as the example below:

The USS Iowa. Click on the image to enlarge.

The image is that of the USS Iowa, which is now a floating museum in San Pedro, California. Note the tompions plugging the muzzles of the large guns. Fun fact: Your humble editor's wife is from Iowa, and we visit the museum about once a year or so. It is a very fun place to visit and full of history.

In our next post, we will study another piece of equipment that people carried to keep their firearms working in bad weather conditions.

Weapons of Pirates

In our last post about Queen Anne pistols, we mentioned that they were carried by some pirates, notably the famous pirate captain, Edward Teach, better known to the world as "Blackbeard". In today's post, we will study the world of the pirates and the weapons they carried.

First, pirates have been around practically since man learned to build boats. Pirates have been mentioned in ancient Babylonian and Egyptian texts dating back to 1400 BC. The Greeks and Romans battled pirates in the Mediterranean sea. In fact, the word "pirate" is from the Greek word, pieraomai which means "attempt" (i.e. "attempt to rob for personal gain"), which morphed to the Greek word pierates which means "bandit" or "brigand", from which we get the Latin word pirata, from which we get the English word "pirate".  In the middle ages, the Vikings roamed the northern seas, but also sailed as far south as North Africa and Italy and sailed up rivers all the way up to the Black sea. The South China sea and the area between Malaysia and the Indonesian islands have had incidents of piracy since about 900 AD. In modern times, we have pirates off the coast of Somalia and in the strait of Malacca.

However, we will concentrate mainly on the weapons used by pirates during the so-called "Golden Age of Piracy", which happened around 1650-1730 AD. This was around the time that various European powers were competing with each other to build colonies and trade routes around the world. During this time, several notorious pirates were based off the Caribbean islands, but there were others who sailed around the coast of Africa and even as far as India. In fact, the biggest robbery ever made during the Golden Age of Piracy was by English pirate Henry Every (also called Henry Avery or Long Ben Every), who captured a couple of the Indian Mughal emperor Aurangzeb's ships in the Arabian sea, sailing back from Mecca to India loaded with jewels. With this single act of piracy, Henry Every became the richest pirate captain in the world, but he is not as well known as other pirates such as Blackbeard, Calico Jack Rackham, Bartholomew Roberts (a.k.a Black Bart), Henry Morgan, Captain Kidd etc. We will study the weapons used by pirates living in this era. By the way, not all pirates were English. Many were Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, American, Italian, Moors, Algerians, Africans, Turks, Arabs, Native Americans, Chinese, Malays etc.

It may come as a surprise to readers to find out that during the Golden Age of Piracy, many pirate ships actually operated more democratically than most countries. Every man on board a pirate ship had an equal vote and the pirate captain was elected by the members of the ship. If the pirate captain didn't perform his duties well, he could be voted out of his position as well. The quartermaster was also voted into power by the crew. One more interesting thing was that the pirate captain only commanded the ship when they were in combat. If they were not in combat, it was the quartermaster and not the captain, that decided where the ship would sail next. Pirate crews were generally promoted based on merit (unlike European navies, where most officers bought their positions). Pirates also came from different countries, races and religions, but they all had an equal right to vote and an equal share of the treasure. At a time where most people worked as slaves or as indentured servants, pirates actually signed work contracts when they joined a pirate ship. The contracts specified how much share of the plunder each man would receive (skilled sailors received more than unskilled men, as did specialized jobs such as captain, quartermaster, carpenter, surgeon, navigator, boatswain, gunner etc.), compensation to be paid in case a man was injured  or killed while performing his duties (workman's injury compensation in the 17th century!), how prizes were to be divided, awarding of bonuses for good work, the rules of conduct expected of each man and the penalties that would occur, if a man was to break the rules.

In many Hollywood movies, we see pirates fighting each other with sabers and showing some real fancy sword fighting skills. And while pirate ships are approaching merchant ships, they engage in heavy gun battles with cannons until the pirates can swing over to the other ship on ropes. So, is what we see in Hollywood movies really how pirates fought? The answers are very different.

Some of the laws and rules followed by pirates have been recorded by historians. From the contract signed by pirates who sailed under Bartholomew Roberts, we have the following section:

Article V - Every man shall keep his piece, pistols and cutlass at all times, clean and ready for action.

So what does the above sentence mean, particularly the three words in bold font? It gives us a clue as to what weapons pirates actually used. Notice that the cutlass (a short sword) comes third in the list, while "piece" is listed first. We will see what this means in the next few paragraphs.

First, let's deal with the question of swords. Pirate ships and merchant ships were very crowded at all times, with boxes and ropes all over the deck. Therefore a long sword was usually not very useful in combat aboard a ship, because there was usually no room to swing a long sword properly. Secondly, it takes a long time to train a person to use a sword well and only members of the aristocracy could afford to take sword fighting lessons (i.e. fencing lessons). Only a rich person could afford to buy a high quality long sword anyway. Third, long swords are heavy and can make a man tired much more quickly. Therefore, real pirates usually carried a short sword, such as a cutlass, which was much more suitable for fighting in close quarters. Alternatively, they carried axes or knives, since both were cheaper than swords and could also be used well in crowded spaces. However, none of these bladed weapons were usually their first choice of weapon either.

Now let's talk about cannon on ships. Most pirate ships were relatively small and could therefore carry small cannon only. Pirates would usually try to capture ships with as little damage as possible, so that they could take the captured ship and its supplies for themselves. So when they fired cannon at merchant ships, they usually fired small caliber shot to try and disable the crew, or fired chain shot to try and destroy some of the sails, to slow the ship down. They would also shoot warning shots away from the target, to try to get the merchant ships to surrender quietly. They usually never shot large solid cannon balls directly at ships, because this could cause the ship to sink before they captured it. If possible, pirates preferred to capture ships as undamaged as possible, so that they could use them in their own fleets.

Now let's talk about the word "piece" that we saw earlier. The word "piece" refers to a "fowling piece" or a "hunting piece", i.e. a musket used for hunting birds and animals. In general, a "piece" in pirate language, could refer to any long arm, whether musket, rifle, arquebus or blunderbuss. These were usually the first weapon of choice for pirates.

The musket was generally available to the common man during the Golden Age of Piracy era, so it was pretty easy for pirates to get their hands on them. A well trained pirate crew could injure or kill several defenders from longer ranges, so that there would be less resistance by the time they boarded the ship. They would target officers, sailors operating the sails and those near the gun ports. Well aimed musket fire in volleys could inflict maximum damage to their opposition, without sinking their ship, which is why pirates preferred using muskets to cannon.

A typical flintlock musket. Click on the image to enlarge. Public domain image.

These muskets were originally designed to hunt bird and animals and were pretty sturdy, with long heavy barrels. While many of them were originally smoothbore, they were still capable of relatively accurate fire. Pirates would sometimes load them with one larger ball about the size of the barrel bore and two smaller balls about half the bore size. This was done to increase the probability of hitting the target. Successful pirate crews carried multiple muskets for each pirate, up to four or five per pirate, and they would all be loaded and ready to go, as they approached their prey. This allowed the pirates to keep shooting rapidly at their prey as they approached it. They would also work in teams, where one pirate would fire muskets, while the other pirates would reload them.

The musketoon is a shorter barreled version of the musket and were more preferred, because they were easier to handle in confined spaces, such as those found on ships. Some musketoons had flared barrels like the next weapon, the blunderbuss, although the blunderbuss was generally even shorter.

A Blunderbuss. Note the flared muzzle.

The original term for this weapon was donderbuss and this name appears to be Dutch. The word "donder" means "thunder" and "buss" means "pipe" in Dutch and German languages. They were generally made with brass or bronze barrels, since these resisted corrosion from seawater better than iron barrels. The flared muzzle allowed the user to quickly pour powder and shot down the barrel and load the weapon easier on a moving platform. Pirates would load blunderbusses with multiple shot pellets, scrap nails, rocks etc., and use them at closer ranges. On a crowded deck, a single shot could disable a group of enemies, so they were used to clear a path so that the pirates could board.

As they boarded their enemy's ship, pirates often carried multiple pistols with them. Many of these were single shot flintlock models and quite a few of them were built with flared barrels like a blunderbuss. to enable quicker reloading.

These pistols often had decorations around the muzzle that looked like a dragon's mouth and hence, these pistols were called "dragons". Military troops that carried such pistols were called "dragoons" and the pistols were then referred to as "dragoon pistols".

There were also general purpose flintlock pistols that many pirates carried, as these were also easily available.

A typical British flintlock pistol designed for naval service. Click on the image to enlarge. Public domain image.

In addition to these, some pirates also carried Queen Anne pistols, which we saw in the previous post. This is because Queen Anne pistols were designed to hold the ball inside the barrel without any wadding and there was much less risk of the ball or powder falling out of the pistol.

These pistols were used practically at point-blank range. Since they were all single shot models, pirates usually carried several of them, either tied around their necks with short pieces of rope, or tucked into a belt. The butt of the pistol handle was often a heavy brass plate (as the two examples above show), so after the pistol was fired, the user could turn it around and use it as a club.

In some cases, they would carry multi-barrel pistols. Some of these were just pistols with multiple barrels and separate triggers to fire each barrel separately. Other models featured a single trigger and multiple barrels that could be turned into position as needed.

A pistol with two separate barrels, two flintlocks and two triggers. Click on the image to enlarge.

An over under pistol with two barrels, two pans, but a single flintlock and single trigger. Each barrel was rotated into position by hand and then fired.

There were also volley fire weapons that could fire multiple pellets in different directions simultaneously, so as to spread the damage with a single shot. An example of such a pistol is shown below.

A duckfoot pistol. Click on the image to enlarge. Public domain image.

The example shown above is a duckfoot pistol using a flintlock firing mechanism. It is called a "duckfoot" because it resembles the foot of a duck. In general, multi-barrel pistols were less reliable than single barrel pistols and therefore, they were not frequently used.

Finally, there was the pirate short sword, the cutlass. This was usually the third weapon of choice and pirates usually didn't use them unless they really needed to. Forget the long drawn out sword battles shown in Hollywood movies, real pirates kept the fighting time down to a minimum. Real pirates would carry a cutlass with one hand and a pistol with the other. The cutlass would be used to block the opponents sword, while the pirate's other hand would fire the pistol at point-blank range. Sometimes, the pirate would use a combination weapon that combined a cutlass and pistol together.

A combination of cutlass and pistol. Click on the image to enlarge.

This allowed the pirate to both shoot and cut with a single arm, while the other arm could carry another pistol or a grenade or some such object.

Besides these three weapons, pirates often carried axes, knives, grenades, stink pots etc. However, most pirates preferred using (in order of preference): long guns (such as muskets, rifles and arquebuses), close range powerful shotgun type weapons (musketoons, blunderbusses), pistols and finally swords, axes and knives. Therefore, the Hollywood myth of pirates preferring to use swords and fighting long duels on decks with swords is completely false. They preferred using firearms to bladed weapons.

Now, let us look at a curious paragraph in the contracts signed by pirates that sailed with the pirate captains Edward Low and George Lowther around 1720 AD.

Article VIII - He that sees a sail first, shall have the best Pistol or Small Arm aboard of her.

As you can see, the contract clearly states that the first pirate to see the sail of a merchant ship, would be rewarded with the best firearm found on the captured ship, not the best sword. Therefore, they clearly valued firearms more than swords.

Queen Anne Pistols

In today's post, we will look at a type of pistol that was around in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the Queen Anne pistols (otherwise called turn-off pistols). These were generally in use from around 1650 to 1780 AD.

First, we will investigate the origin of the name. The first models of this type of pistol date back to around 1650 or 1660 AD in England, but they really started becoming popular during the reign of Queen Anne of England (she was born in 1665 AD and ruled England from 1702 to 1714 AD). This is why they are popularly called as Queen Anne pistols.

So what makes these pistols different from other pistols of the era? There were several features unique to these pistols which we will study:

1. The breech and lock of a Queen Anne pistol were forged together as a single piece, a feature that did not become common in firearms until the middle of the nineteenth century.
2. Unlike most weapons of this era which were loaded from the muzzle, most Queen Anne pistols were loaded from the breech.
3. The barrel of a Queen Anne pistol was screwed on to the chamber. This was one of the key distinguishing features of a Queen Anne pistol.
4. The barrel was tapered from the breech to the muzzle.
5. The caliber of the bullet ball was made larger than the bore of the barrel. Since these pistols were loaded from the breech, there was no need to use a ramrod or wadding, unlike most other firearms of the era.
6. Though early model barrels were smoothbores, later models featured rifled barrels for better accuracy.

Like most firearms of that era, these pistols used flintlock firing mechanisms. The barrels of most models of Queen Anne pistols were shaped like miniature cannon barrels. 

A Queen Anne Pistol. Click on the image to enlarge.

Image is  licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license by Trulock at Wikipedia

Queen Anne type pistol made by Galliard in Lausanne, Switzerland around 1760. Click on the image to enlarge.

Image is  licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 France license.

To load this type of pistol, the user would first unscrew the barrel from the chamber (this is why they are also called turn-off pistols). The chamber is designed to be long and narrow, with a cup on top. After unscrewing the barrel, the user would load some black powder into the chamber and then place a bullet ball on to the cup. Then the user would screw the barrel back in place and tighten it with a key. Notice that the barrel is tapered from the breech to the muzzle. This is a deliberate feature. The diameter of the bullet is larger than the diameter of the barrel at the breech, therefore it cannot roll out through the barrel. The bullet stays in place on the cup and holds the black powder in the chamber, without using any wadding.

When the user pulls the trigger, the flintlock mechanism ignites the black powder in the chamber, which burns and produces high-pressure gas in the chamber. The hot gases push the bullet out of the cup and through the barrel. Since the barrel is tapered from the breech to the muzzle, the bullet is deformed as it is pushed out of the barrel. The bullet forms such a tight seal within the barrel that the high pressure gas gives the bullet much more velocity than muzzle loaders of that era.

In some early models, the barrels were smoothbore, but later models began to feature rifling in the barrel, in order to improve accuracy. This meant that they had higher velocity and better accuracy than most other pistols of that era. Although some infantry officers carried them for close range fighting, these were not used much as military weapons, because they took longer to load than muzzle loaders and could not be easily re-loaded in the middle of combat. Therefore, the majority of purchases were by civilians. 

These pistols originated in England, but also spread to France, Switzerland etc. Several of them were used by Americans during the American Revolution. It is thought that most of these came into American hands after the Siege of Boston. 

The nice thing about such pistols was that most of them were made in sizes that could be easily stowed in a coat pocket, or tucked into a belt, thereby allowing them to be easily concealed. This is why they became popular among civilians as a self-defense weapon. Many were owned by rich people and therefore, quite a few examples are highly decorated with silver and gold engravings.

These pistols were also popular with pirates, The infamous pirate, Edward Teach, better known to the world as "Blackbeard", has been depicted in several portraits, carrying a number of these pistols around his body.

The pirate captain Edward Teach, alias "Blackbeard". Notice the pistols tucked into his belt.

The character, Jack Sparrow, in the Pirates of the Caribbean series of movies, also carries a Queen Anne type pistol and hands it to Angelica in the movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Now, we present a small movie showing the features of this pistol:

Happy viewing!

The Kalthoff Repeater

In the early days of firearms, when most of them were muzzleloaders, reloading a firearm after it was shot took some time to accomplish. Today, we will study a firearm that attempted to solve this issue, the Kalthoff Repeater.

First, we should go into the origin of the name: This repeater was actually invented by an unknown inventor in the 17th century, but many of them were later manufactured by the Kalthoff family of gunsmiths and hence, they are now commonly referred to as Kalthoff repeaters.

The first known member of this gunsmithing family was Herman Kolthoff (1540-1610), who came from the town of Kultenhof in the Westphalia region of Germany (back in Herman Kolthoff's times, this area was part of the Danish duchy of Schleswig). He was a well known and rich person, famous for his iron manufacturing factories. He had several sons, who served as gunsmiths for various royal families across Europe: Peter Kalthoff (1600-1672), who served Fredrick III of Denmark as Head of Armory; Matthias Kalthoff, another Danish gunmaker; Caspar Kalthoff the Elder (1606-1664), who served under Charles I in England; Henric Kalthoff (1610-1661) who founded several ironworking foundries in Sweden and Norway etc. Some of their other descendants were also gunsmiths, e.g. Caspar Kalthoff the Younger, son of Caspar Kalthoff the Elder, who served as gunsmith for both Charles II of England and Tsar Alexis I of Russia.

The Kalthoff repeater is a smoothbore musket with two magazines. The first magazine is located in the forearm section of the musket and contains round bullet balls. A second magazine is located within the stock of the firearm and stores gunpowder.

A Kalthoff repeater. Click on image to enlarge.

Much like the lever-action rifle which was invented two centuries later, the trigger guard is actually a lever that helps operate this weapon. Upon pushing and pulling the trigger guard, the mechanism puts a charge of gunpowder and a ball into the breech of the weapon and then cocks the weapon. A small carrier device carries the powder from the magazine to the breech, to prevent the danger of the flame reaching the powder magazine. The user only has to manipulate the trigger guard lever, add some priming powder to the firing pan and the weapon is ready to fire. In some models, there is no need for the user to add priming powder to the pan manually, as there is a third magazine to feed the priming powder automatically.

Firing mechanism on some early models were wheel-locks and later models were flintlocks. Early models held six or seven shots, later there were some twelve shot models made and even one that claims to hold thirty shots. Typical reload time was one or two seconds, which gave this weapon a huge advantage over any other weapon in the 17th century. In fact, it wasn't until the middle of the 19th century that any other weapon came close to matching the rate of fire of a Kalthoff repeater.

However, this type of weapon was mostly used by rich people only. The mechanism was complicated and needed a specialized gunsmith to assemble and repair it. Also, wet powder and powder fouling could jam the mechanism easily. Therefore, this made it unsuitable for general military use and only rich people and elite military units used it. One example of military use was about 100 of these guns used by the Danish Royal Foot Guards in the Scanian war.

Some fine examples of this type of weapon exist in museums today:

Seven shot Kalthoff repeater

The above fine hunting gun is a seven-shot model that was made in London in 1658 and is now in the Moscow Kremlin museum. Inscriptions on it say that it was made by Caspar Kalthoff the Elder and Harman Barne (otherwise known as Haerman Barnevelt). This weapon was presented to Tsar Fyodor Alexeevich of Russia in 1664, by the British ambassador Prince Charles Howard. A similar gun with the inscription, C. Kalthoff, from around 1660, is in the Royal collection in Windsor Castle.

The gun has a seven bullet magazine in the fore-end and a powder magazine in the lock part of the wooden stock. In the safety catch is a transporter that holds a little more gunpowder than is necessary for firing. To reload, the user points the gun upwards and then moves the trigger guard 180 degrees forward and back. This has the effect of moving the sliding blocks to load a bullet and gunpowder into the breech and cocks the weapon. The remaining gun powder that is left in the transporter is then tipped out on to the priming pan and the gun is ready to fire.

The gun is made of steel, copper alloy and high quality walnut wood. A hunting scene featuring dogs and a deer are engraved on the lock plate, a dragon is engraved on the cocking piece and there are other decorative engravings, carvings and gold inlays on the weapon as well.

The Kalthoff family were not the only people that made this type of firearm though:

Five shot repeater

The above example can also be found in the Moscow Kremlin museum. It is a five-shot repeater and was made in London around 1660, by the above mentioned Harman Barne (Haerman Barnevelt). Harman Barne was a Dutch gunmaker, who moved to London and became a Gunmaker to King Charles I and Charles II, as well as Prince Rupert of England. This fine weapon is also made of steel and walnut wood with fine engravings, carvings and gold inlays. Unlike the previous example, this weapon has a rifled barrel with 8 grooves in it.

Unusual Firearms: Key Guns

In our last article about unusual firearms, we looked at the Greener police shotgun. In today's post, we will look at a very unusual class of firearms, a combination of a key and a gun, the so-called Key Gun.

Key guns were apparently used in the 17th and 18th century, but they are pretty rare. They were apparently intended to be used by jailers for self-defense purposes, when they were making their daily inspections of the prison cells. The idea being that the jailer could use the same object to open the cell door and also defend himself, in case the prisoner inside tried to escape.

Key guns were initially incredibly primitive devices. The example above is merely a tube sealed on one end, with a touch-hole on top. Note the lack of any firing mechanism. The jailer would have carried a lit cigarette or cigar in his mouth. To discharge this weapon, the jailer would touch his cigar on the touch-hole and light the powder within the key.

Some other examples had actual firing mechanisms. For instance, we have a model that uses a matchlock firing mechanism, one using a flintlock and another one using percussion cap technology.

Click on images to enlarge.

Whether these weapons were actually practical or not is a completely different matter. These are all small-caliber and short range firearms with low stopping-power and it isn't quite clear how usable one of these is once the jailer has started turning the key, because the gun can no longer point at the prisoner and the jailer can't put his finger on the trigger while turning the key. No wonder then that these weren't very popular.

The Charleville Musket

After our last couple of posts where we studied the development of the first truly American rifles, we will study an influential French musket called the Charleville Musket. Don't worry, there's an American connection to this as well, which will be mentioned later down this article.

The Charlevilles were actually a family of muskets that were used by the French military. The first in the series was the Model 1717, which was adopted (as you may already have guessed) in the year 1717 AD. This model was the first in the French military to be built to a standard pattern specification. It was a musket with a flintlock firing mechanism, a smooth bore barrel of .69 caliber (17.5 mm. diameter) and weighed somewhere between 9-10 lbs. (4-4.5 kg.). While the concept of rifling was already understood at this time, the decision to use a smooth bore barrel over a rifled one was deliberate. In those days, the fouling in the barrel caused by black powder took a while to clean and infantry commanders noted that the smoke produced by the firearms tended to negate the rifle's longer range and accuracy anyway. Also, rifling was more expensive to manufacture as well. Therefore, the designers chose to use a smooth bore barrel with this firearm. However, the smooth bore barrel lacked accuracy beyond 50-100 yards or so, therefore the solution was to line up men in a massed formation and tell them to fire at a target, hoping that at least some of them would hit something. A good trained person could fire only about three times in a minute, therefore there was a bayonet included for close range fighting. The stock was made of walnut wood and the butt was shaped so that it could be used as a club at close ranges.

Improvements to the musket led to new models in 1728, 1743, 1746, 1763, 1766, 1770-1776, 1777 etc. and they were produced until the 1840s or so, when they were replaced with firearms using percussion locks. They were used during the French revolution and also by Napoleon's soldiers.

Model 1866 musket. Click on image to enlarge.

Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic from wikipedia.org

These muskets were officially called the French infantry musket, but the reason we know them as "Charlevilles" is because of America. These muskets were originally produced by firearm factories located in various towns of France, notably St. Etienne, Tulle, Maubeuge and Charleville (in the Ardennes region of France). Although St. Etienne was the factory that produced the most muskets, it was the factory at the town of Charleville that contributed to this series of firearms being labelled as "Charlevilles". The reason was that during the American revolution, the French decided to aid the Americans. Due to the influence of the Marquis de Lafayette, large numbers of French muskets were shipped over to America during the early days of the revolution. Many of the US troops fighting in the revolution were armed with the model 1773 and 1776 muskets and the French forces aiding the US troops were armed with model 1777 muskets. It is a common misconception that American forces were mainly using Kentucky rifles that we studied about in the previous post. In reality, the majority of the firearms used by US soldiers during the American revolution were French in origin. Some of these muskets were made by the Charleville factory and had markings that indicated where they were made. Pretty soon, American soldiers started to call all muskets as "Charleville" whether they were made by the Charleville factory or not, and the name stuck.

The Charleville musket later went on to heavily influence the design of the Springfield Model 1795, which was the first firearm officially produced by the US Government for use by American soldiers. Like the Charleville, the Springfield Model 1795 was a .69 caliber muzzle-loader with a smooth bore barrel and a flintlock firing mechanism and weighed between 9-10 lbs. Interestingly, one of the contracts to manufacture this model was given to Eli Whitney in 1798 and led to him developing the concept of interchangeable parts and modern production techniques.

The Charleville musket design was also copied by Austria, Belgium, Prussia and Russia and they remained in service until around 1845. There are modern replicas still being produced today by various companies.

History of the American Rifle - II

In our last post, we left off at the beginnings of a rifle designed for American frontiersmen. We will continue our study in this post.

As was mentioned in our last post, the first true rifle designed for the American frontier came out of Pennsylvania around 1738-1739. The area around Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, is regarded as the birth-place of such firearms and for a long time, it was the Pennsylvania Germans (also called the "Pennsylvania Dutch", even though they didn't speak Dutch!) who dominated the manufacturing of rifles in America. From them, the knowledge spread to the frontiersmen of New York, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina and by 1750, it was widespread among all the frontier areas of the Allegheny Mountain range.

It is commonly believed that these rifles were first used in war during the American revolution, but this is not the case. The first time they were used in war was by Pennsylvania frontiersmen against the French fort of Louisburg, on Cape Breton Island.

In New England, these rifles were practically unknown until two groups of men from Pennsylvania and Virginia arrived at the siege of Boston, during the American revolution. The first troops raised by Continental Congress was six companies of men from Pennsylvania, two companies from Maryland and two from Virginia. These men all brought their own firearms along with them. In fact, it wasn't until much later that the United States Government officially started manufacturing rifles for its army. These rifles were popularly known as the Kentucky rifle, even though the design was originally from Pennsylvania.

Soon after the American revolution, the Rev. Alexander Forsyth invented the percussion lock system over in England. It took a while for the mechanism to reach American shores, but once it got here in around 1835 or so, it was quickly adopted here in America. It was also around this time (1840s or so) when the exploration of the American West started.

American long rifles. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License from Wikipedia.

The top rifle is a percussion lock and the bottom is a flintlock.

This created two forms of the American long rifle. For the Eastern frontiersman, the Kentucky rifle design called for a smaller bore weapon, because the Eastern rifleman normally carried his ammunition in his own backpack and usually made his long journeys on foot. These rifles were sometimes called "pea rifles" because they fired .32 to .38 caliber balls, about the size of a pea. Usually, these rifles started out as .32 caliber and as they got older and wore down, they would be taken back to a gunsmith to be rebored and that would increase their caliber. The barrel was long and heavy and the total weight of the rifle was around 12-15 pounds or so. The butt-plate and patch box were made of brass and usually engraved.

In contrast, a person hunting or exploring in the Western United States demanded a different kind of firearm. For one, they needed something of bigger bore to hunt larger animals like moose, elk, buffalo, grizzly bear etc.  Also, the Western hunter found long barrels somewhat more inconvenient to use on horse back. Finally,  the weight of ammunition was not a problem because the Westerner carried his ammunition boxes on his mule rather than on his back. So they used .40 to .60 caliber ammunition and a shorter barrel, the other features of the rifle being retained from the Kentucky rifle design.

We will study more in subsequent posts.

History of the American Rifle - I

When we first studied the concepts of rifling many months ago, we mentioned that this was known to German speaking people and the names, Gaspard Kollner of Vienna and Augustus Kotter of Nuremberg were mentioned as pioneers in the 1500s. In 17th and 18th century Europe, the German Palatinate region (in south-western Germany) and part of Switzerland were devastated by frequent warring, such as the Nine Year War, the War of Spanish Succession and several invasions by the French military. Between May and November 1709, about 13,000 refugees from this region came over to England to settle down. The English tried to settle some of them in the New World, in exchange for producing stores for the British Navy (tar, wood etc.) and acting as a security buffer between the settlements and the Native American tribes.

Some of these Germans and Swiss were settled in the Pennsylvania area in 1683 and were known as the Pennsylvania Dutch (even though they spoke German rather than Dutch!). Among them were a few experienced gun-makers. The original rifles that they introduced were what they were used to in Europe. These were short, heavy rifles with large bores of approximately an inch. As can be expected of such a large bore firearm, the recoil was terrific. The lead ball was required to be loaded with the aid of a mallet and an iron ramrod. The fouling in the barrel was so bad that after firing the first shot, the user would have to spend several minutes cleaning the barrel before they could reload. This is because the rifle in Europe was a weapon of war mainly and the only people who hunted animals for sport in settled European villages were members of the aristocracy, who didn't have to care too much about missing a shot. However, in America, the settlers soon found themselves living in the wilderness and depending on their rifles for their survival. So they began modifying their weapons to suit their new environment.

The first requirement was that the firearm must be accurate. The second requirement was that the weapon should not waste any of its powder charge, because of powder supply problems. Hence, this led to the lengthening of the barrel so that accuracy was improved and the entire powder charge that was placed in it would burn before the bullet left the barrel. Since many of the settlers often went on hunting expeditions for several days travelling by themselves, carrying larger heavy bullets meant that they would have to carry less of other useful supplies. Hence, they began to reduce the bore of their rifles so that the bullets would be smaller and weigh less. Smaller bullets and powder charges also meant less recoil from the rifle, thereby improving the accuracy of it. The ability to reload quickly was essential in life and death situations, hence the invention of the greased patch by some unknown settler. The sound of the rifle firing could attract the attention of unfriendly Native American tribes in the area, hence the settlers modified their rifles to have heavier barrels so that the sound produced by a firing rifle was minimized. Finally, since the barrel was heavier, someone came up with the idea of using light hickory wood instead of iron for the ram-rod, so that the overall weight of the rifle was not excessive.

Several of the gun-smiths met and discussed their innovations with each other and the first truly American frontiersman rifle which contained all the above features was born around 1738 or 1739 in Pennsylvania.

Early American Flintlock from 1739, made by Matthew Roesser of Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Weight: 8 lbs, caliber: 0.40 inches. Public domain image.

A typical frontiersman rifle consisted of a muzzle-loading firearm with a  flintlock firing mechanism, fired a lead ball of anything between 1/2 oz. to 1 oz. in weight, on the side of the stock was a small box where the user could keep extra greased patches and small cleaning tools. The barrel was heavy and rifled. The powder was stored in a powder horn, which was usually made from cattle horn, hollowed out and decorated.

To reload such a firearm, the user would pour some powder from the powder horn into a measuring flask, or even the palm of their hand, then this powder was poured down the barrel of the firearm. Next a greased patch made of leather or linen cloth was placed on top of the muzzle and a bullet was placed on top of it. Next, the user would pull the light hickory ramrod out from under the rifle barrel and use it to push the patch and ball down the barrel. Since the patch was greased, it took less effort to do this. Then the ramrod was returned back to its storage under the barrel and the pan was carefully primed with a few grains of powder and the flintlock mechanism was cocked and the rifle was ready to shoot. An experienced hunter could do all of this in about 30 seconds and some of them were so skillful that they could do it while running. These rifles were accurate up to around 100 yards or so and a good hunter could keep his shots inside a 1.5 inch diameter circle at this distance.

In our next post, we will study more about the development of the American rifle.

Shotguns: Actions and Designs

The early history of true shotguns begins in the 1800s, when people began to use them to hunt birds. During that time, the flintlock firing mechanism was the ignition system of choice and hence, it should be no surprise to know that early shotguns used them. The problem with such mechanisms is that there is a noticeable delay between pulling the trigger and the weapon actually discharging. The Rev. Alexander Forsythe, a Scottish clergyman and an avid hunter, noticed that the local birds would see the flame in the pan and immediately change direction and thereby escape. Hence, he set about inventing the percussion lock, which was the next big development in firearms technology and was also used by other firearms besides shotguns. The percussion lock was eventually replaced by modern cartridges, which we use to this day.

Shotguns come in both single barrel and double-barrel types. Double-barreled shotguns have two triggers, one to discharge each barrel. Of the double barreled shotguns, there are two types: "side by side" type and "over and under" type. What this means is how the two barrels are positioned. In "side by side" types, the barrels are placed beside one another, whereas "over and under" types have one barrel positioned on top of another.

"Side by Side" type shotgun

"Over and Under" type shotgun

Double barrel shotgun barrels are never attached parallel to each other, but instead set so that their shot will converge at some point (usually at 40 yards distance). In some shotguns, one of the two barrels may be made different from the other. For instance, one may have rifling and the other is smoothbore, or one barrel may be choked for closer shooting. In other cases, both barrels may be made as identical as possible.

Of all the actions, the break-open action, such as the two images above, is the most common type and has been around for a long time. This is a breech-loading mechanism. It was realized in 1875 that the movement of opening the action could also be used to cock the weapon at the same time. The first such cocking mechanism was pioneered by Anson and Deerley for their hammerless shotgun and it is still used almost unchanged to this day. Break-open actions are the most common type used for shotguns.

Another action that was invented in the mid 1800s and rare today, is the side-motion action. In this type of action, the barrels are mounted on the edge of a metal disc. A lever in the bottom of the stock rotates this disc, which causes the barrels to move in an eccentric motion, where they can be reloaded.

Another action that was invented in the 1800s, but is rare now, is the sliding barrel action shotgun. There are only a few manufacturers around that make this type currently and it was never as popular in the 1800s either.

Sliding Barrel Action Shotgun

Lever action shotguns were popular in the 1880s. The Winchester model M1887 was designed by John Browning and became a best-seller for the company. This was the first truly successful model of a repeating shotgun. This action allowed for users to load multiple cartridges into the weapon, not just one or two cartridges. Their popularity waned after the design that we're about to study in the next paragraph was introduced, and we don't see too many lever action shotguns these days.

Lever-action

The action that replaced the lever action design is the pump action shotgun design. The first popular ones of this type were the Winchester M1893 and M1897 models, which were designed by John Browning! It must be noted that when Winchester originally asked Browning to design a repeating shotgun in the 1880s, he had argued that a pump-action mechanism shotgun would be the most appropriate design, but Winchester was a lever-action manufacturing company, so they persuaded him to design a lever-action shotgun, which was the M1887 model described above. However, they did later manufacture his pump-action design as the Winchester model M1893, which was later improved to the model M1897. It must be noted that the M1897 shotgun gained so much popularity that it was used by US soldiers in World War I, where it was found very useful for trench fighting. Its quick shooting speed and massive stopping power made it a very effective weapon for US soldiers to have. In fact, the German troops feared this weapon greatly and the German High Command even attempted to have it outlawed in combat, by citing Geneva convention laws (this coming from the same people that allowed the use of poison gas!). The pump-action shotgun design is still popular to this day.

Pump Action shotgun

There are also semi-automatic shotguns, where some of the force generated by the firing cartridge is used to eject the old cartridge, cock the action and load a new cartridge. Semi-automatic shotguns use a variety of mechanisms: long recoil action, inertia operated action or gas-operated action. The first successful semi-automatic shotgun was the Auto-5 (or A-5) action first designed in 1898 by (surprise, surprise) John Browning! The Auto-5 model remained in production until 1998!

Semi-automatic Remington Model 11 shotgun using long-recoil action

Bolt-action shotguns also exist in the wild, though they are not common. One particular model was manufactured in .410 caliber by the Ishapore arsenal of India, based on the Lee-Enfield SMLE Mark III model.

Ishapore .410 caliber bolt action shotgun. Click on image to enlarge.

In the next post, we will look into more about shotguns.

The Flintlock

The flintlock was the next big advance in firing mechanisms. The flintlock was based on a Spanish invention called the miquelet lock. The flintlock took its ideas from the snaphaunce lock, which was itself an improvement over the snaplock. In a flintlock, the pan cover and the steel plate (a.k.a, the "frizzen") are combined together.(public domain image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Like the snaplock and the snaphaunce, this weapon has a serpentine hammer, which has jaws at the end, to which can be screwed on a piece of flint. Like the other two weapons, it has a steel (called a "frizzen") facing the piece of flint. When the trigger is pulled, the flint strikes the steel and releases sparks. Here's where the flintlock's innovation comes in. The steel frizzen is shaped like the letter 'L'. The horizontal part of the 'L' covers the firing pan where the priming gunpowder is. So the flint on the falling hammer strikes the frizzen and causes sparks of hot steel to form. As it is falling, it also pushes the frizzen away from the flint, thereby opening the pan cover and exposing the pan's contents. So the generated sparks will fall into the pan and light the priming powder that is in the pan.

If all goes well, the priming gunpowder in the pan will light. There is a tiny hole in the pan that leads to the main charge of gunpowder in the barrel. The flame will travel through this tiny hole and light the main charge and the weapon discharges. If all doesn't go well, the sparks may not fall into the pan, or the powder in the pan may light, but doesn't light the main charge. This is called a "flash in the pan", i.e. a flashy initial start, but no results.

The advantages of this weapon over its predecessors are many:

1. Unlike the matchlock, this weapon doesn't require the user to carry an lit match at all times to discharge the weapon. Hence it is much safer to use, especially in larger groups of soldiers or near gunpowder supplies. It can also be used more reliably in rainy weather.
   
2. The mechanism is not as expensive to manufacture as the wheel-lock and doesn't require as much specialized metallurgical and mechanical knowledge to manufacture.
3. Unlike the snaplock, the cover for the pan opens automatically when the trigger is pulled. Hence it is possible to carry the firearm loaded in damp conditions and not worry about the gunpowder getting wet, as the pan cover opens right as the sparks are generated.
4. Unlike the snaphaunce, there are fewer parts in this firing mechanism, as the pan cover and the steel are the same part. Hence, this leads to better reliability and less cost.

To load a flintlock, one would first fill the barrel with the main gunpowder charge and bullet. Then, the user would position the hammer at half-cock, i.e. they would pull the hammer back against spring pressure to a position called "half-cock" which was a "safe" position from which the hammer would not normally spring back. Then the user would pull back the frizzen cover and load the pan with priming powder and close it. Finally, the user would pull the hammer back to its full extent (i.e. full cock position) and the weapon would be ready to fire.

While the half-cock position was supposed to be "safe", sometimes a faulty safety mechanism would release the hammer from this position and it would strike the frizzen. Striking the frizzen from the half-cock position wasn't supposed to have enough force to cause sparks to form, but occasionally this would happen and the weapon would discharge. This is the origin of the modern-day phrase "going off half-cocked", which means "to take a premature action".

Flintlocks stayed with us for a very long time. The mechanism was invented in the 1600s and was used till at least 1850 or so. Some flintlock weapons are manufactured even in this present day, for hunting enthusiasts who prefer to use black-powder weapons.