Why does the ramrod always get put back? (Because the sergeant says to, duh!)
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- Опубліковано 16 жов 2024
- The question I get asked the most is: why put the ramrod back, when shooting for speed with a muzzleloader?
True, it takes more time to put the ramrod back into the musket. But it was a habit that was beaten into soldiers of the 19th century (and before), so that’s why I do it. Even if it does take maybe a couple more seconds.
If you lose your ramrod or by poor drills manage to shoot it towards the enemy, you're unable to shoot at all, so drilling to always return it makes perfect sense.
Yep, they had a reason!
I believe that's where the phrase "going off half cocked" came from.
Sometimes troops would forget the ramrod in the barrel and shoot their rod out and have smto stand there doing nothing if it happens
That's a good point. If you return it to it's slot every time, by muscle memory, you will know that the rod was not left in the barrel and your weapon is ready to fire.
And placing it down by your side is just asking for it to get lost or damaged as well.
I feel like the modern equivalent analogy is wireless earbuds: if they aren't in your ears, just take that extra half a second to properly stow them back in the case, or you WILL end up with a very costly mistake sooner or later.
The ramrod, though manually operated, is a critical part of the weapon's fireing cycle. No ramrod no pewpew.
Unless your bullet is WAY undersized
@@eancola6111 what happens if you Fire a bullet that is popping out the muzzle instead of firing on rammed into the chamber?
@@jason200912 You created a very long pipe bomb, there’s a reason people are so anal about seating the ball against the powder charge, otherwise the pressure builds up too quickly and will most likely blow out the barrel.
I’ve honestly never thought about not putting it back. It just seems so natural because your right, without it you just got a big stick lol.
I do hear stories about soldiers who just forgot about it and kept it in their barrel and shot it away with their next round, wonder if that has any truth 🤔.
Great work Brett! I hope your deployment goes well. Stay safe!
There WERE instances, mostly among green troops, where the ramrod got launched.
That's ANOTHER reason why returning the ramrod to its ferrules after loading was drilled into recruits
@warwolf416 as a former ACW reenactor I've seen it happen at reenactments. Both at Rev War (as a spectator), and ACW events (I'm in New England). Some years ago, at an ACW event I was in, a tompion was fired, and pierced a drum on the opposing side! :o That was a pucker moment for sure...
I believe one instance was at the battle of Chickamaugua where one of the rebs noted that the union breastworks bristled with ramrods that had been shot into it. It was a hot fight and fire discipline broke down. As a related topic, it has been documented that troops would load multiple rounds down the barrel without firing.
If you fumble the reload a bit and are a little behind everyone else, then the order comes, present, fire and you follow that order, or the guy calling the order is a bit panicked and does not give a reasonable amount of time for everyone to complete their reload. ???
The Civil War was not decided by bayonet. It was decided by movement. The ram rod as you state is an essential part of the rifle/musket. If it is returned to the pipe, it is where it needs to be. If you are under the pressure of battle, you risk misplacing it and rendering the gun a club.
One more thing always returning the ramrod does: not forgetting it in the barrel, converting your perfectly fine musket into a crappy one time use harpoon.
Stick your ramrod in the ground, and you're shooting a French & Indian War gun or Rev War like a Kentucky rifle or an say a 1748 pattern Brown Bess where the ramrods are WOOD, jam that ramrod in the ground and encounter a rock. Well, there's a chance you won't have a ramrod the same length as you started with.
Or the rammer gradually getting shorter and more chewed up
You could stick it into your boot instead of the dirt
I assume that plenty of men ended up launching theirs downrange during the stress of combat so they had to make extra sure that returning the ramrod was subject to particular attention.
always was wondering what would happen, if you let the rod in the barrel and shot it
its quite a mass the powder would have to work against
@@OberGefreiterZ It actually used to be a real "problem", there are plenty of accounts of people ending up shooting their ramrod, it even ended up featured as a last ditch intentional act in the British tv series "Sharpe".
@@robertsmith4681 i belive, that it happend somewhere someone, but waht actually would happen? like chamber burst or something?
@@OberGefreiterZ Ramrod flies out with the bullet, never to be seen again and even if you by some miracle find it, it will be all kinds of bent.
@@OberGefreiterZ Do a search for "shooting ramrod", dozens of people have done this kind of video before.
In the rifle regiments it was common to place the ramrod through your belt during sustained firing.
That way you save a second or two and the rod is secured if you have to change position.
Placing it back in the rifle requires a lot of fine motor skills and under stress it's easy to fumble the operation.
In Austrian army Jager units the ramrod was normally worn on the belt, close to bayonet. Version of Lorenz-rifle, Jagerstutzen M1854 had no place for a ramrod at all, and older Austrian short rifles too...
The rifles tended to be noticably shorter than standard infantry muskets, though.
You could theoretically just press it against the forend of the rifle stock and hold the rifle like that
@@jason200912 theoretically. In practice, the ramrod tends to be just too long and unweildy to easily handle like that.
The fine motor skill argument is....a little tiresome.
What do you call placing a cap on the nipple? What about placing a mini ball into a barrel, let alone having it face the correct direction? Sticking your finger into the trigger guard is a "fine motor" skill.
A classic example of the difference between risk and hazard.
Even if you think you can grab your ramrod before the column formed behind you pushes you on and away from it the risk still exists that you will drop it in the mud, have someone tread on it, kick it away from you etc. You might minimise the risk but it exists no matter how small. The hazard of being left with no way to make the bunduq go bang is a very great one and it is not worth taking that small risk (and I think not so small) when faced with such a huge hazard.
Would you face a rifle musket armed enemy with a half pike only?
Also, as Brett says, the Sergeant told you to replace it every time and will have ‘words’ with you. They might not be nice words and expressed with some force and with gratuitous minor violence.
Several reasons. One, if the soldiers advance or fall back in a hurry in real life, and they wouldn't replace the ram rod in real life, it could be forgotten where it was and now the soldier has a club. Then, as I have seen more than once done by a reenactor, a ramrod occasionally gets shot downrange. Nothing like a 3 foot long arrow going away from you. I shoot competition with muzzleloaders and each and every time, even though I have 30 minutes to shoot 5 shots, I replace my ramrod each and every time.
I would think also that having the ramrod in place probably changes the balance and harmonics, so for most consistent shooting, it makes sense to put the ramrod back.
You can hold the ramrod against the rifle handguard just like we do with slings.
Hell, imagine leaving your ramrod on the ground during the exchange of volleys, and the guy beside you gets hit and falls on it.
Now there's two hundred pounds of dead weight on top of it. At least there's now an unused weapon that has an equally unused ramrod up for grabs.
You could add a small leather lip shaped like a small funnel to help your ramrod find a home kind of like a flared mag well on a pistol.
I agree. If the drill movement was to return rammer then that’s what they probably did. The Army of Tennessee would probably take your pay if you lost or bent one. I’m sure a spare rammer to cook rations or scratch the lice off your back would be nice though.
The Paget cavalry carbine had a swivel for the ramrod. It would have cost a bit more to make swivel retainers for Brown Bess muskets, but the rate of fire would have been significantly better.
I severely doubt the significantly higher rate of fire. Captive ramrods also have a nasty tendency to break the swivel linkage.
It is interesting to see, that the swivelled rammers tend to show up with pistols and short barrel weapons. A full length musket rammer would still force you to change grip mid length and the masses, lever lengths etc involved would put very high stresses on the linkage.
I'd also imagine they could they bent fairly easily, so having them in the stock would help prevent that.
Yes they can be bent easily, good point.
Think of all of the places you could be where it would be unwise to set your ramrod down or stick it into the ground, or it would be impractical to do so: Marshy ground, a wheatfield, a stone parapet, muddy ground, or frozen ground. And as a longtime reenactor, my feeling is that while replacing the ramrod takes a couple of seconds more, picking up the ramrod from the ground would take just as long if you are well-drilled. Also, you have to spin it around in order to use it in both cases, which is actually the part that is hardest to perfect, especially when shoulder to shoulder with other firers!
Or, be a man and use a Potsdam with full power loads so you don’t have to reverse the ramrod. Just extract, ram, extract, return.
@@MusketMan1997 Well, the cylindrical rammer to my knowledge was implemented once and never used for subsequent patterns again. It was much heavier than standard rammers, and thus much more expensive. Slower to operate, negating most if not all of the time savings, and ultimately tiring out soldiers faster on march and campaign by increasing the load to bear.
@@lutzderlurch7877 I’d argue it speeds the process due to the extra weight aiding in the forcing of projectiles through the fouling. The Prussians certainly spearheaded the use of metal ramrods in the 1700s and kept with the healthy ramrod method
@@MusketMan1997 You do not need to hammer down a cartridge if it is half decently made.
the mass of the regular rammer is plenty enough to move a stubborn one.
and what additional weight might speed up pushing down will slow you down when pulling it up again.
The prussians were early adopters of iron and steel ramrods, but their later 'cylindrical' rammers were not widely adopted by other nations and even dropped by the prussians themselves in the following models, so I am not sure it was successful.
Finally, you are in a proper colour…. Well for a bit of it… wait,… nope back in blue..
I would wear red more often, but when I do, 83.6% of all comments contain the following: “LOL we kicked yer redcoat butts, twice!” and “Go back to King George you tyranny loving lobster back” and “well we still won becuz you Brit’s was so dumb you stood in lines while we invented gorilla warfare with rifles and the second amendment.”
Haha wear red and let the angry monkeys comment. It's good for the algorithm!@@papercartridges6705
If you have to move, the ramrod can not be separated from the Rifleman if it is not separated from the rifle.
I'd imagine that if removing / replacing the ramrod were the true bottleneck in increasing the rate of fire, there would have been numerous examples of rifles with creative "battlefield upgrades" which allowed for simplified retention... things like a cup towards the stock end and a spring loaded clip at the muzzle (i.e. place the tip of the ram rod in the cup and press the rod into the clip)... since there doesn't seem to be any examples of soldiers modifying their muskets/rifles to incorporate such features, it must have really not been much of a concern.
There were rare exceptions. After one of the battles of The Peninsula Campaign (I forget which one-perhaps another commenter will know) Messena was retiring with the army and left a mere 4000 men to delay Wellington's whole army. A British soldier remarked that the French were firing so furiously they were just sticking their ramrods in the ground.
So in desperate situations it was sometimes done.
This reminds me of the quote from the movie God's and generals where adelbert Ames tells Chamberlain that he needs to make sure that the men are returning their ramrods. Otherwise, one might leave one in the barrel and send it down range with a "dismal twang" and no longer have the means in which he needs to reload his rifle
I quote that scene with my friends all the time. “Can you do it, Colonel?”
In Bakan, the ramrod was often hung on a string around the neck or on a belt with knives and pistols.
I would assume that all the evolutions learnt by soldiers would entail replacing the ram-rod. Not doing so would be so unusual that I personally would forget that I had not done so. So I would be one of those who would advance having left it in the ground. I would assume that muscle memory would kick in on most occasions. Would be interesting if there was evidence of untrained recruits losing their rods.
Disabled muskets/rifles found on battlefields are fairly common. Two common problems are multiple loads superposed (due to a misfire, which isn't very noticeable with a hundred other mean firing and loading alongside you and the enemy shooting back), and missing ramrods, long presumed to be due to either dropping the rod when a move order comes through before reloading is completed, or due to leaving the rod in the barrel.
Soldiers of most armies (especially in the flintlock era) were what we'd consider poorly trained; many went into their first combat having fired only one or two (or NO!) live rounds and perhaps only drilled the loading process a few dozen times; these didn't have the muscle memory a well trained or experienced man would have. I've been told that one of the major advantages the British units had during the Napoleonic era was that they trained regularly with live ammunition, so loading errors and things like forgetting the ramrod were both less common, making the troops overall more effective when the smoke got thick.
I would assume there would also be the risk of your ramrod getting trampled and damaged if you stuck it in the ground in such battlefield circumstances. Especially when an order to move comes. And if you, or your fellow soldier next to you accidentally knocks it over when you have stuck it in the ground you have to wast time to pick it up aswell. Holding it in the hand along the rifle or musket might make more sense. But then you still have the risk off accidentally dropping it. Or if you don't hold it right it might move around in your hand, especially when you move resulting in all kinds of issues. Great video! Thanks for making it! Cheers from Sweden!
I was also someone with this question, I appreciate the video to answer.
No doubt taught that way. You’re a traditionalist and that’s what I love about you. Keep up the good work!
i feel like i've asked this question at least once in the comment sections of your channel. haha. Ty for the information.
Interesting answer to this question and the shot from Gods and Generals of them loading behind the wall would absolutely be where they wouldnt replace a ramrod as it would be crazy to as speed was absolutely necessary to keep up the rate of fire. I guess the obvious next step is to actually do a shooting test of not putting the ramrod back and see exactly how much difference it does make in practice.
The better you are trained the less difference will it do.
I am admittedly probably a little more experienced than the average 19th century soldier in terms of rounds fired per year, but I have some videos on the channel of firing 4 rounds per minute, still returning the ramrod. So a steady, trained soldier wouldn’t lose much time by returning it.
One slight caveat, while the US did intend to use bayonet charges in the ACW the battles did typically devovle into fire-fights as a result of lack of discipline. That is why casualties were so high and battles were indecisive. It is also why Europeans thought of Americans as Amateurs.
Fire fights and bayonet charges were not the reason casualties were high. Send conscripts to fight conscripts and that's a recipe for mutual heavy losses. Look at ww1.
@@jason200912In a long firefight both sides can often take 20+% (or even 30+%) looses before one side pulls back
If one use the procedure found in the Danish 1863 drill system, then the attack go forward there are two ways it can end.(and a 3rd one that is unlikely)
A: The attack get stopped by defensive fire and pull out of range.
(since changing from column into line under fire is hard and the chance of winning the firefight started that way is very unlikely so better to pull out of range.)
The attacker Loos a good deal less than 20% and the defender nothing from the attacking unit (but they will have taken damage before the attack is send forward)
B: The attack push true and then the defender pull back... and get shot in the back by the attacker. The result is still less casualties for both sides.
C: And yes, it can end in actual hand to hand combat, but that is seen as extremely unlikely in open terrain.
So when Americans lack discipline to carry the attack true, it id result in higher casaulty rates for both sides.
The worst battle % wise fought by wellington in Spain (albuera) was a day long slogging match... and not the usual quick French attackers that get beaten back in a few minutes.
And it resulted in massive casualties for both sides
“Please remember to take out the ramrod gentleman because if you fire it at the French I may ask you to fetch it back” - Pat Harper
Oh neat! I’m somewheres in the pic at 2:30. Great reenactment this summer! Also, the reality of armies needing to move is exactly what I thought of with this ramrod question.
If I hadn’t put my ramrod back in, I’d have never become a father.
Welcome back to the most famous show on the internet, "Fake Experts Try Saying Linear Warfare Was Dumb" Part Infinitum
I blame canada
Imagine shooting the rod at a enemy soldier
question I've always had, you seem to be the perfect person to ask since I've never shot my own muzzle-loading rifle:
If you have a musket, and, after shooting, you and your line were being charged by the enemy,
could you simply POUR some buck shot POUR you POWDER down the barrel, followed by buckshot, and then hit the butt-plate on the ground to increase powder settling downwards?
The heavy steel or lead buck shot will pull some of the powder all the way down to the chamber, so when you put the percussion cap on, then quickly aim and fire,
the charge should ignite... and the rest of the powder, further up the barrel (because you haven't tamped it down) would also burn, shooting the buckshot out
at deadly if not quite full speed. Certainly worth an experiment with a shorter barrel carbine.
Perhaps but the key words are “should ignite” and I’m not sure in the heat of battle, when somebody is charging at you, that’s the time to hope something “should” fire. Better to load the tried and true way with confidence, than attempt an unconventional way that may or may not even go off.
Such a good video. I also think about some other factors like the chaos that ensues when your unit is being shot at. All the extra movement there. Cannon fire. The smoke produced from the musket or the cannons too. Dust from marching. Thick grass, uneven/muddy soil. Fear/retreat/disorder. Bring charge at. Calvary. List goes on and on. Definitely put the ramrod back in.
What about skirmishers? Shoving the ramrod in the ground would be a problem, but could you put the ramrod in some kind of rack or clip?
Was actually thinking about this watching the sharpe spit method video and suddenly this popped in my feed, great.
that's one reason they taught that the other was to make sure you took it out of the barrel and didn't send it down range or possibly cause it to explode due to a bore obstruction which did happen from time to time from what i've seen!! there's documented incidents from the civil war back of soldiers being killed by ram rods that were shot out of the gun because in the heat of battle the rifleman forgot to take it out!! although some rifles didn't have attached ramrods some Jaeger's the ramrod was attached to your cartridge box strap by a lanyard and small ring and carried separately same for some Turkish guns especially their pistols! their cavalry and tribesman had a special pocket in their coats and sashes where they carried their pistol rods attached by lanyard!
So that it doesn't get left behind with you are moving from place to place
I always enjoy watching your videos.
I was reading a book on sport shooting from before the US civil war, and apparently a trend at the time was to make guns without ramrod holders. The author really wasn't a fan, as he said the only options were to have a servant carry it (twice as much noise), or sling it like a sword (that's going to be fun shoving your way through hedges).
For military shooting it would be even less practical, where as you say, you're going to get sudden orders to move.
I agree that tactics assumed that the bayonet charge was the decsive move but they hadn't heard of Frediericksburg, Burnside's Bridge, Pickett's Charge or Coldharbor. In any event a saving of 3 seconds would only mean you got about 11 rounds off instead of 10, not a big advantage compared with the problems you outlined if you loost the damn thing.
I remember reading about Confederate soldiers using their bayonets stuck into the ground as a ramrod holder, during the late war trench-warfare
It would make a lot more sense in an earthwork, when you are much less likely to have to move.
@papercartridges6705 yeah, that aforementioned tactic was used when on the backfoot towards the end of the ACW. But I can't find any videos showing this
For those of you who wonder if people could forget the ramrod in the barrel and shoot it away; I have witnessed it by myself:
We were at a medieval reenactment fair and another troop was shooting blanks with replicas of 15th century arquebuses. Replicas mind you, that would be perfectly capable of firing real bullets.
Now they asked my own company to help secure the area to prevent any visitor to come into the firing direction, so I dispatch some comrades to do so.
They fire the next volley, as usual by aiming higher than if the enemy was in front of them, and strangely enough one of the gunners has his firearm fly backwards out of his hands, and even stranger, a branch of a closeby tree falls onto one of the woman securing the area.
First, we only found that a bit peculiar but it so happens that one of the gunners forgot to remove the huge and thick ramming rod after loading his arquebus. Luckily, as they were aiming high, it didn't hurt anybody but flew right over the people securing the area, decapitated a huge branch and still managed to fly 150m further into a house roof.
What can happen in a show without any stress can certainly happen in battle, I'd say...
Could you hold it in your left hand throughout the shooting then ? Or stick it in your belt ?
I would think muscle memory would have been used to train. If the ramrod is in the ramrod channel it would be, Remove, Ram, Replace....Repeat. Does that make sense?
The thing I've always wondered is, why have to flip the ramrod around? Why not make it so it is stored the same direction it is used in?
The background color of the shoulder boards is wrong! US Ordnance Corps branch colors are crimson and gold.
Keeping the ramrod in hand interferes with the fine movements needed for the ball and powder. Putting it back also keeps track of your ramrod so that it doesn't get lost whether by a neighboring soldier taking it or leaving it behind due to changing orders.
often wondered why you did this now it makes sense, is there any truth to the saying that a lot of the ram rods being fired out of the guns out of fear?
I'd imagine the reason you don't put it on the ground is the same reason you don't stick your barrel in the ground. When you go to reload, it introduces the possibility of foreign debris getting into the barrel, which isn't something you want. You could hold it in other ways, sure, but if it's a piece of equipment you're going to use specifically for firing and reloading it makes sense that you keep it in the rifle itself, especially since that also prevents it from being lost and causing you to end up with a useless hunk of iron and wood.
You didn't really mention the technique that came in my mind when I asked myself that question. Why can't you just keep it in your offhand? I mean, I can see myself holding the ramrod and the gun together in one hand, hold it flat against the barrel. Maybe a little bit unpleasant / unhandy, but seems handier than to pull it in and out. There isn't any risk of losing it either. I've never held a musket before though, maybe it's not as easy as I picture it. Sticking it in the ground or leaving it on the ground is obviously a recipe for disaster. But holding ramrod in your hand seems very much possible to me, might knock out 3 seconds off your reload.
I learned that in the Belgian Army, tank commanders are drilled that the first thing they do when, half-way out of the hatch, they see a enemy tank, is to make sure the strap of their binoculars is on their neck, and the drill sergeant ain’t kidding. The reason is that if, in the chaos of moving the tank through an uneven field, the commander drops his binoculars God knows where, the commander won’t be able to see the enemy while the enemy will see his tank all right. This is just to say that those little attentions in battle can mean the difference between life and death. I don’t know if the same drill applies in the US or Canadian army. Please inform me.
Did anyone experiment with a ramrod holder that let you use the ramrod without having to flip it? It may have manifest as a line of spring clips along the side of the barrel or the like. I see the utility of keeping the rod on the gun, but that flip is a time penalty that you can really see.
it takes a small fumble to not really clip it tight, or a spring on a gun expected to last 20 years or so, and the rammer will just fall out.
The prussians tried a cylindrical rammer to get rid of turning, but it weighed as much a several normal rammers and was never incorporated into any musket design afterwards. the turning is actually not that bad and time consuming. once you're familiar enough with the manual and your gun, you automatically grab the rammer by the center of weight and turning is literally a flick of the wrist.
a rifle without a ram is useless, so you keep the ramrod with the rifle at all times, basic common sense.
What about some sort of scabbard-like thing? Wider and easier to get the ramrod in and out of than the fairly narrow ramrod holder on the musket/rifle, and it would stay on your person during any manuevers.
Austria experimented with something like that. But it was more stuff the government had to pay for… and governments are cheap. Easier for a sergeant to yell at a soldier to put his ramrod back.
What about holding it in your mouth? I am sure many msut have done it in the heat of the moment. Any memoirs on that?
Thanks for the explanation. Very tired of modern audiences constantly commenting "well why didnt they do this or that?" when there's often a clear and simple reason for doing so. Like "why did they always put the ramrod back, don't they want to fire faster?" "why didn't the army give every man with a repeater, wouldn't they want the extra firepower?" "Why did they stand in the open in big groups, don't they know they're exposing themselves to fire" etc etc etc
Like I promise people weren't stupid back then, they were constantly trying to find more efficient/better ways to do things. I guess my problem isn't people asking questions, but people proposing ideas like they're the first to ever think of it. Had too many bubbas at events going "WELL I THINK THEY SHOULDA DONE THIS", I'm over it lol
About 30% of the comments I get are “they shoulda done this!” I agree, it is very tiring.
I am not a re-enactor but work in a museum and get this comment/question alot. Loading becomes muscle memory. Leaning the rod against God-knows-where leads to more fumbling. Or your buddy next to you steps on it.
It's not for the stand, It's for the fall.
If you place the ramrod back in the stock, then whatever comes next in the heat of battle - Charge! Retreat! or hand to hand - you will still have a complete and functional weapon afterwards. If you're spared!
Also, without the rod in place, the gun might fire high. I know they're not the last word in accuracy, but all the same...🙂
Just a thought, and this would likely require some minor alteration/addition to the base of the ram rod (the side that doesn't go into the gun), but having a sort of hook at the base so you could carry the rod at your hip. Carrying it around like a sword without a scabbard. Possibly by slipping the rod through a belt loop and have it hang there by the hooked end.
That way, after you've got got the gunpowder, wad and ball set, you just reach down, take the ram rod by the hook, pull it from the belt loop then ram it in, like usual, then pull the rod out, and slip it back through the belt loop.
Might have worked, but remember, this is extra stuff a government has to pay for, and make hundreds of thousands of modified ramrods, just to save a few seconds in loading… and governments are always super cheap.
@@papercartridges6705 Honestly, I don't think the modification would really be all that much. Just simply attaching a small hook or pummel to the end, or even just bending it to a curve so its able to hang from a belt loop. Granted the later might require the rod to be a tad bit longer, but either way, I don't think it would really cost anything.
Firepower in 19th century battles: it was the British under Wellington who won their battles thanks to firepower and long-range shooting 200 yds+ in the spanish campaign.
it’s essential for your weapon so it makes sense to put it back…that way it’s right where you know it’s supposed to be and you don’t risk losing it in the midst of battle - or worse, breaking it by stepping on it or someone else stepping on it
At 2:32 you show the ramrod procedure but I cannot really figure out how this works. Would be nice to make a demonstration.
I do this drill slowly in the beginning of this video.
ua-cam.com/video/YpoDO9uucNw/v-deo.htmlsi=7iSaJQyB7KD2hFOT
Why not have 2 ramrods? One kept held or stuck into the ground for max reload speed, and one kept in the rifle for reliability incase the other is lost.
I’m going to take a wild guess and say it’s to avoid leaving it in the gun, sending it down range and losing it and possibly over stressing the firearm, both scenarios rendering it useless.
The density of fire from a single volley can be so devastating if you get close enough and pack enough ranks that this seems to be more important to have good positioning than a slightly faster reload. You may not even have to reload, just one good volley then immediately fix bayonets and charge.
That was the exact philosophy behind the Swedish Karolian "Gå på!" tactic used during the reign of Karl XI and Karl XII in the 1670's up till the end of the Great Northern War in 1721. The infantry, each battalion consisting of two thirds musketeers and one thirds pikemen would silently advance towards the enemy at the sound of the drums and pipes. When closing to about 20 - 30 paces, or close enough to see the white in the eyes of the enemy, halt was ordered and a single volley was fired, then the musketeers would immediatly tuck their muskets underneath their left arm, muzzle and bayonet (after it's introduction) pointing towards the enemy and swords drawn with the right hand, held out stright infront towards the enemy. For the pikemen the pike was lowered towards the enemy. Then the whole line charged the enemy before they would have time to recover from the volley. This was drilled, drilled, drilled and drilled to the extreme. That way the the whole thing could be done extremely quickly, from the moment the volley was fired until they were upon the enemy driving their sword, bayonet and pike points into an enemy allready in chaos given the effectiveness of a volley at such close range. This was off course also supplemented by cavalry advancing with the infantry on it's flanks using the same kind of extremely aggressive tactics were pistols and carbines were secondary to the sword.
Density of fire didn't actually have an advantage. It caused their own bullets to collide and also prevents enemy targets from getting hit if they're in the back or middle ranks as now the front are taking extra shots that aren't always needed.
The advantage of packed lines was it improved charge resistance greatly and prevented men from routing. You can also shoot without smoke blocking your sights and move the Line a bit for a clear sight again
@@jason200912 caused their own bullets to collide? The fire wasn't THAT dense and a few collisions wouldn't even be a detriment.
These huge musket bullets could pass through multiple men.
Your actual reasons make zero sense, they weren't just packed in to limit movement but special effort was made so that all the men could fire, if they couldn't fire it was made very clear they shouldn't be there. Great emphasis was made on them firing, not just standing there.
A place for everything, and everything in its place. Simple as.
With my own experiences in the army, I can't even count how many times people (including myself) lose track of things even in a training environment, especially in an environment where you are doing something more fast paced and sometimes have to stop and drop what you are doing immediately and don't get back to it for several hours, if ever. I can only imagine how easy it would be to misplace your ramrod if you are suddenly forced to fall back to a new position or something similar
I think it says a lot about the reach of the channel that people who have never handled a firearm are watching this channel and asking questions. I noticed in some of the example questions shown that people said they had never fired a gun before.
Drill is a pill to be taken twice a day! Drills make it so that you don't forget in the heat of battle. It might be faster to stick it in the ground but then if you move off either retire or advance and forget it, you just lost the use of your weapon.
Another good one. Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it
Not replacing the ramrod would also affect the balance of the weapon. Its not much, but those few ounces difference could easily be the difference between hitting and missing a shot. Muscle memory would be learned with the ramrod stored.
For that matter, your muscle memory expects the ramrod to be in ONE place for reloading, this way you're also not having to think about where it is this time.
Why not just hold it against the musket with your left hand? The real time waster is sliding it up and down the ramrod tube, and ideally you could just clip it to the barrel in one motion, but in the absence of clips like that, why not just hold it in your hand, parallel to the barrel?
Pretty sure the "store the ramrod below the barrel" is as old as musketry itself, you see it from the arquebus of the 1400s up until the late 1800s over four continents, only the hand canoneers of old can be seen on illustrations with the ramrod on the ground.
I seen a guy lose his order of things and forgot to take the rod out of his barrel after seating his bullet. KaBoom! It said and it knocked him right out of the picnic table he was setting in. It was one of those tables that the seat was built onto it,not just a loose bench.
He didn't know if he'd double loaded it or what? We found his rod 60yards or so out towards the target. Lol
Lucky it didn't blow up or hurt his gun. His feelings got a little bruised.
So ...put your rod back!
I would never drive my ramrod into the ground. I wouldn't want dirt and debris getting in my barrel. My preference would be to hold the ramrod along the length of the barrel while shooting with my forward hand without flipping it. When it's time to move I'd return it to the tube. To me 5 seconds saved per cycle could mean the difference between life and death. But hey, that's one guy's opinion. The military's is another.
The ramrod always goes back so you can reload your gun and you know exactly where the ramrod is.
As my Reenactment Sergant Said echoing RSM Patrick Harper 'Gentlemen, Always return your ramrod because if you fire it at the French, I' m Liable to ask you to go and fetch it.'
Ever since muzzle loaders you all ways place ramrod back to the muzzleloader. Its the tradition with muzzleloader.
3:42 Alexander Suvorov said: "Пуля-дура, штык-молодец!" ;) That means: "The bullet is a mad thing; only the bayonet knows what it is about."
The ramrod is just as important part of a muzzle loader as the musket ball or the flint. Without it, one might as well point their finger at their target and yell "Bang!". It is impossible to load the gun without one.
If not replaced properly as per drill instructions it would probably be inserted in another orifice by an NCO! And that COULD be painful...............
The idea of sticking it into the ground or otherwise leaving it is dumb - and you addressed that, but putting the rod into the channel every time still seems quite dumb as well.
*Captive ramrod* on a swivel seems to be a far superior solution in more ways than one, and many pistols, carbines and musketoons used it.
I believe similar effect can be achieved with a makeshift captive ramrod using, like, a simple flexible leather strap attached at the muzzle as a swivel.
Maybe holding it next to the rifle would save a fraction of a second if you know you are going to shoot again, but, as you said, if then you then get an order to move you have to put it back anyway. Allways having it where it belongs just assures things are in order.
How is it possible that video like this leaves out third choice like having it on some loop over shoulder.
@robertstallard7836 I am asking cause apparently it was like this or on belt for some units in austrohungarian army.
@robertstallard7836 Ye sure, doesn't the same argument also apply to needle rifles?
Hope you understand why i wont take your comment seriously.
It was more common, not just "some units", but i am not familiar enough with the topic so thats why i wrote it like that.
@@robertkalinic335 It would be worth while investigating which arms the units in uestion used. I'd guess rather short rifles, as opposed to line infantry musket sized guns.
Would that actually be better in any way? Seems like you'd just be changing the motion to a different but not entirely dissimilar one, at the cost of keeping it in a more awkward place for general movement
@@vaguelycertain8968 Good observation. Reaching for something in a place that is subject to change may take as long or longer than having it always at the exact same place, reliably.
4 minutes to say "there's so many ways to lose it" and then 3 minutes to list those possibilities. Nice
Sorry about that, I know it’s a lot less than my average content length. I could have stretched it out at least another 29 minutes but I was in a hurry. I’ll try to do better!
You could totally keep it gripped in the left hand or even used as a makeshift monopod through the entire firing drill but the army expects you to get shot and die so they don't want to be retrieving muskets without ramrods in them.
Well, you thoroughly adressed why it is unwise and not helpful to stick the ramrod into the ground.
Personally, I do think you might have downplayed the importance of fire power in early modern warfare a bit too much, though. There were absolutely even in the 18th C. large scale battles with extended firefights and people running out of full ammunition supplies.
Various officers and authors of the day discussed and disagreed on wether the gun or the bayonet was 'THE' weapon, but the reality of the armies being almost exclusively armed with a full sized gun as primary weapon, that can become an undersized, overweight and rather clunky make-shift spear, rather than making the gun small and lightweight enough for the bayonet t really shine in usefulness, gives one clue. Period descriptions, arguments and publications also tend to favour the firepower over the bayonet, at least in europe with the very large massive armies. American theaters were...odd and diiferent in many ways.
That being said, I think it is too easy to imagine (and thus often received that way) warfare and battles to be all about one pivotal aspect, and the rest is just small additions, when in reality, every action was the result of balancing multiple different aspects in (hopefully) a balanced way to maximise success. And as there is overall levels of importance of various aspects in warfare, each and every battle itself may be distinctly different. There is always maneuvering and firepower, there are the logistics on the field, those on the campaign and the large ones getting weapons and gear in the first place.
Base line: there are always several elements at play, and firepower is and always has been only one. The perfect solution for one of these elements rarely works together with other elements, so it is always a compromise.
I'd like to just take a stab at the other proposed methods of keeping the rammer around.
Addition to sticking to the ground:
the end of many rammer was threaded to accept cleaning tools. Stick them into various soils repeatedly and the thread on the relatively soft material of the rammer will rapidly deteriorate and stop being useful on a gun that, for example the British Board of Ordnance deemed to have an average useful service life span of 20-25 years.
Holding in your hand:
The ramrod does not look like much, but it still weighs a few 100 grams and though slim, it is LONG. That is a LOT of inertia and rotational energy to handle by merely shimming it somewhere in with the musket in the same hand. I'd say you'd be perfectly set up for very unpleasant pinching, marring the gun stock and furniture and dropping the rammer.
Tying to your wrist:
It will become heavy and cut into your wrist. And you now have a 3 ft stick dangling from your wrist at every moment. Also, you can only sensibly tie it at the end. As the rammer goes into the barrel, you'd have to bring your wrist 3ft. or so in front of the muzzle of a gun that is already 4-5 ft. long.
Lean it against something:
When cleaning a musket and using the rammer with the cleaning tool screwed to the end, you obviously can't put it back under the barrel. And as you go through the movements of cleaning, you might want to set aside the rammer just for a short time. Leaning it against something is a prime impulse, and those devious rammers WILL stay still the 1st second, but the moment you are convinced they'll stay put, they will fall over. Don't count on something very tall and slender staying upright. ;)
BONUS:
To get rid of the turning, why not make both ends the same diameter?
The prussians tried out a 'cylindrical' rammer based on that thinking. the idea showed up on one model of musket, and never again. The resulting rammer was several times the weight of normal rammers and found to be no real gain in speed, much more expensive and more burden on the soldier's loaded shoulders.
How about a wide, deep pocket on your pants that the rod could be quickly put in/taken out?
So there's a pile of reasons to replace the rod.
Definitely expensive and embarrassing to replace if you leave it, break it or fire it down range.
But I don't run these outdated smokers. I run an agi custom smokeless 45 na converted ml2 also in 45. The conversion shoots 200 gr sabots with 60 of h4198 powder or 56 of imr.
The agi uses 99.5 h4895 na 300 areomax. It gets 3003fps and burned out a tungsten breach plug insert in one season.
Leaving the rod in the bbl n firing it will maim or kill you.
Good question, I had always wondered that!
It's flabbergasting how the civil war was fought with muzzle loaders and how the franco-prussian war was fought with breach loading rifles which unabled fire to be decisive.
I dont do civil war but mountain man and i "had" a separate rannge rod of nylon with a handle i built ..well, i shot it down range pushed by a patched roundball and 60gr of ff...it kick, and sound 😮 I thought i blew up!...found rod about 30 yrd out, permanently bent to hell, no damage to rifle thank goodness...
so you dont loose it or fire it at the enemy
I like your videos, and it's a good question for when your at the range, but obviously so you don't lose the ram rod , 7 minutes it's so you don't lose it ok
Those who question the manual of arms aren't to be trusted until they can demonstrate they can follow the manual of arms consistently without mistakes. People that cut corners suck
When you’re on the move it’s hard to keep track of it so return it to its track
Video idea: "firing a ram rod". Obviously safety is paramount, no original anything, preferably cheap smoke pole and rammer. I've heard of historical accounts of accidentally firing it, and of firing it on purpose(out of ammo or an excuse to leave the line or whatever, dunno how true the on purpose accounts are). I think it would be great experimental archeology if you could do it safely. Anyway, love everything you do, keep up the good work Sir.
I’ve considered it but haven’t done it for two reasons. First, I don’t have a spare ramrod… could probably buy an old rusty one for pretty cheap, but haven’t gotten that far yet.
And second, I am a little reluctant to fire an iron/steel ramrod out of steel rifle barrel. That’s got to scrape and scratch like all heck, as it flings down the barrel and out of the muzzle, maybe scraping the crown.
Maybe if I could find a shot out, rusty old reenactors gun that already has a bad bite.
@@papercartridges6705 yeah, you'd definitely have to find a junker. It'd be interesting to assess the damage to the barrel afterwards. I don't think it matters much if it's rifled or smooth, unless you found a cheap junker of each. You don't even need a full gun, just a barrel and something to strap it to. An old CVA hawken barrel would work. Depends on how important you think historical accuracy would be. I think that a ram rod fired out of any muzzle stuffer is gonna behave about the same. I think the most important part is the projectile(ram rod) and maybe the barrel length. Maybe I'm wrong about all of that, I don't know, just trying to think of cheap and safe ways to do the experiment. Anyway, keep up the good work Sir.
@@papercartridges6705I know two people who have done it with steel ramrods on repros. Ramrods go pretty deep into the ceiling and rafters
Go listen to Stanley Holloway's monologues, Sam Small's various adventures as a Napoleonic fusilier.