Before the Lewis Gun was the McClean Automatic Rifle
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- Опубліковано 6 сер 2024
- Samuel McClean was a medical doctor from Iowa who began tinkering with firearms designs in 1889, and formed the McClean Arms Company in 1896. He was an intelligent and talented designer, but never quite managed to get a gun good enough for military acceptance. His work included bolt actions rifles, self-loading shoulder rifles, machine guns, and self-loading cannons. By 1910 his company had gone bankrupt twice, and he was forced out by his investors. Isaac Newton Lewis was brought in, and turned McClean’s initial concepts into the ultimately-successful Lewis Machine gun.
However, McClean made one least attempt to produce his own gun after World War One. This is the McClean Automatic Rifle, and it was tested by the US Navy in 1919 - and rejected. This pattern uses an operating system similar to McClean’s early work, and thus also quite similar to the Lewis gun. Instead of two large locking lugs, however, it has several dozen small lugs in two rows on each side of the bolt. The gas piston is also huge by modern standards; over an inch in diameter. The gun is unfortunately missing its magazine Still, it is the only example of the type known to exist, and probably the only one ever manufactured.
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Seeing rare historical firearms being irreparably damaged because of laws is always a huge shame
I saw a piece where an elderly widow had turned in an old rifle to a gun buyback. They are normally destroyed, but a police officer recognized it as a late war 8mm full auto German paratrooper rifle. FG-42 I believe. Anyway, it was diverted to a museum. Shame there is not a mechanism for amnesty registration for guns like this. In a recent video, one was valued at $250,000. That widow would have been well heeled door her twilight years.
An old lady found a Chinese auto cannon in the basement of a museum, it was immediately plugged and placed on display... people, if you find a machine gun, don't break it, bury it in the ground with a couple belts of ammo and wait till laws change to unbury it, that way you are not ruining every machine gun you come across.
My greatest fear is one day when I die my children's children not knowing the value of my fire arms will send them to a buy back for destruction.
@@RageUnchained This is why I keep everything that isn't run of the mill hobby related well documented. Receipts, a general homebrewn estimate, everything is available in paper so that my obscure hobbies and the obscure items associated won't get dumped.
I have 5 rescued machine guns in my collection at this point a MG42, MG34, 2 Browning 50cals and a Maxim Gun all were gonna be destroyed via buy backs and what you so I offered them double whatever the government would and now they are in armoury all in perfect working order with enough ammo that should some idiot politician think he can take my guns his goons will be dodging heavy ordinance for 6 months including the reclaimed panzer 4 my grand father nicked and hid away in his village during the occupation.
5:54 "McClean automatic musket magazine" now those are 4 words I never thought I'll hear in sentence together
What about these four words, magazine fed repeating flintlock?
Mr Clean doesn't fuck around
Here's one you'll literally never hear, "Beto O'Rourke has testicles".
@@zacharyrollick6169 but it actually exist
@@alcedob.5850 Yes, I know. Impressive devices they were.
Dr McClean goes to a fortune teller:
"I see a small machine shop...
"I see you... alone...
"And a lot of knurling...
"Jesus that's a lot of knurling."
There's another Universe. One where this was adopted.
[Man reaches to shake a (prospective) employee's hand.
He sees an intricate pattern burned into the man's arm]
"McClean Gunner ,eh?"
The old knurling master walks into the McClean Automatic Rifle:
"I see you have several radii surfaces left naked before Me. A pox on your unholy creation!"
And locking lugs. Lots and lots of locking lugs.
good poem
The perfect firearm to defend your dirigible from Sky-Pirates with.
Context?
@@lewhanwen4302 Just a joke. It looks like a fictional "steampunk" firearm, and dirigibles and "Sky-Pirates" are proto-typical steampunk tropes. The joke doesn't reference anything specific.
And there was me, trying to remember of any die hard played in the skies...
@@lewhanwen4302 pp 0
I got that shit bro, looks like the gun from the video game, the order of 1886
Somewhere in Podunk, USA there's a kludged old time-y homebrew carburetor air filter made using the magazine of this gun rusting away in an old car.
Or, and this truly is a horrible thought, when the gun was legally destroyed, the magazine was actually destroyed.
@@subduedreader5627 the sad thing is, I really wouldn't be surprised.
I was thinking maybe an ashtray but yeah..
Nah! In this part of "Podunk" we know what magazines are. And everyone knows that the best Homebrew air filters are crafted from a steel coffee can and an oily old sock. 😉
@@greybayles7955 seeing as there were people turning mosin nagants into furniture and lamps, yes I do.
There's a brass plate at the back of the gas piston that needs to be removed. After that's removed the oprod and gas piston can be removed from the gun. The oprod in this gun has some very interesting cuts and gates on it. The gate allow it to ratchet the feed gear in one direction. When I had this gun I was more amazed by the oprod construction than anything else.
Thanks. I was wondering what all of that machining was for- it's hard to see what rubs up against what when it's disassembled.
Those are the parts that need to be shown for posterity in these videos
@@jerkfudgewater147 the damage done by fools must be recorded
@@george2113 these guns are little piles of ideas… ideas for solving a short list of mechanical problems, for the same reason we keep atleast one copy of every book we should try to keep a copy of every one of these solutions (available to everyone).
@@jerkfudgewater147 hopefully more than one in each country as a lot of stuff gets destroyed
The 37mm guns ended up being used in Spain during the Civil War, as anti tank guns. They came from Russia, who bought them in WW1.
Looks very Jules Verne like it was something out of 20,000 leagues under the sea.
Yes! Absolutely spot on, it's like you read my mind. I see it firing fishing spears and Nemo looking all imperious and imposing, holding it alight.
yeah, very steampunk
Without the drum mag it's like a giant harpoon gun
It looks like it belongs in a BioShock game
It does look a lot like a harpoon gun
Somebody found the knurling tool.
knurlly dude
This cracked me up
There are so many places on this rifle where knurling makes absolutely no sense. It's wonderful!
Like watching that thing work isn't mesmerizing
slaps side of gun, "this baby's got locking lugs, this baby's got knurling, this baby's got a drum, this baby's the most tactical gun of the century"
This video wants me to repeal the NFA even more. Think of the gats!
But gatlings aren't NFA regulated.
Imagine how we feel in Canada since trudope said he wants to ban “assault” type rifles
@@smokythebear9711 He should. Civilians have no need for guns with a capacity over 5 rounds. Self-defence? Well if 5 shots doesn't work, then a gun is clearly useless to you. The AR-15 is a military design, and has no civilian application. For hunting, 5.56 is a terrible cartridge. If you're a hunter, and you can't kill something with 5 shots of .308, you must be a terrible shot.
Think of how much more mass shootings you would have. And don't say that more "good guys with guns" would do anything, because it wouldn't. Only about 6% of guns owned for self defence have ever been used that way. All a gun does does is cause the user to escalate the situation beyond what is necessary. Like that incident where a black guy had parked legally, was then accosted by a white guy who had a gun. They argued, the white guy got pushed and fell over, and in response, drew his gun and killed the guy who pushed him, while the guy's family watched. The white guy claimed protection under the stupid "stand your ground" law, and got away with murder.
Anzac-A1 police kill more innocents than mass shooters every year in the us
This might be the most steam punk gun you've dug up yet.
Check out the video about hand mortars
The only way it could possibly get more steampunk-y is if it actually had a little lighted boiler hanging off of the end of the stock.
Check out the Stendebach rifle and the handmade auto revolver
ua-cam.com/video/Qhoo_7v1ZK4/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/r7me_z0Qdcs/v-deo.html
and the converted semi auto SMLE
ua-cam.com/video/U682yOpNafg/v-deo.html
This might be the most recent "This might be the most steam punk gun" comment under Forgotten Weapons video yet.
The only thing sadder than an incomplete protoype is one that's been deactivated or demilled. Fascinating device, and I'm glad you presented it, but there should be some kind of legal protection against the dismamberement of unique historical firearms, even if it means surrendering it for storage by a licensed museum or similar.
Having watched how people deal with objects they know little about over the decades of my life, I would not hold out much hope for the return of the drum magazine. No doubt it would be extremely gratifying should it turn up but most likely it has been sent to a scrapyard or landfill by someone thinking it an old auto part.
Unfortunately yes, statistically it was most likely scrapped at this point, but it could still be out there.
This looks like an air pellet rifle, with that big cylinder on the bottom.
Like a Gifford rifle I thought
How many locking lugs should this design have?
McClean - Yes.
McClean: I wanna heal people
*McClean sees guns and starts messing with them*
McClean: I changed my mind
Smart man, he's creating his own job security.
Funny thing, Richard Jordan Gatling was a dentist, before making his gun.
Why wait for people to get hurt randomly, when you can just blast as many as you want, and proceed to heal them XD
@@Skyhawk1998 supplying your own demand 😂
He might well have gotten into arms design _because_ he was a doctor. Between about 1850 and World War I, there was a persistent notion among a lot of people who should have known better that one of the principal reasons for the high death counts in the wars of the time was because weapons weren't deadly enough. Seriously. The idea was that if weapons could be made sufficiently destructive, capable of killing enough men in a short enough span of time, it would a) reduce the size of armies, because you would need fewer soldiers to achieve the same level of military force, and b) so horrify public opinion and policymakers that war would no longer be seen as a viable instrument of foreign policy. That was Gatling's explicit motivation for inventing his eponymous gun: he thought that by making a weapon with which one man could kill a hundred, he could save the other 99, so to speak. It was a widely espoused view in his time.
(One notable exception was Hiram Maxim, who was just looking to get as rich as possible.)
World War I cured _most_ of this crazy idea's adherents of their illusions... eventually. Until the aftermath of World War II, when the same misconception put on a different shirt and became the core of nuclear deterrence doctrine.
A true (almost) forgotten weapon and it's amazing. I love how many similarities with other weapons you can see there. Thank you very much for showing this to us, Ian.
Gun Jesus blesses our left ears.
Y'know, people throw around "steampunk" all the time, I think for once it actually applies perfectly with this thing.
2:56
If KnurlPunk wasn't a thing before, it is after viewing this thing
Love these weird cobbled together looking weapons.
Its mc-Clean bro
That is one of the most striking guns I've ever seen. The trigger assembly looks like a 1600s wheelock. The buttstock and wood furniture reminds me of an MG 34 (or even more of a wheelock).The handle is pure bolt action and the rest could not get more steampunk. If you told me this was a steam powered machine gun I would believe you. It has a retro-futuristic feel about it, like the Edwardians invented a laser pistol or energy blaster. Seriously, I would expect this thing to be wielded by a time travelling Jules Verne character.
Ian, I just wanted to say that you and everyone that works on Forgotten Weapons, including InRange, do great work. I’ve been watching since the early 100k subscribers and there’s never been a moment where I didn’t enjoy your videos. It really is cool to see these guns and the progression man has made with engineering over the years of firearms history. And it’s even better when you go into detail with the history of these guns, because you find ever last detail that you can. Overall Ian, keep up the good work!
The mechanics of this weapon (and others) absolutely fascinates me! Thanks, Ian (and Morphy) for posting this vid!
Sad to see historical pieces destroyed like that
Islamic people destroy prehistoric statues and more to this date. Oh what a wonderfull world we life in.
@@viktorvanhauten5278 our president destroyed historical statues.
@@RageUnchained Which one?
@@reinbeers5322 in the building that was knocked down to build trump tower
@@RageUnchained
quoted from the NYT:
"That was good news for Donald Trump, who acquired the old Bonwit’s building and began demolition in 1980. He had promised the limestone reliefs of the dancing women to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which wanted them for its sculpture collection, although the offer was conditional on his being able to remove them. But suddenly workmen jackhammered them to bits.
This act was condemned by, among others, The New York Times, which said: “Evidently, New York needs to make salvation of this kind of landmark mandatory and stop expecting that its developers will be good citizens and good sports.”
The Trump organization replied that the two-ton panels were “without artistic merit,” that saving them would have delayed construction for months and cost $500,000."
Maybe next time, when they want their store to look nicer, don't pick 2-ton slabs of stone?
What a total act of vandalism. Its sad that something so unusual was cut up :(
There is a problem with the sound :(
Yes, it's only one channel in stereo :-) left for me ...
You're a problem with the sound.
Quit bitching you folks act like if the sounds a little off its the end of the world.
@@richardhughmongus5574 things get better when there is feedback. Feedback is not bitching.
I only get audio on the left channel.
For me its disturbing enough that I didnt watch it.
This "Channel" is a National and World TREASHURE!!
I just find Silver and Gold EVERY TIME!
I just found Forgotten Weapons on Amazon Prime Video!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am soo happy!!!!
Ian is the best!
„I‘m a medical Doctor in the US, how can I get more customers?
Ah, I invent guns.“
😉
Thought it said "Mr. Clean automatic rifle" LOL! It kinda does look like some steampunk cleaning implement.
I was Today years old when I learned the pre-lewis gun guy was born where i grew up. Wild.
Nice that you and Othias constantly refer to each other for more in-depth information.
Hmm kinda looks like an old timey pre-charged air rifle with that gas piston
I said the same!
Holy crap. Now THAT is a proper piston rifle :-D
This has got to be one if not the best gun I've seen on forgotten weapons, what a beauty 👌 👍
57 mm = 6 pdr; 47 mm = 3 pdr; 40 mm = 2 pdr, 37 mm can be either 1 pdr or 1.5 pdr depending on length of round.
This is a really cool firearm. It would also make a great star wars gun!
A slug thrower in an unknown fringe world, it actually fits the theme too
I'm pretty sure I used this gun in Bioshock.
Lmaooooo i thought no one talks about bioshok in 2019
@@user-ul9ky6bs7y It's never a bad time to talk about Bioshock
Bioshock(well, Infinite anyway) basically marked the end of "good games" as we know it, save a few notable exceptions. It's just insane how all the sudden every FPS has 'xray vision' on by default because apparently no one can handle getting 'surprised' by mediocre AI(I SWEAR in game AI has devolved over the last 5 years). Or, maybe just can't handle getting their ass handed to them...
Bioshock Infinite was really bad. Not that I was overjoyed playing 1st and 2nd, but that was just meh
@@PosranaRegistrace Definitely gotta disagree with you there boss. But to each their own.
That’s really cool I love looking at these old guns like this
He was also *REALLY* into knurling.
If this thing had ever been issued, the standard accessory kit would have to include a top hat and goggles.
Thank you , Ian .
I actually had my hands on another one just like this. It was at an estate sale this past January. No one knew what it was but it was complete except for a butt stock and the receiver was cut into pieces with a chopsaw. Aside from that it was a complete Rifle. There was no magazine there with it either but if the gentleman that purchased that kit, sadly not myself, where do you see this video and come forward it would confirm the existence of two of these. It would be neat to see if there was any difference between that one and this one
Why the hell hasn’t this comment gotten more traction? This changes everything! Could you still contact the person who purchased it?
Actually, it would seem like the one shown in the video isn’t the same one used in the trials. So maybe you saw the exact gun that saw use in the actual US trials of 1919!
This design seems so impractical, like it belongs in a steam punk novel. It’s amazing he still built it and thought it was viable.
This gun is great, you never have to service it, it just stays McClean
This is a crime!
This piece should have been given to a Museum where people can watch this type of funky gun's!
I bet this rifle would have been one of the most shared guns online because everyone would make pictures and comment on it!
And they chopped it
Thanks a pantload Ian. Now I HAVE to learn how to knurl absolutely everything .
Everything is knurled
Bolt used to disassemble the rifle: plain hex bolt from the hardware store
I love how almost every metal surface is knurled.
waking up to a video of forgotten weapons, what better way is there to start your day?
@@bluefalconssuck5881 nah, I've watched forgotten weapons long enough to not think twice about only having audio in one ear
Without having watched this video, I doubt I could pick this thing up and conclusively know which thing to pull on to make it go bang
Looks really clean
8:14
“at least a dozen locking lugs”
you forgot to say ‘in each row’
AMAZING. I noticed a quirky similarity with the M16. Such as the short cam turn "star" lug bolt, non-reciprocating bolt carrier and upper and lower assemblies easily broke down. I didn't catch what caliber it was, but that gas system must bleed a lot of gas, hence velocity. Good episode.
Very cool piece of history, it would be cool to see it working
Could say that McClenan had a good thing. Cashing in at both ends of the process.
The most heartbreaking video uploaded on this channel - I'm sure the 'holy grail' has been melted down for scrap by now too...
This poor gun deserves 1 minute silence.
When locking lugs are your absolute favorite things:
"I haveth a fever for which the only remedy is more locking lugs. Hasten, good sirs, to accommodate my ailment be cured and provide me with locking lugs too numerous to count! I beseech thee as well to provide the soothing sounds of my most favorite instrument, the calming melodies which may only be produced by more cowbell!"
You did the cartman 'hey guys' again lol awesome that makes 2.
Hey Ian, dunno if you plan on fixing the audio but one really easy way to do it is to mimic Mono hearing in your editing software on the audio track. It won't actually be mono, like you can kinda tell the difference but it should make the audio on each headphone a little better and get rid of that... unwelcome white noise coming from the right lol. Hope it helps!
A good way to do that us just take your track and make the output left-left
On you're left-right channels.
It is truly disgusting to see a piece of history butchered like that but I am glad that some of it still survived.
I was Also hoping to see how the ammo feed system works.
It would be nice to find a full set of blueprints or even photographs so we could re manufacturer imitation parts so it at least looks complete, better yet would be to fully fix it and make it operable
2 minutes in and I feel like I'm looking at something from an alternate reality that doesn't make any known sense yet. Thank you.
I didn’t think it was possible but this is even more steampunk than the Charlton
McClean: Okay I got this business model. You run the practice while I build weapons. People get shot up by them and you patch them up. It's a win win.......hmmmm maybe we should open a mortuary for the trifecta.
I did some preservation work on a 37mm 40 calibre Mclean Poole that had been mounted as a coast defence cannon in Finland. Incredibly it had exactly the same knurling on the barrel and recoil tube, it must have been incredibly expensive to do and really quite unnecessary.
Mc Clean sounds like a cheesy vigilante assassin name. "He wastes his targets, he cleanses the town, he is Mc Clean."
Dr Samuel McClean: "The Healing is not as rewarding as the Hurting!"
Read the title as the Mr Clean rifle at first. Needless to say I was a bit confused lol
I'm sure Lord's Electrical would make a nice review of a Mr Clean rifle.
Looks straight out of Hunt Showdown or the Metro series
3pdr gun is 47mm. 6pdr is 57mm. Most of the Navies of the world used both and a whole lot of other "pounder" guns.
As usual, a great video. Thanks Ian.
It's like Tetris!
Imagine designing something so complex and how many days sleep you'd lost dreaming about how the mechanism works.
The thumbnail looked like such a messy series of mechanisms I had to click. Well played, Ian xoxo.
I was frankly hoping it was another crazy bolt action conversion.
This monstrosity literally looks like the kind of guns I drew when I was 12: weird proportions, uncomfortable, unergonomic design, multiple triggers and other doodads, and just completely impractical. Could your finger even reach that front trigger?
Actually, looks more like an air rifle with that colossal gas assy. resembling a pressure tank under the barrel.
I would honestly love to see this restored
As an old soldier, experience tells me ALL firearms MUST have captive pins
That McLean, water cooled machine gun looks like the assault rifle in Fallout 4
Zach Anderson it looks like it was made from an espresso machine.
@@richardkirka5977 me : *looks menacingly at esspresso machine*
Holy Jesus that is a lot of knurling
What is knurling? Wait I've got Google nevermind
@@taylorday6244 you can easily figure that out by looking at the gun and see what might be the "holy shit that is a lot" part.
I knurl, rite?
Great way to start a day
I hope that there is some form of blue print still out there for the person who buys that so that they can restore that because that's just sad. Its an important part of history and deserves to be remembered and restored.
I hate the ATF for mutilating these pieces of historic art
@@bmstylee And then giving criminals weapons to kill law enforcement via fast and furious
I don't find that one too bad.
There are enough working guns out there and the cut open receiver makes it much easier to see on how it works. The engineering inside these weird guns is at least as interesting, as to see how they shoot.
At least it isn't as molested as like disabled guns in Germany or so, where everything is milled/welded to crap.
ATF should be what you need for a party!
Zealot Patriot Uh, no. ISIS was largely armed by Turkey and the Saudis, then captured large amounts of American-supplied weapons from our incompetent Iraqi allies. Let’s try to keep this a conspiracy theory-free zone.
Wild Bill buhbuhbut what about da school shootings
That amount of knurling competes with the Benet-Mercie MG.
Except that knurling was manually cut.
I presume any knurled cuts are uncomfortable to shoot with?
From the pictures and the mechanism:
Drum goes around the rifle, probably put on from the rear, because while it may clear the front grip, the mechanism looks like it would be in the way.
sthenzel It definitely looks like the magazine loads from the rear. It appears mechanically similar to a Kodak carousel on a slide projector.
i am always fascinated about these weird guns and their even weirder systems, they are just soo far off the norm sometimes i wonder how different their inventors' mind is
did my headphones die or is there only left channel audio?
Only one side for me as well. It's in the video.
i can't stop seeing Mr.Clean holding this rifle up and kill germs
that would be dope
Man that thing is Steampunk as hell
more of a Dieselpunk vibe, Steampunk is later half of 19th century while Dieselpunk is first half of 20th century.
Early automatic weapons are steampunk AF.
@@bodyno3158 yeah, some are Steampunk, but later ones are Dieselpunk.
I'll explain how the drum mag is loaded on. So There's no back grip only the one in the front. The images showing tripod use have it near the front grip. So that implies that it must load through the back and go through the section where the grip would normally be.
That explains both the lack of a firing grip and the loading of the magazine
More locking lugs damn you!!! - McClean 1919
He was like "how do i increase my profits from my medical career"
"Ah yes":starts to manufacture weapons for people to harm each other
Haha, genius 😊👌
Yeah, no junk food back then . . .
Rather similar to ministers of the Church who amuse themselves by inventing guns and ammunition.
This was before prescribed opioids
@@ivankrylov6270 it was def not before that lol, this was around the time heroin was invented for medical use
Wonder if the creator of this rifle had a beef with the hun and an interest of crawling in airducts?
McClean - ”Now I have a machinegun”
top notch content as always, but maybe get some audio tips from a friend?
Very informative my wife and I both watched this one.
You must have a cool wife.
Well that's pretty damn cool.
FYI: The audio is only on the left channel for this video
I suspect that the large diameter gas cylinder is related to the concepts of pneumatic and hydraulic rams. Maybe it was to "soften" the blow of gas actuating the piston and reducing the chance of mechanical breakage .
A later iteration is the gas system of the M-60 MG, the mechanism of which was itself borrowed, via the FG42, from the Lewis .
The gas port in an M-60 is a bit bigger than on the M-14 rifle, but it has that MUCH large expansion chamber and it works. Both systems use the initial rearward movement of the piston to close the gas port; self-regulation. The difference is the masses (op-rods and bolts) and friction loads (feed systems) the respective gas pistons must move, without breaking things. That difference is sort-of like that between bashing something with a hammer or using the Porta-Power press.
Can imagine how the bullets velocity is effected by that gas by-pass hole. Love to know how much pressure was needed to force that gas piston? That was the biggest one, I have ever seen on a rifle.
It looks like something you'd find in a Steampunk Story
McClean will clear your whole house and everything that's in it.
This is a cool looking gun. I don't know about how practical it is, but cool looking none the less.
I hope I'm not the only one imagining Mr. Clean using one of these for his next commercial