Someone in France, ca 1912: I know what you're thinking. 'Did he fire twenty shots or only nineteen'? Well to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I kind of lost track myself. But being that this is a 6.35mm Manufrance, the largest-diameter cylinder handgun in the world, and would knock your tophat clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well do ya, ribald?
« A-t-il tiré vingt coups de feu ou seulement dix-neuf »? Eh bien, pour vous dire la vérité, dans toute cette excitation, j'ai en quelque sorte perdu la trace moi-même. Mais étant donné qu'il s'agit d'une Manufrance de 6,35 mm, l'arme de poing à cylindre de plus grand diamètre au monde, et qu'elle vous ferait tomber votre tophat proprement, vous devez vous poser une question: « Est-ce que je me sens chanceux? » Eh bien, faites-vous, ribald?
As we used to say in the automotive repair business, "The French copy no one, and no one copies the French".... What a delightfully zany piece of kit! Thanks, Ian.
Pretty much. If you think German cars are *overengineered* you should see the older french cars. In Europe, older french cars are known as nightmares to work on. While they are often practical, they also have weird, impractical solutions for simple things just for the sake of being different. Not so much anymore, they started to come to their senses around the mid to late 1990's. They would still have some bullshit going on well into the 2000's, but modern french cars are for the most part, fine.
Redoutable is a name that's been used for a lot of ships, a 74 gun ship built in 1749, one built in 1791 named after the last Redoutable which was a Téméraire class 74 gun ship of the line, a xebec, an aviso, another ship of the line from the 1830's (I think) and the first ever steel warship. Terrible is a name that's been used a lot too, there are at least 12 (if my memory serves me right) ships called Terrible from the latter half of the 1600's to the 1800's from small bomb ships to gunboats, large ships of the line and ironclads, some of which would also end up serving in the Royal Navy.
Yeah, there's a number of traditional ship names that are kept in service in both the french navy and the royal navy because those damn perfidious brits used to steal the damn things and then use 'em in their own fleets :D.
@@GaldirEonai Did you know that there have been 6 HMS Temeraire's? The British stole the first two from the French before deciding that it was easier to simply steal the name and build their own :)
1:35 For those who are familiar with Astérix, a reference to the Manufrance catalog appears at the beginning of Astérix and the Normans. It probably flew over the heads of most foreign readers: one of the villagers receives in the mail a huge pile of marble slabs, the "antique" version of said catalog. Later on, he threatens to throw it at Justforkix when the latter makes a showy entrance on his souped-up chariot.
I have my doubts on that but I definitely would like to see it. But like he said in the beginning you'd probably have to make cartridges or have it made because it was a very low pressure round likely made for that specific gun. I would definitely like to try it out. I imagine the recoil is probably very light.
@@0ptera karl over on inrange TV nailed the spinner a couple days ago with a colt 1873 without a reload. When it comes to mass 6 x .45's beats 20 x .25's. He also nailed it with a Spencer of all things !
It's French, exceptionally weird, with high quality workmanship and Ian does all the accents for it's naming. Surely he's going to buy this for his collection.
Never mind the revolver, can we just appreciate for a second that in the Francophone world a century or so ago it was completely normal for a manufacturer to specialise in making guns *and* bicycles. I get that there was actually a lot of similarities between the two at the time as both required machining of mechanical devices that require high levels of precision that were catered to a mass-market audience, but God is it still goofy as heck to know that the FN logo was once a pair of bike pedals crossed with a rifle! 😂🤣
This would be a cool "villain" gun in some action movie... A slow mo shot as they're trying to shoot the hero, and you see the alternating muzzleflashs from the upper and lower barrels...
I love how FRENCH revolvers made in France look. I mean there's little tells in a lot of nationalities of revolvers of that era, sure, but French revolvers always look like absolute cartoons with those massive high backs off the almost undersized looking handle. I'm probably describing this with all the wrong terms but.. I mean, one look at that gun, and you KNOW it's French before anyone says anything.
I own an odd MANUFRANCE single-shot, bolt-action, 14mm/32 ga. shotgun/garden gun. The bolt shroud encapsulates the breech instead of the opposite. I could not determine what the proof marks meant, so I hand loaded trimmed 32 ga. shotshells with black powder and .490 round balls and shot them as a test. It is such a delicate little beauty and so odd mechanically, I just had to buy it. It is now a closet queen. I forget I even own it until Ian reminds me with videos like this.
It's a funny thing. I'm not really interested in firearms, other than for their being varied examples of applied engineering. But Ian's knowledge, enthusiasm, and excellent personable presentation skills, mean I must have watched just about every episode of Forgotten Weapons. Thank you.
Steve1989 is like that. I'm not especially interested in military rations, but his combination of knowledge and passion for the subject is addictive. The two people are similar in many ways, very different in others.
Same here, guns are like machines and I always have been interested on knowing how different type of machines work. Mr Ian makes a very friendly presentation for many people to understand
In the old Sears’ catalog you could literally buy houses. My friend’s house on a plantation in Guatemala is house built from a kit ordered off the catalog around 1900. It also happened that the house was then built atop a Mayan pyramid.
There is a museum in Berryville, Arkansas that has one of these. It is the second largest Colt collection outside the Colt manufacturing themselves. They have lots of neat firearms. The guy who collected them was a millionaire at the turn of the century, and traveled the world collecting firearms along with some other stuff.
The cost being a limiter of those over 100 years ago also explains why, for all the people that say they'd buy one, one made now in .22 lr wouldn't get sales because not nearly enough people would pay SIG money for range toy :(
Ian, some french docs state it is Le Redoutable in 6,35 mm (or 0.25 caliber). "fabriqué dans les calibres 6,5 vélodog, 6,35 (20 coups)" Aparently a HDH Liege product and brevet of 1910; but manufactured by Saint-Etienne.
For those wondering about firing blanks at dogs, whilst I do not know globally, but the British prison service uses blanks to train prison dogs incase a firearm enters a prison or when a prisoner has one during an escape. My father was a dog handler and had a blank firing revolver issued by the prison service. As a child I was facinated by the barrel not having been drilled out on the revolver.
I'd really like to know more about the .32 version. More specifically the power of that cartridge. If it was as strong as .32s or a proprietary lower power cartridge because of the unsupported rim. That might've given it appeal even over the automatic pistols of the time, simply for having a significant first load output. Then again, who would ever need 16 shots outside of combat? It's excessive for riot control and ship captains weren't having the same threat of mutiny as when the duckfoot was being sold.
Unsupported rims are not that big a deal pressure-wise. For example, almost all European military revolvers did not have recessed chambers and worked just fine.
@@paidwitness797 in the early 1900s, for that price, imported from France? Muricans wanted big boomers and reliable, all for a moderate price. This gun wouldn't have done well in America, at any time really. It was always a novelty, like an over sized parlor gun but for legitimate personal defense. I think it's really cool, but doesn't stand out besides having a rather large capacity. Look at the volcanic pistols, they had a lot of lead too. It's a size thing and then capacity. It wouldn't be until serious automatic arms came about that mag size was worth bragging about. Not a historian, just never saw it contrary to this, and as a citizen in the sticks my whole life it just doesn't make sense to have such a bulky gun with that much lead in it unless you were expecting to be outnumbered and in a real close fight. Even then, you really only need a few really good shots to send the rest packing.
@@paidwitness797 Hi. To make it short, these hi capacity revolvers were designed to the colonies or explorer's market. At the time, France had the second largest colonial empire on earth, spanning on large parst of Africa and Asia, and some South America and islands in the Pacific, and for those who went living there, it was deemed usefull to some, to have a hi capacity gun, should you go in the wilderness and encounter wild animals or "hostile tribes".
Well, if you wanted a high capacity sidearm and revolver reliablility (remember semiautos were a new thing at this time) this looks like a good option for the early 20th century...
🎵ALL THESE THOUGHS RUNNING THROUGH MY HEAD! ARM ON FIRE, VEINS BURNING RED! FRUSTRATION, IS GETTING BIGGER! BANG!! BANG!!! BANG!! PULL MY DEVIL TRIGGER!!🎵
@Cristian Rudi Because in brutal trench fighting a small calibre gun won't do the job and you don't have time to shoot someone 4 or 5 times before you get a bayonet through the chest...
@Cristian Rudi Ww1 is brutal close range trench fighting... if you shoot twice you need to shoot 2 different people... it's a matter of historic account that low calibre pistol bullets have little stopping power and this is recorded many times for instance during the philippine genocide.... causing a fatal wound to someone is only useful if the wound is instantly fatal... if the person lives another 2 or 3 seconds he can finish you.. you don't have time to double tap everyone or evaluate damage... you need to be able to shoot for the centre of mass and know that that's it.. hence a stopping weapon.... I'm sure you can find many references on forgotten weapons or other sites or gun chats about how important it is to stop someone with one shot when in trench warfare or other brutal close quarters work... there could be many enemies to deal with and you don't have the time or luxury to do precision work on them... as for shooting them twice.. that just defeats the point of having this weapon as you may as well use a c96 with dum dum ammo (as Winston Churchill did) and get better effects with less effort and quick reloading... it's a nice gun... just not a military piece for full scale warfare or genocide. .
@Cristian Rudi Hi there.. I understand how it is confusing to think that 1mm doesent make a difference but with the size of bullet and load these are the facts.. 6.35mm .25cal 36 grain bullet 900fs 85J power 7.65mm 93grain bullet 1200fs 413J power .455 webley 265 grain bullet 700fs 392J power You see from this that the 6.35mm was not an anti personnel round as it has 4 or 5 times less power.. is only 38 percent as heavy as a 7.65 and only 9 (nine) percent as heavy as a .455 webley... The british prefered the entire round to stop within the target to ensure maximum destruction and stopping power... The 7.65mm tended to overpenetrate and therefore would only impart a portion of its power...
Thank you Ian for the added details of the social history of Manufrance's guns and the effects of the Great War. Those are interesting details that really help flesh out the history.
Oh, for a modern version! 16 shot 32HR magnum? Lightweight materials, modern steel, scandium, titanium - etc... I have known about these for decades. The idea just intrigues me, 'practical' or not. Someone actually should market a modern .25 caliber revolver round. A lengthened .25 acp with an actual rim? Big gap between .22, and .32 calibers... =.251 'magnum'? Any way- Thanks, what a beauty. Exquisite!
In Ion Fury main character uses revolver visually inspired by Pistola con Caricato 3 barrel, 18-shot revolver. Though in game it fires 3 shots at once, so it's 6 shots 3 bullets each.
Yeah, I remember fondly my many, many hours of looking through the pages of Manufrance catalogs as a kid growing up in rural France, in the 1960s and early 70s (later moved to the States, attended university in California, and then 24 years in the US Air Force as a pilot. Now living in Florida - thank God!). Good ol' days...
Ok, hear me out. Look at all the wasted space on the outer circle of the cylinder. That outer circle could fit a much bigger caliber bullet!! A gun that fires two different calibers, what could possibly go wrong?
The only problem is that it would be hard to regulate which barrel fired. Unless you had some way to switch the cylinder rotation so you could choose witch cartridge to fire, it would fire the small shell every other shot, which seems like it would be bad if you had to use it.
1:26 Well, even today. Kovrov ZID plant still makes bikes alongside machineguns. 9:04 To add a bit more context, the most expensive military bolt action rifle of the day, Greek Mannlicher-Schoenauer M1903, was purchased at that time for a ludicrously high price of 75 franks a piece, 5 times the cost of an average military rifle of its day.
@@williamsample2631 Oh of course. Ian has a love for French guns for sure. It's actually something I look at as an incredible historical peice and also an example of an idea that actually works.
Hi. To make it short, these hi capacity revolvers were designed to the colonies or explorer's market. At the time, France had the second largest colonial empire on earth, spanning on large parst of Africa and Asia, and some South America and islands in the Pacific, and for those who went living there, it was deemed usefull to some, to have a hi capacity gun, should you go in the wilderness and encounter wild animals or "hostile tribes".
@@laurentrouy-transeuromedia1662 That may have been the advertizing hype. Actual effective calibers for defense/offence were used by more survivors. Thus, tacti-cool as a term for something that sounds good but would likely get you killed.
Lol, but with this low powered dinky round you'd make a dent with the 1st shot & a real puncture with the 2nd lmao. I would love to see someone proficient at it fan this things hammer & see what kinda RPM we can get.
@@lairdcummings9092 No doubt, but cool level is thru the roof. It probably was a better conversation starter than a personal defense weapon lol. Imagine seeing someone with one of these hanging off their hip lol? And a bandolier of tiny .25 cartridges lmao?
It'd be hilarious to see this being reloaded after being fired - ejector rod is depressed and a shower of empty shell casings fall...followed by a sigh by the user as he started to load each cylinder one by one.
Say what you will about a .25 caliber weapon, I used a 25-06 for a hunting round and I never had to track a wounded deer. I am a rather good shot having been a reloader who visited the range at least twice a week (old police range that was only used when one of us on the PD wanted to practice and for qualification.) and got very good with my firearms.
It wasn't just "economic trouble". France went off the gold standard to pay for WW part 1, so the jump of 40 francs to 200 francs can also be due to an approximate quintupling of the money supply.
It was refreshing to watch a segment that wasn't about a military weapon. I'm sure there are plenty of Forgotten Weapons that sportsmen and shooters used that didn't make the battlefield. Hope to see more.
@@williamsample2631 The most sensible assumption would be .25 ACP, the gun might have needed a rimfire or rimmed centerfire cartridge for it to work, and .25 ACP is a rimmed centerfire cartridge and was available at the time due to FN adopting it in one of their guns. Comparable to .22 LR in ballistics, but hey, even .22 LR is deadly when it hits the vitals.
I don't know anything about the power of such a small cartridge but the quality of craftsmanship, detail and manufacturing accuracy of this revolver is quite impressive even 100 years later.
Have you ever shot the old H&R revolvers? They weren't 20-shot or double barrel . I believe they were 9 shot. Then there was another derivative Iver Johnson break apart also 9 or 10 shot. Quite fun to shoot in their day. Although I agree with you something like this reconstructed would be fun!
On the same note, re bicycles and guns, the Chauchat was designed to be produced by bicycle shops, primarily Gladiator, which had the spare production capacity.
Excuse me if this was already said, but barrel regulation is a lot about off axis recoil in SxS double rifles, with short on axis barrels and low recoil, and the short range of handguns, the regulation is much easier. It is a matter of geometry and far less of an art than heavy recoiling rifle regulation tends to be. That gun is a work of art!
It is interesting that firearms have been such a good economic yard stick over the years. The pricing of a Colt 0.45 has been used as an inflation gauge in several papers I have read as it is an item that was in continuous production for many years. Thanks for bringing us the history of all these esoteric firearms.
This is an intriguing weapon. It could be reinvented in the US in something like 22 WMR but current pistols like the Ruger 57 or the Kel-Tec 22WMR semi auto would probably be too much competition.
The reason why I like this channel is all the additional information of historical context and background and not just talking about the gun like the average cheap gun porn junk on YT. Keep up the good work, Ian. Talking about history...I am looking forward to some more historical site trips even that will be in the far future with the big mess going on.
Not sure if this is something you’ll see… I’m guessing Headstamp pulled the book after so many reactionaries were offended. Its a damn shame. Its even more of a shame that people would turn their back on you without reading the book or thinking they have the slightest clue about what actually happened in the Ukraine I’ve read plenty of books about the Eastern front in WW2 without thinking the publisher must be pro Yahtzee or pro Stalin/communism. I wish this turned out differently but obviously some people aren’t as mature as you thought. Best wishes and you certainly haven’t lost my support… guess I’ll be upping my Patreon contribution to offset someone who bailed.
I wouldn‘t say anyone turned their back on Ian. In fact I would say it was the opposite. Nearly every comment I saw was nice and about not wanting this to ruin everything that Ian has built in Forgotten Weapons. As for the book, this comment I found on Reddit sums it up best: My problem isn't publishing the memories of a radical, it's trying to sweep the politics under the rug. Political agenda's are inevitable when covering a group like Azov because they are so explicitly political. This is like writing a book about the International Brigades in Spain without mentioning the politics. Orwell was upfront about his beliefs in his books and that is what this book should be. It's disingenuous to cover this group while ignoring the political context. Not addressing that context is frankly irresponsible.
@@finskigerman6485 admittedly about half of the comments wouldn’t load and of the 60 or so I saw it seemed about 1/3 were negative but there was definitely a lot of support to. I was specifically referencing the people saying they will cancel their Patreon support or worse over this. If you liked Ian and his work enough to voluntarily send him money every month, it seems rather reactionary to change your mind about someone based on your preconceived ideas of what the book is about. I wouldn’t whitewash anything (I don’t think that’s what the book was gonna do either) but looking at the tactics and weapons from an impartial view seemed rather interesting to me. Rommel’s Infantry Attacks was written by a guy who was one of Hitler’s original Führerbegleitbrigade… that doesn’t make the publisher a supporter. First hand accounts are often the best sources but I’m afraid our educational system has failed to such a point that to say most Americans’ view of history is narrow would be a monumental understatement. We gotten to the point where no one can handle any sort of discussion about a sensitive subject or god forbid risk offending even those on the furthest periphery of the subject.
@@finskigerman6485 while I’m certainly no supporter of Azov(quite frankly I don’t much about them and now I guess I won’t get the chance), I wouldn’t put any stock in what our “news” outlets have reported either.
I own two Manufrance shotguns from the 1950's and 60's, those were well made, robust and reliable, in fact one of those I own is called a Robust model 12ga.
Wasnt there an American firm (I want to say Seattle based) that made a double action 2 barrel revolver in 357 magnum, staggered chambers firing alternate barrels. I distinctly remember reading articles in contemporary gun magazines in the 70s or 80s. I thought it was Detonics before they started making auto loaders but that may not be right.
Thanks for the interesting video Ian! I must say I'm really quite surprised how thin the metal gets between the two barrels on this pistol. Even with a relatively low pressure cartridge, I can't imagine those barrels have a particularly long service life. Although they probably weren't designed with that in mind. Tacticool over practicool, even a century ago!
Someone in France, ca 1912:
I know what you're thinking. 'Did he fire twenty shots or only nineteen'? Well to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I kind of lost track myself. But being that this is a 6.35mm Manufrance, the largest-diameter cylinder handgun in the world, and would knock your tophat clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well do ya, ribald?
This made me laugh so hard that I woke my wife up and now she's grumpy at me. No regrets, it's worth the cold shoulder.
Haha brilliant. You win the internet today with that comment. 😁
Lu et approuvé.
HA! 😃
« A-t-il tiré vingt coups de feu ou seulement dix-neuf »? Eh bien, pour vous dire la vérité, dans toute cette excitation, j'ai en quelque sorte perdu la trace moi-même. Mais étant donné qu'il s'agit d'une Manufrance de 6,35 mm, l'arme de poing à cylindre de plus grand diamètre au monde, et qu'elle vous ferait tomber votre tophat proprement, vous devez vous poser une question: « Est-ce que je me sens chanceux? » Eh bien, faites-vous, ribald?
As we used to say in the automotive repair business, "The French copy no one, and no one copies the French"....
What a delightfully zany piece of kit!
Thanks, Ian.
Good point. It's ingenious and intriguing but wildly impractical.
You bet I hate working on french macks! Renault built midliners for Mack for a while. Yuck.
@@darklordofsword yep smokeless powder,Renault FT17 and its universally copied turret concept,revolution's........the French get copied quite a bit
Pretty much. If you think German cars are *overengineered* you should see the older french cars. In Europe, older french cars are known as nightmares to work on. While they are often practical, they also have weird, impractical solutions for simple things just for the sake of being different. Not so much anymore, they started to come to their senses around the mid to late 1990's. They would still have some bullshit going on well into the 2000's, but modern french cars are for the most part, fine.
pretty much, french guns are either some of the best, or some of the worst lmao
theyre cool like that
Le redoutable (the fearsome) was also the name of the first french nuclear powered submarine. I'm not sure if it carried 20 ICBM, though.
16 SLBM's and 4 torpedo tubes, so 20 tubes total!
@@StuSaville it's the tubes that bring the boys to the yard after all
Redoutable is a name that's been used for a lot of ships, a 74 gun ship built in 1749, one built in 1791 named after the last Redoutable which was a Téméraire class 74 gun ship of the line, a xebec, an aviso, another ship of the line from the 1830's (I think) and the first ever steel warship. Terrible is a name that's been used a lot too, there are at least 12 (if my memory serves me right) ships called Terrible from the latter half of the 1600's to the 1800's from small bomb ships to gunboats, large ships of the line and ironclads, some of which would also end up serving in the Royal Navy.
Yeah, there's a number of traditional ship names that are kept in service in both the french navy and the royal navy because those damn perfidious brits used to steal the damn things and then use 'em in their own fleets :D.
@@GaldirEonai Did you know that there have been 6 HMS Temeraire's? The British stole the first two from the French before deciding that it was easier to simply steal the name and build their own :)
1:35 For those who are familiar with Astérix, a reference to the Manufrance catalog appears at the beginning of Astérix and the Normans. It probably flew over the heads of most foreign readers: one of the villagers receives in the mail a huge pile of marble slabs, the "antique" version of said catalog. Later on, he threatens to throw it at Justforkix when the latter makes a showy entrance on his souped-up chariot.
That's what it was! It always confused me, but I always assumed it was the equivalent of a magazine subscription
Well picked up Dave! 🇬🇧👍🇫🇷
Thanks mate i had never heard of this. Going to dig through my old books asap to see it again
"I shall throw the Arms and Armour Firm's mail order catalog at him if he doesn't watch out!"
Well done, Dave! 👍
I hope he can show us this on a firing range at some point.. I really like the idea of a 20 shot revolver..
Given he's saying he doesn't know what cartridge it uses, I suspect not.
Maybe Chiappa can make a repro in .22 WMR?
I have my doubts on that but I definitely would like to see it. But like he said in the beginning you'd probably have to make cartridges or have it made because it was a very low pressure round likely made for that specific gun. I would definitely like to try it out. I imagine the recoil is probably very light.
20 shot should give the best chance of beating the spinner with a revolver.
@@0ptera that's pretty hilarious..🤣
@@0ptera karl over on inrange TV nailed the spinner a couple days ago with a colt 1873 without a reload. When it comes to mass 6 x .45's beats 20 x .25's. He also nailed it with a Spencer of all things !
The amount of pre-CNC machine work that went into that firearm is stunning. Skilled people doing excellent work.
It's French, exceptionally weird, with high quality workmanship and Ian does all the accents for it's naming. Surely he's going to buy this for his collection.
Not going to... Have bought sir 😇😁😂
You think he gets first dibs?
@E Van Not me, Ian 😂
Never mind the revolver, can we just appreciate for a second that in the Francophone world a century or so ago it was completely normal for a manufacturer to specialise in making guns *and* bicycles. I get that there was actually a lot of similarities between the two at the time as both required machining of mechanical devices that require high levels of precision that were catered to a mass-market audience, but God is it still goofy as heck to know that the FN logo was once a pair of bike pedals crossed with a rifle! 😂🤣
Typewriter, sewing machines, guns and bicycles. If you had a workshop that could make one of those you would often branch out to the other.
Consider BSA, for example.
French are crazy man they are the one who drink a coffee driving a tank and attack the enemy at the same time lmao.
In that period the number of firearms patents was only exceeded by the number of bicycle patents.
@@lougrims And aeroplanes, though probably that actually used far more wood and canvas.
Just for this year's sake, I would hope someone would make a rimfire reproduction of this revolver so we could have a 20-.22
I would probably pay a ridiculous sum for such a cool little gun. then live off ramen for the rest of the month.
22 magnum for sure!
@@levergatRapha I have one; it's pretty great.
@@spookyindeed The H&R 999 was the very first firearm I wanted, as a boy.
@@levergatRapha Diamondback is making a clone of that H&R called the sidekick
This would be a cool "villain" gun in some action movie... A slow mo shot as they're trying to shoot the hero, and you see the alternating muzzleflashs from the upper and lower barrels...
I love how FRENCH revolvers made in France look. I mean there's little tells in a lot of nationalities of revolvers of that era, sure, but French revolvers always look like absolute cartoons with those massive high backs off the almost undersized looking handle. I'm probably describing this with all the wrong terms but.. I mean, one look at that gun, and you KNOW it's French before anyone says anything.
google the name, Raymond Loewy :and you will see how many things you think are very American are due to French design. and you didn't know right away.
The grip looks a lot like the Imperial Russian M1895 revolver (which had Belgian origins, Nagant).
I own an odd MANUFRANCE single-shot, bolt-action, 14mm/32 ga. shotgun/garden gun. The bolt shroud encapsulates the breech instead of the opposite. I could not determine what the proof marks meant, so I hand loaded trimmed 32 ga. shotshells with black powder and .490 round balls and shot them as a test. It is such a delicate little beauty and so odd mechanically, I just had to buy it. It is now a closet queen. I forget I even own it until Ian reminds me with videos like this.
Offer to send it to him!
Am I nuts that I would love to see this revolver fired on a range? I know it’s probably impossible to find ammo for it but I love old weird guns.
It's a funny thing. I'm not really interested in firearms, other than for their being varied examples of applied engineering. But Ian's knowledge, enthusiasm, and excellent personable presentation skills, mean I must have watched just about every episode of Forgotten Weapons.
Thank you.
Yo same broh
Same here
Steve1989 is like that. I'm not especially interested in military rations, but his combination of knowledge and passion for the subject is addictive. The two people are similar in many ways, very different in others.
Same here, guns are like machines and I always have been interested on knowing how different type of machines work. Mr Ian makes a very friendly presentation for many people to understand
Im glad to find a channel about guns that talks about the history and mechanics instead of just being some oorah macho destruction shootingfest.
In the old Sears’ catalog you could literally buy houses. My friend’s house on a plantation in Guatemala is house built from a kit ordered off the catalog around 1900. It also happened that the house was then built atop a Mayan pyramid.
IT WAS ALIENS MANG
@@RenegadeStriker7 my friends claim the house is haunted AF
@@joshuaradick5679 Are the ghosts friendly or hostile?
@@KageMinowara don’t know. I’ve never met them
@@joshuaradick5679 The friend or the ghost?
There is a museum in Berryville, Arkansas that has one of these. It is the second largest Colt collection outside the Colt manufacturing themselves. They have lots of neat firearms. The guy who collected them was a millionaire at the turn of the century, and traveled the world collecting firearms along with some other stuff.
Would love to see a 20-round speed loader for this.
That would be such a huge, unwieldy thing.
The cost being a limiter of those over 100 years ago also explains why, for all the people that say they'd buy one, one made now in .22 lr wouldn't get sales because not nearly enough people would pay SIG money for range toy :(
“Move fast baby don’t be slow. Step aside, reload, time to go.”
Ian, some french docs state it is Le Redoutable in 6,35 mm (or 0.25 caliber). "fabriqué dans les calibres 6,5 vélodog, 6,35 (20 coups)"
Aparently a HDH Liege product and brevet of 1910; but manufactured by Saint-Etienne.
For those wondering about firing blanks at dogs, whilst I do not know globally, but the British prison service uses blanks to train prison dogs incase a firearm enters a prison or when a prisoner has one during an escape. My father was a dog handler and had a blank firing revolver issued by the prison service. As a child I was facinated by the barrel not having been drilled out on the revolver.
pretty interesting
This is definitely up there high on the list of coolest guns! Brilliant engineering!
I'd really like to know more about the .32 version. More specifically the power of that cartridge. If it was as strong as .32s or a proprietary lower power cartridge because of the unsupported rim. That might've given it appeal even over the automatic pistols of the time, simply for having a significant first load output. Then again, who would ever need 16 shots outside of combat? It's excessive for riot control and ship captains weren't having the same threat of mutiny as when the duckfoot was being sold.
In the flipside, if you need to kill absolutely every bugger in the room, accept no substitutes.
Unsupported rims are not that big a deal pressure-wise. For example, almost all European military revolvers did not have recessed chambers and worked just fine.
Try the 'who needs 16 shots?' argument with some Americans, i'll wait here where its safe! People are always people, if some is good, more is better.
@@paidwitness797 in the early 1900s, for that price, imported from France? Muricans wanted big boomers and reliable, all for a moderate price. This gun wouldn't have done well in America, at any time really. It was always a novelty, like an over sized parlor gun but for legitimate personal defense. I think it's really cool, but doesn't stand out besides having a rather large capacity. Look at the volcanic pistols, they had a lot of lead too. It's a size thing and then capacity. It wouldn't be until serious automatic arms came about that mag size was worth bragging about. Not a historian, just never saw it contrary to this, and as a citizen in the sticks my whole life it just doesn't make sense to have such a bulky gun with that much lead in it unless you were expecting to be outnumbered and in a real close fight. Even then, you really only need a few really good shots to send the rest packing.
@@paidwitness797 Hi. To make it short, these hi capacity revolvers were designed to the colonies or explorer's market. At the time, France had the second largest colonial empire on earth, spanning on large parst of Africa and Asia, and some South America and islands in the Pacific, and for those who went living there, it was deemed usefull to some, to have a hi capacity gun, should you go in the wilderness and encounter wild animals or "hostile tribes".
Well, if you wanted a high capacity sidearm and revolver reliablility (remember semiautos were a new thing at this time) this looks like a good option for the early 20th century...
Yeah, but he mentions that this gun was as expensive as the semiautos, which fired larger caliber rounds.
Finally Ian has found Nero's gun
yes
BSA (Birmingham Small Arms) also used to manufacture bicycles.
yeah it was probably for a bunch of pratical reasons for sure.
I love old guns where every component is machined by hand, save for some of the flat springs. Everything is so smooth and contoured.
🎵ALL THESE THOUGHS RUNNING THROUGH MY HEAD! ARM ON FIRE, VEINS BURNING RED! FRUSTRATION, IS GETTING BIGGER! BANG!! BANG!!! BANG!! PULL MY DEVIL TRIGGER!!🎵
Revolver High Power ....
Truely a masterpiece of work... as one would expect from the French. ... nearly useless for a war but impressive...
@Ψ Воинomme
There were many well off officers leading the rank and file.. but most had the sense to aquire something more conventional...
'nearly useless for a war, but impressive'...couldn't have described the French better myself.....
@Cristian Rudi
Because in brutal trench fighting a small calibre gun won't do the job and you don't have time to shoot someone 4 or 5 times before you get a bayonet through the chest...
@Cristian Rudi
Ww1 is brutal close range trench fighting... if you shoot twice you need to shoot 2 different people... it's a matter of historic account that low calibre pistol bullets have little stopping power and this is recorded many times for instance during the philippine genocide.... causing a fatal wound to someone is only useful if the wound is instantly fatal... if the person lives another 2 or 3 seconds he can finish you.. you don't have time to double tap everyone or evaluate damage... you need to be able to shoot for the centre of mass and know that that's it.. hence a stopping weapon.... I'm sure you can find many references on forgotten weapons or other sites or gun chats about how important it is to stop someone with one shot when in trench warfare or other brutal close quarters work... there could be many enemies to deal with and you don't have the time or luxury to do precision work on them... as for shooting them twice.. that just defeats the point of having this weapon as you may as well use a c96 with dum dum ammo (as Winston Churchill did) and get better effects with less effort and quick reloading... it's a nice gun... just not a military piece for full scale warfare or genocide. .
@Cristian Rudi
Hi there.. I understand how it is confusing to think that 1mm doesent make a difference but with the size of bullet and load these are the facts..
6.35mm .25cal
36 grain bullet 900fs 85J power
7.65mm
93grain bullet 1200fs 413J power
.455 webley
265 grain bullet 700fs 392J power
You see from this that the 6.35mm was not an anti personnel round as it has 4 or 5 times less power.. is only 38 percent as heavy as a 7.65 and only 9 (nine) percent as heavy as a .455 webley...
The british prefered the entire round to stop within the target to ensure maximum destruction and stopping power...
The 7.65mm tended to overpenetrate and therefore would only impart a portion of its power...
Thank you Ian for the added details of the social history of Manufrance's guns and the effects of the Great War. Those are interesting details that really help flesh out the history.
Oh, for a modern version! 16 shot 32HR magnum? Lightweight materials, modern steel, scandium, titanium - etc... I have known about these for decades. The idea just intrigues me, 'practical' or not. Someone actually should market a modern .25 caliber revolver round. A lengthened .25 acp with an actual rim? Big gap between .22, and .32 calibers... =.251 'magnum'? Any way- Thanks, what a beauty. Exquisite!
16 shots of 327 fedmag
Exactly the cartridge I was thinking of.
And again I learned something new and up until now completely unknown to me. Thank you Gun Jesus!
This gun looks like the perfect revolver for one of those 2077 cyberpunk memes
In Ion Fury main character uses revolver visually inspired by Pistola con Caricato 3 barrel, 18-shot revolver. Though in game it fires 3 shots at once, so it's 6 shots 3 bullets each.
Yeah, I remember fondly my many, many hours of looking through the pages of Manufrance catalogs as a kid growing up in rural France, in the 1960s and early 70s (later moved to the States, attended university in California, and then 24 years in the US Air Force as a pilot. Now living in Florida - thank God!). Good ol' days...
Nero’s Revolver if it were real.
Yup. Thought that as well!
What a cool piece. I love the crazy high and tall cylinder and frame. Utterly bananas.
Ok, hear me out. Look at all the wasted space on the outer circle of the cylinder. That outer circle could fit a much bigger caliber bullet!! A gun that fires two different calibers, what could possibly go wrong?
I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, but that might actually be a viable idea if drillings and vierlings are anything to go by.
The only problem is that it would be hard to regulate which barrel fired. Unless you had some way to switch the cylinder rotation so you could choose witch cartridge to fire, it would fire the small shell every other shot, which seems like it would be bad if you had to use it.
Beautiful condition...thanks Ian..
it never ceases to amaze me how innovative we used to be in france.
merci le partage, Ian, formidable pistolet, vraiment ettonnant!
Mais oui, formidable!
It's no Blue Rose, but thats still a fine work of craftsmanship :3
“Dubious real practical value, but certainly extremely cool.” That fully summarizes Ian’s life and profession. 10:28 🤣🤣🤣
Thanks for another great video, Ian. I was 100% expecting it to fire both barrels at once. Clearly not quite that mad a design!
1:26 Well, even today. Kovrov ZID plant still makes bikes alongside machineguns.
9:04 To add a bit more context, the most expensive military bolt action rifle of the day, Greek Mannlicher-Schoenauer M1903, was purchased at that time for a ludicrously high price of 75 franks a piece, 5 times the cost of an average military rifle of its day.
What made the mannlicher so expensive? 5 times??
@@supersarge24 As far as I remember, it was its rotating magazine.
@@F1ghteR41 Looking more into it, makes sense
I.NEED.THIS
This is an absolutely gorgeous piece of engineering.
That is a magnificent revolver. I would genuinely like to own one
You know Ivan does because it's French. It'll be something to go with his headgear, submachine gun and machine gun, all French of course!
@@williamsample2631 Oh of course. Ian has a love for French guns for sure. It's actually something I look at as an incredible historical peice and also an example of an idea that actually works.
An amazing creation. Would love to see it in operation.
Nero's iconic gun from Devil May Cry series™️
Tacti-cool is definitely a useful term. Thanks for an interesting presentation, Ian. I appreciate the societal context as well as the technical.
Hi. To make it short, these hi capacity revolvers were designed to the colonies or explorer's market. At the time, France had the second largest colonial empire on earth, spanning on large parst of Africa and Asia, and some South America and islands in the Pacific, and for those who went living there, it was deemed usefull to some, to have a hi capacity gun, should you go in the wilderness and encounter wild animals or "hostile tribes".
@@laurentrouy-transeuromedia1662 That may have been the advertizing hype. Actual effective calibers for defense/offence were used by more survivors. Thus, tacti-cool as a term for something that sounds good but would likely get you killed.
If you took a shot for every time Ian says something French, you would still have at least ten shots left in this thing.
I remember seeing a drawing of this thing in a encyclopedia when I was a kid (back in the 80s) and its capacity impressed me back then.
OG Hi-Capacity
For when you need that double-tap in the 19th century.
Lol, but with this low powered dinky round you'd make a dent with the 1st shot & a real puncture with the 2nd lmao. I would love to see someone proficient at it fan this things hammer & see what kinda RPM we can get.
@@johnbrennan8611 so, you're saying it's a primitive tandem round weapon?
Seems legit.
@@lairdcummings9092 No doubt, but cool level is thru the roof. It probably was a better conversation starter than a personal defense weapon lol. Imagine seeing someone with one of these hanging off their hip lol? And a bandolier of tiny .25 cartridges lmao?
LOVE IT!!! It's beautiful, ludicrous, and quintessential Forgotten Weapons awesomeness!
Ian: "the firing pins don't protrude far enough to hit this ejector plate"
also Ian: shows the ejector plate with marks from the firing pins...
Maybe the marks were from people firing / dry firing whilst slightly pressing the ejection rod. It Is an old pistol.
Cartridge in first chamber should stop second firing pin from hitting the ejector plate while shooting. These marks are the result of dry-firing.
Thank you , Ian .
🐺
It'd be hilarious to see this being reloaded after being fired - ejector rod is depressed and a shower of empty shell casings fall...followed by a sigh by the user as he started to load each cylinder one by one.
Biggest speedloader in the world. Which takes a minute to get lined up with the cylinders...
Say what you will about a .25 caliber weapon, I used a 25-06 for a hunting round and I never had to track a wounded deer. I am a rather good shot having been a reloader who visited the range at least twice a week (old police range that was only used when one of us on the PD wanted to practice and for qualification.) and got very good with my firearms.
"Le redoutable" would translate rather to The Fearsome or better even The Formidable.
Thanks, Ian. I bet you’d love to get one onto the range.
It wasn't just "economic trouble". France went off the gold standard to pay for WW part 1, so the jump of 40 francs to 200 francs can also be due to an approximate quintupling of the money supply.
Inflation. A worldwide and historic problem.
He has gun: *Panic*
It's just revolver (6 rounds): *Calm*
He didn't reload after 6th round: *Panic*
Hey Ian! We have a French gun, it's an obscure piece, a revolver that's got a double barrel and it's twenty shots with a-
Ian: You had me at 'French.'
TY for showing the chamber pattern in the cylinder! I always wondered how these were configured. Actually learned something today! :)
When you think that videogame design ideas are stupid and you see a variant of Bombshells (Ion Fury) revolver in the hands of the gun jesus
Was looking to see if anyone else mentioned this before I said it.
It was refreshing to watch a segment that wasn't about a military weapon. I'm sure there are plenty of Forgotten Weapons that sportsmen and shooters used that didn't make the battlefield. Hope to see more.
The not so Trypophobia friendly revolver.
YES! I'm so pleased one of these revolvers made it onto the channel!
I'm picking that if I'm forced to play Russian roulette
FN: we'll call it the hi power
Manufrance: the VERY high power
Though it has a 20 shot capacity, the French would only ever go up to 19/20.
If this is in the hand of a GIGN operative, there will be 20 casualties before that operative even reloads.
@@kuronoch.1441 it would be interesting to see what the ballistics of this cartridge.
@@williamsample2631 The most sensible assumption would be .25 ACP, the gun might have needed a rimfire or rimmed centerfire cartridge for it to work, and .25 ACP is a rimmed centerfire cartridge and was available at the time due to FN adopting it in one of their guns. Comparable to .22 LR in ballistics, but hey, even .22 LR is deadly when it hits the vitals.
When the barrel of the pistol was pointing directly at the camera I had to tilt my phone away from me. The instinct is too strong.
Pathetic. ITS A VIDEO CINDERELLA. Time to put on your big person pants .
What tf happened to blue rose?
dante probably messed with it
I don't know anything about the power of such a small cartridge but the quality of craftsmanship, detail and manufacturing accuracy of this revolver is quite impressive even 100 years later.
Someone needs to remake this in .22lr, now that would be fun. I can see a 20 shot, double barrel heritage rough rider being made lol
Have you ever shot the old H&R revolvers? They weren't 20-shot or double barrel . I believe they were 9 shot. Then there was another derivative Iver Johnson break apart also 9 or 10 shot. Quite fun to shoot in their day. Although I agree with you something like this reconstructed would be fun!
What a great piece of kit. A testament to the design.
Unwieldy, expensive and of dubious real utility. Looks like the great-grandfather of the desert eagle was french.
the reason i watch the tubes is the ramble. please continue uninterrupted as long as you like
A really cool gun I would never buy.
I think thats true of most people
We all dream about finding very rare revolvers labeled "Russain Naganto 1995" in pawn shops for 200 bucks.
On the same note, re bicycles and guns, the Chauchat was designed to be produced by bicycle shops, primarily Gladiator, which had the spare production capacity.
Hey it's the gun from "Alone in the Dark". I always thought it was just a fantasy firearm.
That's a blast from the past.
Excuse me if this was already said, but barrel regulation is a lot about off axis recoil in SxS double rifles, with short on axis barrels and low recoil, and the short range of handguns, the regulation is much easier. It is a matter of geometry and far less of an art than heavy recoiling rifle regulation tends to be. That gun is a work of art!
I’m glad you explained the firing pin mechanism. I initially cringed when you dry fired this.
It is interesting that firearms have been such a good economic yard stick over the years. The pricing of a Colt 0.45 has been used as an inflation gauge in several papers I have read as it is an item that was in continuous production for many years. Thanks for bringing us the history of all these esoteric firearms.
This is an intriguing weapon. It could be reinvented in the US in something like 22 WMR but current pistols like the Ruger 57 or the Kel-Tec 22WMR semi auto would probably be too much competition.
The reason why I like this channel is all the additional information of historical context and background and not just talking about the gun like the average cheap gun porn junk on YT.
Keep up the good work, Ian. Talking about history...I am looking forward to some more historical site trips even that will be in the far future with the big mess going on.
Early gang
Yes
Hello early gang have a good day
Oh my god, it's Nero's Blue Rose!
Grab your came here on the first hour ticket here friends
Seems a truly fun pistol for target shooting or small game.
Not sure if this is something you’ll see…
I’m guessing Headstamp pulled the book after so many reactionaries were offended. Its a damn shame. Its even more of a shame that people would turn their back on you without reading the book or thinking they have the slightest clue about what actually happened in the Ukraine
I’ve read plenty of books about the Eastern front in WW2 without thinking the publisher must be pro Yahtzee or pro Stalin/communism.
I wish this turned out differently but obviously some people aren’t as mature as you thought.
Best wishes and you certainly haven’t lost my support… guess I’ll be upping my Patreon contribution to offset someone who bailed.
I wouldn‘t say anyone turned their back on Ian. In fact I would say it was the opposite. Nearly every comment I saw was nice and about not wanting this to ruin everything that Ian has built in Forgotten Weapons. As for the book, this comment I found on Reddit sums it up best:
My problem isn't publishing the memories of a radical, it's trying to sweep the politics under the rug. Political agenda's are inevitable when covering a group like Azov because they are so explicitly political.
This is like writing a book about the International Brigades in Spain without mentioning the politics. Orwell was upfront about his beliefs in his books and that is what this book should be.
It's disingenuous to cover this group while ignoring the political context. Not addressing that context is frankly irresponsible.
Wait, reactionaries are offended? I think you mean the leftists who are crying about the Azov battalion.
@@finskigerman6485 admittedly about half of the comments wouldn’t load and of the 60 or so I saw it seemed about 1/3 were negative but there was definitely a lot of support to.
I was specifically referencing the people saying they will cancel their Patreon support or worse over this. If you liked Ian and his work enough to voluntarily send him money every month, it seems rather reactionary to change your mind about someone based on your preconceived ideas of what the book is about.
I wouldn’t whitewash anything (I don’t think that’s what the book was gonna do either) but looking at the tactics and weapons from an impartial view seemed rather interesting to me. Rommel’s Infantry Attacks was written by a guy who was one of Hitler’s original Führerbegleitbrigade… that doesn’t make the publisher a supporter. First hand accounts are often the best sources but I’m afraid our educational system has failed to such a point that to say most Americans’ view of history is narrow would be a monumental understatement. We gotten to the point where no one can handle any sort of discussion about a sensitive subject or god forbid risk offending even those on the furthest periphery of the subject.
@@finskigerman6485 while I’m certainly no supporter of Azov(quite frankly I don’t much about them and now I guess I won’t get the chance), I wouldn’t put any stock in what our “news” outlets have reported either.
@@finskigerman6485 screw context
This trip has had some fantastic forgotten weapons. Merci beaucoup Ader!!
The machine work on that piece is beautiful!!
Superb camerawork! I can see those pins clearly; that could NOT have been an easy shot to get.
Magnifique merci Ian!! Je ne connaissais pas cet exemplaire de la manu!!
Thanks Ian
That’s a beautiful pistol for it’s age
Very interesting 🧐
Cheers
Browning: I've made a pistol with a massive 13 round capacity. I'll call it the Hi-Power.
France: oh, you haven't heard of our Very Hi-Power?
I was in Saint-Etienne a few weeks ago, cool to hear about it's history out of nowhere
I own two Manufrance shotguns from the 1950's and 60's, those were well made, robust and reliable, in fact one of those I own is called a Robust model 12ga.
"this reload time is exhilarating!"
Wasnt there an American firm (I want to say Seattle based) that made a double action 2 barrel revolver in 357 magnum, staggered chambers firing alternate barrels. I distinctly remember reading articles in contemporary gun magazines in the 70s or 80s. I thought it was Detonics before they started making auto loaders but that may not be right.
Thanks for the interesting video Ian!
I must say I'm really quite surprised how thin the metal gets between the two barrels on this pistol.
Even with a relatively low pressure cartridge, I can't imagine those barrels have a particularly long service life.
Although they probably weren't designed with that in mind.
Tacticool over practicool, even a century ago!