@@tarmaque So what was "a rifle musket", I always thought it was to distinguish the mode of ignition. That is a flintlock on a firelock or musket or even a rifle musket, and a percussion cap on say an Enfield Rifle.
Fascinating to learn that the British penchant for "emergency pattern" weapons, that persisted into the Cold War with the 7.62 Sterling, stretches so far back.
@@gerrywoody4301 that was the well known smg. There was also a 7.62 version derived from that that used FAL magazines, as a potential emergency substitute for the Bren/SLR.
@@ironanvil1 i stand corrected thank you sir i have leaned something i am glad i didnt have to fire it taking the recoil of a nato stadard 7.62 using the thin folding stock Of the smg or to have that round banging off so close to my face added to.in the event of a stoppage one would probby need to carry a vice and a crowbar into battle. 7.62 /SLR a marriage made in the heaven it sent folk to
Reminds me of that French "rifle" that was adopted as a smoothbore because they decided on a cartridge and gun, but not bullet weight and twist. That was done under the idea they could make the gun now and do the rifling later.
Thank you for making this video anout the Baker rifle! I can hear Sharpe’s intro theme song and Over the Hills and Far Away playing in my head again and again! 😄
This is absolutely fascinating. I have a Pattern 1800/15 Baker that I absolutely love and it would be fantastic if you could do an episode on the 1815 Baker conversion.
This was really informative! Never knew what a "sealed pattern" was, and always thought the Enfield Rifle of the 1853 was the first -very neat to learn something new.
Is it just me, or right at the start when Jonathan says "Hi guys, Jonathan here again in the room full of guns", he's looking awfully smug ... admittedly, if I were there doing the same thing I'd be looking awfully smug. He's got the sort of job I'd love to have. Keep up the good work JF :)
This and the Nock volley gun episode have this weirder introduction for anyone else? It's like an electric guitar solo with swelling orchestral music. And the ending is just Jonathan singing about some valleys and hills far away......
Very interesting insight into an amazing weapon. I did own a smoothbore baker for re-enactment purposes, on a shotgun licence. And was luck enough to attend Waterloo in 2006 where my baker saw much use.
Out of curiosity, what's the internal diameter of the barrel on the sealed pattern example? Is it adequate to allow for rifling to be cut? Surely that would be considered a reasonable indicator for it being a sealed pattern for an unfinished example meant, as you very logically say, for larger scale production by other manufacturers? It wouldn't be the last time the U.K. "peddled" and subcontracted major component manufacturing to maximise production.
I was actually thinking it maybe a pattern sent to armouries like Peshawar, Pakistan Indian, Canadian, Australian for making local versions, allowing for different possible variations of locally produced/ supplied sights, muzzle length and rifling capabilities.
Then a random finished rifle would be just as good as there is no interest in sizes and standards and just anything can be modified, lock, stock, barrel, ...
Unfortunately I can't contribute; but I appreciate that You are doing Your research so somebody out there might come up with some documentation or know something, that can supplement. You never know where in the nitty gritty detail the decisive information might rest. I just might be able to set the famous raid on the Shell-House in Copenhagen in perspective - it takes a very long time to get all the pieces of the puzzle and even longer to see how they fit together. This is partly due to the fact that the persons knowing the critical information don't know how that it is - in fact - critical.
An alternate theory: This is a parade weapon, not needing some of the accouterments of a field weapon but still needing to be capable of firing in salute? It needs to look like the field weapon but not function as such.
I don't know enough about firearms manufacture or the history of parade ground usage in the British forces, but while that does make sense, it seems like a lot of cost and effort to have a sealed pattern version of a weapon like this, based on what a sealed pattern version is (something to control serial, and therefore presumably mass, production), for that extremely limited purpose, given how cheap production line guns already were, and given that Britain was in a state of near-permanent war during the period the Baker was in service. In short, why would they need this specific model to produce rifles that would be of extremely limited numbers and of no practical military use, when Enfield could simply churn out a few parade variants based on the full sealed pattern version, but simply leave off the extra bits? There's also the issue that British gun salutes tend to involve artillery pieces (due to the whole Naval tradition), so there'd be even less need for rifles that were of limited military use, and even less when you consider that it would be more likely that line soldiers with muskets, rather than riflemen, who would be performing salutes. Far more likely that this is an outsourcing rifle, as Jonathan suggests, so less skilled manufacturers can produce it in bulk (and presumably get paid less) and leave the final finishing to Enfield. I think the other thing to consider would be the omission of the functional bayonet lug. Parade grounds were all about the show, and even today, British Household Guards tend to have bayonets affixed. I don't know if this was the case in Victorian times, but I'd be very surprised if it wasn't and we adopted it at a later date. I can understand the omission of the sights and rifling, but the bayonet lug seems a strange one if it was going to be used, essentially, for show. But as I say, I'm absolutely not an expert on any of this, and I do think it's a solid idea. Would love it if Jonathan shared his thoughts on it!
The British military do not do small arms salutes, we only do gun salutes. We also don't typically have parade weapons, current SA80s used as parade rifles are the exact same as ones used in combat, bar the pic rail frontend being removed and a cover for the plastic cover used instead (to prevent snagging or damage to parade uniforms). I believe this has been always been the case, regardless of rifle pattern. As Jim points out, British parades almost always have bayonet attached and this does not.
No, definatly not.. You need to understand the times that these guns were being made. This precedes the the work of Robbins and Lawrence and Joseph Whitworth in the development of engineering measurement and precision. The traditional method of government procurement was to have a model item made up and examined by a board of officers. When the model was deemed satisfactory, a wax seal was attached and the item held as a pattern for contractors to copy. It was not just guns, all sorts of items were produced like this, including components and sub assemblies. None of the items were identical, as each manufacturer would have their own measurement methods and would only be able to work to fairlyy loose tolerances. In UK practice, firearm components such as barrels, stocks and fittings were procured from a large number of small contractors, intitially sited around Soho in London in the 16th and 17th Century until land prices forced them out and much of the trade moved to Birmingham. Parts were sent to the Tower of London, where they were fitted together by Artificers and Fitters as the parts would need to be filed and finished before assembly. Most parts would be made in wrought iron which would be supplied in the soft state. After filing up and fitting, they would then be case hardened in sets and assembled. None of the parts would be exchangeable. One of the factors that moved production to Enfield, and prompted the move to the percussion 1853 rifled musket was a fire in the Tower of London, which destroyed a large proportion of the reserve stock of Brown Bess muskets. Much of the tooling that went into the main Enfield production line came from the USA in the 1850s, by which time measurement and guaging methods worked out on both sides of the Atlantic had solved the exchangable parts problem and the need for sealed patterns disappeared. Enfield and the main arsenal at Woolwich were able to send out guaging sets to allow quality control of contracted items as the whole science of engineering tolerances was now understood.
So you could think of it as a rifle "blank", similar to a knife "blank" where it is a knife that needs finishing or some further work but is mostly complete.
It was proofed! I put forward that it was part of a test program to determine the value and type of rifled barrel over a smooth bore. It could of had several types of barrels fitted. Of course, there's the Secrets thing.
Makes sense. A controlled standard part for calibration of tooling and/or inspection equipment. Not too long ago before the advent of scanning systems in aerospace an inspector might have a 'standard' version of a particularly complex contoured tube for instance to use as a comparison to release a production part. This inspection tool might be painted blue or red perhaps so it didn't actually get used.
Fyi; the 'British Infantry Rifle' (Baker) was built with the sights and 7:56 bayonet bar brazed onto the barrel BEFORE the barrel was finish reamed and then rifled. This is because red heat in a furnace was required. There was no gas torch tech avail then. Red heat would screw the rifling. THE END. Builders of modern versions ( i have built 4x) should bear this in mind. I solder these parts on. SV. NZ.
The Master General of the Ordnance would work for whoever currently buys weapons for the British Army, alas. (The "General" part doesn't mean the Army rank, either, it means that the person works for the whole Army and not just a specific Regiment. That is, the title means "Master of Ordnance, in general.") I'd not be suprised to learn the post still exists, though; Attorneys General and Surgeons General are still very common, so why not Masters General? Anyway, "Keeper of Firearms" seems like a pretty cool job title already!
Before the production-line era, for all manufacturing that was done for government contracts or for some other enterprise that needed standardisation, the various workshops were given a "Pattern" of the thing they were making. People involved in manufacturing normally had no ability to read working drawings. Families had home-workshops and did piece-work and every family member was involved. And so they were given a "Pattern" to take their measurements directly from.
I have done steel fab, and I can read blueprints now, but honestly I think the Idea of the sort of blank pattern like this is brilliant, because you can see how it is suppose to go.
Why use plans when they could have patterns. They would have needed even higher precision measuring devices that need to be to pattern too, the imperial system only starts in 1824
@@2adamast The good thing about using a pattern is you don't need a measuring device with accurate graduations. You can just use a calipers or compass.
We all do! They have done quite a few videos together, as Jonathan's book on British bullpups was published by the same company that did Ian's book on French small arms, and Ian has been to the Royal Armoury to look at a few of their pieces over the years. ua-cam.com/users/results?search_query=jonathan+ferguson+forgotten+weapons+
I wasn't sure how to parse "Sealed Pattern Baker", but it seems to be that it's Sealed as in Confirmed correct by official stamp, Pattern as Example of Baker model, a particular type. All sorts of other meanings might be constructed, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Were any of the later Baker rifles modified to the percussion system, or did they all remain as flintlocks? Seems simple enough to do that. I know that in the US, some armory stored military guns were changed over to percussion fairly easily (several models of US muskets numbering in the hundreds of thousands) starting in the 1840s, with many of the newer models being rifled in addition to the percussion modification.
I haven’t had an opportunity to take a good look, but you might consider doing a piece about the first breech-loading black powder a cap and ball that nearly killed George Washington, the Ferguson Rifle.
So when you got the 'rifle' in this state, assembled but missing the rifling - would it be disassembled again an then the rifling cut at Enfield? Wouldn't it have made more sense to make the barrel there and only get the rest from outside?
Remember that this vastly predates viable interchangable parts. The barrel and furniture would have been hand-fitted and you wouldn't want to take it apart again. Especially on a rifle where the sights had to be reasonably zeroed. My guess - and this is ONLY a guess - is the plan was to take the mostly finished rifle, clamp it down, bore out the rifling, cut off the excess length, and fit sights to suit the bore and barrel fit. That, of course, is assuming Enfield had a process to drill out the rifling once the weapon was assembled. An alternate guess would be that, if this was ever used, factories were told "here's all the bits. Here's how they fit together, so you know what you're working towards. But just make the bits and send them to us, and we'll do the hard parts and put it all together." A variation on that would be "You make these bits, we'll make these other bits, and then we'll send everything to this third company to assemble." But that comes back to the "need to be precise for zeroing sights" so I'd think 3rd party final assembly is less likely? All just speculation. Don't overlook the possibility of people thinking this was a good plan until they ran into the very issue you describe. People in the 1800s weren't any better at seeing all the ramifications of a plan than we are now. :)
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 rifling is not good for shot patterns for birds and rabbits and such. If memory serves some Trapdoor 1873 Springfields were made as such for foraging. I thought maybe the Brits might have done a similar thing but it was only a guess.
@@TrainmanDan I see your point, but at the time anyone carrying a Baker rifle was effectively a marksman, birds on the wing maybe not, but I suspect capable of hitting small game at close range.
The other thing is, the smooth bore military musket was the normal weapon of the day. That any one could be taught to shoot, and load quickly. A Rifled Musket was a bit harder to learn, and slower to reload. That's just my two cents worth.
Could just be a rush, not fitted with sights or rifling because the old chuffs in Whitehall had not yet agreed on a pattern or rate of twist they just needed a look alike to see if it matched their uniforms nicely.
Though I feel a bit cheeky offering a contradiction to your theory of this weapon, I'm sure I recall either yourself or "Forgotten Ian" relating a tale of how Britain used to issue sort of second class weapons to their colonial troops, as a precaution against them rising up against British regular troops. In that account they were issued with muskets instead of rifles and given shorter range sighting? Maybe it was one of those nights when I got into what my daughter calls a "deep dive" - getting sucked into one You Tube after another until your face hits the keyboard - and I imagined that?
I was in London a few years back and I have been kicking myself ever since that I didn't know the Royal Armouries existed! One thing I wanted to ask; does the Royal Armouries have a sample of the experimental .280 bullpup FAL? I've seen one image of the weapon in the hands of a soldier and I've wondered ever since how many samples were ever made and if any still exist. Thanks
The Royal Armouries are in Leeds, not London. Many of the exhibits that used to be in the White Tower in the Tower of London are now in Leeds..! There were FAL made in .280 but I am not aware of any bullpup versions. I was always told that the FAL was originally designed for the 7.92x33 Kurtz round, and 7.62x51 was always at the top end of what the design could cope with. There were also 7.62x51 versions of the EM2, but they are not as pleasant to shoot as the .280. Leeds has versions of all these, but they may not be on display.
But a gentleman uses guineas at £1-1-0, one pound and one shilling or 21 shillings. FWIW that is 1,016 farthings….. Can’t imagine why they decimalised it.
Well Army bakers real job is baking bread, so they’re only armed as a stock gap in case of an emergency (like what the M1 Carbine was made for), so the powers that be felt they didn’t require rifling.
Anyone capable of making safe muskets could make unfinished Bakers and the precision work would be done by better gunsmith to achieve a higher production of good finished product than top-tier manufacturers could produce on their own. That at least makes sense.
Spitballing here, but could it also be that those things that there were left off the pattern, were things that could could be custom ordered? There different types of sight, rifling, muzzles and bayonets, could this just be the absolute base model of the gun like a car has a base model and those things were options that were decided upon later to tailor the gun to the needs of the military branch at the time? Like say the Army wants just the sight like on the second model but the navy wants a different type of sight and different style of bayonet. So they leave those features off the pattern so that they can be decided upon later as needs warrant.
I work in a subcontract manufacturing company, and we get samples to build to that are similarly unfinished. IMO J. F. And his speculative thinking ring very plausible
My theory is as folllows: "What, no, I said rifle the muskets, not musket the rifles. I think. Did I write it down? Oh. Oh dear. Yes, my bad. Little too much sherry, methinks."
In any manufacturing process the pattern only needs to cover the parts made or assembled by a particular unit or factory. Why send complete rifles to people who are only manufacturing the lock or the butt plate or the ramrod? Presumably this pattern relates to a certain stage of manufacture or assembly - before it is passed on for the next stage. The people who attach the sights might just have a barrel with the sights since the rest of the assembly would have been checked and approved before they got them. The mark on the bayonet lug puzzles me. it might mark the point where the dimension is critical so that the bayonet fits snugly - the rest being less critical. If the pattern was passed along as manufacture and assembly progressed - perhaps because it was held by a government inspector who followed several stages of the process - it might contain all the parts and dimensions for several stages.
I appreciate that you are trying to resolve a puzzle here, but I'm not convinced that you've got close yet. I can see a couple of problems here. One is that rifling a barrel is a relatively slow process involving a dedicated machine and a skilled operator - two "commodities" likely to be in short supply as a crisis unfolded, so it's not clear how much help this approach would be. I would have thought it better to simply contract for rifled and breeched barrels and just deal with the sights and touch holes in house. Rifling wasn't a state secret after all! The other point is that, as I understand it, serious parts interchangeability didn't arrive until after flintlocks had been withdrawn from service. So if you received a batch of assembled but yet to be rifled guns you were looking at possibly having to do an awful lot of corrective work if the rifling process disturbed the seating of the breech plug - if it doesn't go back just so, nothing else would align properly. And you would have the hassle of keeping all the parts together throughout. Could this gun perhaps be an assembled pattern for kits of parts intended to be finished at Enfield? or could it actually be the Sten gun of its day - a "modern" smooth bore quickly produced using existing parts for issue to scantily trained recruits who would be less likely to realise the benefits of a rifle anyway? Really enjoyed the video - kept the leetle grey cells busy till bedtime!
An Excellent Presentation from Johnathon as usual. If I could speak to him face to face, I would conjecture that the pattern would be held as a template against which ongoing manufacturing tolerances could be checked. It should be borne in mind that at this time the concept of standardized industrial manufacturing was being evolved. The commonly believed point of recognition is the introduction of automated parts fabrication at the American Springfield arsenal. Although earlier than this event, gunsmiths were committed to maintaining the interchangeability of parts for fire arms and as the parts manufactured by hand, tolerances would be prone to variation over time. The existence of a master pattern would provide a baseline for the construction process and allow deviations in production to be recognized and rectified.
@@tarmaque the thing that looks like an FAL and a SIG 550 had a little love affair. what version of the FAL? i'm really not so sure with that one cause of that carrying handle or sight or whatever that thing on top is... the FAL normally has a folding one that hangs to the side...
@@schore69 I dunno. There are many versions of the FAL, and my first thought is it's a pre-production version. However it does have distinctly FAL geometry and magazine. The receiver is much squarer than a typical FAL though. But what the heck do I know? Most of what I know about firearms I learned from Forgotten Weapons.
Going into combat with a smooth-bore, sightless rifle? Now that's soldiering!
A lot of soldiers did so, before the advent of rifling. Such weapons were not "rifles," but a "musket." This being the difference.
@@tarmaque I was referencing Sharpe
@@tarmaque Completely failing to get that the OP was meme-ing it up like a good'un for laughs?! Now that's UA-cam Commenting!
@@tarmaque So what was "a rifle musket", I always thought it was to distinguish the mode of ignition. That is a flintlock on a firelock or musket or even a rifle musket, and a percussion cap on say an Enfield Rifle.
Or as Baldric might put it "A club wot goes bang."
Fascinating to learn that the British penchant for "emergency pattern" weapons, that persisted into the Cold War with the 7.62 Sterling, stretches so far back.
7.62? 9mm
@@gerrywoody4301 that was the well known smg. There was also a 7.62 version derived from that that used FAL magazines, as a potential emergency substitute for the Bren/SLR.
@@ironanvil1 i stand corrected thank you sir i have leaned something i am glad i didnt have to fire it taking the recoil of a nato stadard 7.62 using the thin folding stock Of the smg or to have that round banging off so close to my face added to.in the event of a stoppage one would probby need to carry a vice and a crowbar into battle. 7.62 /SLR a marriage made in the heaven it sent folk to
Telling us about the Baker Rifle? Now that's soldiering.
Big Clive now thats soldering
Talking about an interesting Baker rifle, now that's Jonathan Fergusoning.
You gotta be pretty Sharpe to come up with that comment
Best thing about this video? The John Wick shirt. A hero wearing a heroic shirt.
First time I heard about the Baker rifle was when I read Sharpe's rifles.
Reminds me of that French "rifle" that was adopted as a smoothbore because they decided on a cartridge and gun, but not bullet weight and twist. That was done under the idea they could make the gun now and do the rifling later.
Thank you for making this video anout the Baker rifle! I can hear Sharpe’s intro theme song and Over the Hills and Far Away playing in my head again and again! 😄
This is absolutely fascinating. I have a Pattern 1800/15 Baker that I absolutely love and it would be fantastic if you could do an episode on the 1815 Baker conversion.
This was really informative! Never knew what a "sealed pattern" was, and always thought the Enfield Rifle of the 1853 was the first -very neat to learn something new.
Thanks Jonathan, that was really interesting to see. I would certainly like to see more episodes on British muzzle-loading arms.
Is it just me, or right at the start when Jonathan says "Hi guys, Jonathan here again in the room full of guns", he's looking awfully smug ... admittedly, if I were there doing the same thing I'd be looking awfully smug. He's got the sort of job I'd love to have. Keep up the good work JF :)
Another fascinating glimpse into firearm's history, thanks again Jonathan
More speculation, but I imagine Joseph Whitworth may have had his hands on one of these before the Pattern 1853 and ultimately his rifled musket
This and the Nock volley gun episode have this weirder introduction for anyone else? It's like an electric guitar solo with swelling orchestral music.
And the ending is just Jonathan singing about some valleys and hills far away......
Brilliant, eloquent gentleman with a dope Shirt!!!
Very interesting insight into an amazing weapon. I did own a smoothbore baker for re-enactment purposes, on a shotgun licence. And was luck enough to attend Waterloo in 2006 where my baker saw much use.
Jonathan with a baker rifle, Now that’s soldiering
Great videography on this episode. Nice job, lads. 👍
Hi Johnathan, really pleased to see you pop up all the best
Excellent work, Jonathan! 👏
Out of curiosity, what's the internal diameter of the barrel on the sealed pattern example? Is it adequate to allow for rifling to be cut? Surely that would be considered a reasonable indicator for it being a sealed pattern for an unfinished example meant, as you very logically say, for larger scale production by other manufacturers? It wouldn't be the last time the U.K. "peddled" and subcontracted major component manufacturing to maximise production.
I was actually thinking it maybe a pattern sent to armouries like Peshawar, Pakistan Indian, Canadian, Australian for making local versions, allowing for different possible variations of locally produced/ supplied sights, muzzle length and rifling capabilities.
That makes a good deal of sense.
Then a random finished rifle would be just as good as there is no interest in sizes and standards and just anything can be modified, lock, stock, barrel, ...
Unfortunately I can't contribute; but I appreciate that You are doing Your research so somebody out there might come up with some documentation or know something, that can supplement.
You never know where in the nitty gritty detail the decisive information might rest.
I just might be able to set the famous raid on the Shell-House in Copenhagen in perspective - it takes a very long time to get all the pieces of the puzzle and even longer to see how they fit together. This is partly due to the fact that the persons knowing the critical information don't know how that it is - in fact - critical.
Very familiar to the fans of Sharpe!
I really, really wish Pedersoli would make a real, true later Baker rifle, complete with sight and of course, the rifling.
Sharpe and his 95th Rifles. That's soldering.
An alternate theory: This is a parade weapon, not needing some of the accouterments of a field weapon but still needing to be capable of firing in salute?
It needs to look like the field weapon but not function as such.
I don't know enough about firearms manufacture or the history of parade ground usage in the British forces, but while that does make sense, it seems like a lot of cost and effort to have a sealed pattern version of a weapon like this, based on what a sealed pattern version is (something to control serial, and therefore presumably mass, production), for that extremely limited purpose, given how cheap production line guns already were, and given that Britain was in a state of near-permanent war during the period the Baker was in service.
In short, why would they need this specific model to produce rifles that would be of extremely limited numbers and of no practical military use, when Enfield could simply churn out a few parade variants based on the full sealed pattern version, but simply leave off the extra bits? There's also the issue that British gun salutes tend to involve artillery pieces (due to the whole Naval tradition), so there'd be even less need for rifles that were of limited military use, and even less when you consider that it would be more likely that line soldiers with muskets, rather than riflemen, who would be performing salutes.
Far more likely that this is an outsourcing rifle, as Jonathan suggests, so less skilled manufacturers can produce it in bulk (and presumably get paid less) and leave the final finishing to Enfield.
I think the other thing to consider would be the omission of the functional bayonet lug. Parade grounds were all about the show, and even today, British Household Guards tend to have bayonets affixed. I don't know if this was the case in Victorian times, but I'd be very surprised if it wasn't and we adopted it at a later date. I can understand the omission of the sights and rifling, but the bayonet lug seems a strange one if it was going to be used, essentially, for show.
But as I say, I'm absolutely not an expert on any of this, and I do think it's a solid idea. Would love it if Jonathan shared his thoughts on it!
That seems unlikely- parade weapons are sometimes carried with bayonets attached, and on this one the bayonet will just fall off.
The British military do not do small arms salutes, we only do gun salutes. We also don't typically have parade weapons, current SA80s used as parade rifles are the exact same as ones used in combat, bar the pic rail frontend being removed and a cover for the plastic cover used instead (to prevent snagging or damage to parade uniforms). I believe this has been always been the case, regardless of rifle pattern.
As Jim points out, British parades almost always have bayonet attached and this does not.
No, definatly not.. You need to understand the times that these guns were being made. This precedes the the work of Robbins and Lawrence and Joseph Whitworth in the development of engineering measurement and precision. The traditional method of government procurement was to have a model item made up and examined by a board of officers. When the model was deemed satisfactory, a wax seal was attached and the item held as a pattern for contractors to copy. It was not just guns, all sorts of items were produced like this, including components and sub assemblies.
None of the items were identical, as each manufacturer would have their own measurement methods and would only be able to work to fairlyy loose tolerances. In UK practice, firearm components such as barrels, stocks and fittings were procured from a large number of small contractors, intitially sited around Soho in London in the 16th and 17th Century until land prices forced them out and much of the trade moved to Birmingham. Parts were sent to the Tower of London, where they were fitted together by Artificers and Fitters as the parts would need to be filed and finished before assembly. Most parts would be made in wrought iron which would be supplied in the soft state. After filing up and fitting, they would then be case hardened in sets and assembled. None of the parts would be exchangeable.
One of the factors that moved production to Enfield, and prompted the move to the percussion 1853 rifled musket was a fire in the Tower of London, which destroyed a large proportion of the reserve stock of Brown Bess muskets. Much of the tooling that went into the main Enfield production line came from the USA in the 1850s, by which time measurement and guaging methods worked out on both sides of the Atlantic had solved the exchangable parts problem and the need for sealed patterns disappeared. Enfield and the main arsenal at Woolwich were able to send out guaging sets to allow quality control of contracted items as the whole science of engineering tolerances was now understood.
Fantastic content thank you ! 😊👍👌🏼
So you could think of it as a rifle "blank", similar to a knife "blank" where it is a knife that needs finishing or some further work but is mostly complete.
I just love these videos :) thanks for making them! so artillery video when ?
Any chance to see a video about the VSS Vintores and/or AS VAL?
Came from gamespot’s cyberpunk weapons video. New sub. You should really consider doing more video game weapons.
A sealed pattern for the Sharpe eyed, now that's soldiering.
It was proofed! I put forward that it was part of a test program to determine the value and type of rifled barrel over a smooth bore. It could of had several types of barrels fitted. Of course, there's the Secrets thing.
Makes sense. A controlled standard part for calibration of tooling and/or inspection equipment. Not too long ago before the advent of scanning systems in aerospace an inspector might have a 'standard' version of a particularly complex contoured tube for instance to use as a comparison to release a production part. This inspection tool might be painted blue or red perhaps so it didn't actually get used.
Room full of guns!
Exellent video thank you. very cool
Fyi; the 'British Infantry Rifle' (Baker) was built with the sights and 7:56 bayonet bar brazed onto the barrel BEFORE the barrel was finish reamed and then rifled. This is because red heat in a furnace was required. There was no gas torch tech avail then. Red heat would screw the rifling. THE END. Builders of modern versions ( i have built 4x) should bear this in mind. I solder these parts on. SV. NZ.
Does that mean that you are the current Master General of the Ordnance, Jonathan? Now that’s a cool job title!
The Master General of the Ordnance would work for whoever currently buys weapons for the British Army, alas. (The "General" part doesn't mean the Army rank, either, it means that the person works for the whole Army and not just a specific Regiment. That is, the title means "Master of Ordnance, in general.") I'd not be suprised to learn the post still exists, though; Attorneys General and Surgeons General are still very common, so why not Masters General?
Anyway, "Keeper of Firearms" seems like a pretty cool job title already!
@@davydatwood3158 I thought it might be something like that but I did wonder if it might have been a Royal Armouries title.
Before the production-line era, for all manufacturing that was done for government contracts or for some other enterprise that needed standardisation, the various workshops were given a "Pattern" of the thing they were making.
People involved in manufacturing normally had no ability to read working drawings. Families had home-workshops and did piece-work and every family member was involved. And so they were given a "Pattern" to take their measurements directly from.
I have done steel fab, and I can read blueprints now, but honestly I think the Idea of the sort of blank pattern like this is brilliant, because you can see how it is suppose to go.
Why use plans when they could have patterns. They would have needed even higher precision measuring devices that need to be to pattern too, the imperial system only starts in 1824
@@2adamast The good thing about using a pattern is you don't need a measuring device with accurate graduations. You can just use a calipers or compass.
Who wants to see Jonathon Ferguson and Ian McCollum just sitting around talking about guns?
We all do! They have done quite a few videos together, as Jonathan's book on British bullpups was published by the same company that did Ian's book on French small arms, and Ian has been to the Royal Armoury to look at a few of their pieces over the years.
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I wasn't sure how to parse "Sealed Pattern Baker", but it seems to be that it's Sealed as in Confirmed correct by official stamp, Pattern as Example of Baker model, a particular type. All sorts of other meanings might be constructed, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
If the last version of the Baker rifle standardized the use of the 1796 pattern lock, what lock did the 1800 pattern Tower Baker rifle use? Thanks!
Were any of the later Baker rifles modified to the percussion system, or did they all remain as flintlocks?
Seems simple enough to do that. I know that in the US, some armory stored military guns were changed over to percussion fairly easily (several models of US muskets numbering in the hundreds of thousands) starting in the 1840s, with many of the newer models being rifled in addition to the percussion modification.
I haven’t had an opportunity to take a good look, but you might consider doing a piece about the first breech-loading black powder a cap and ball that nearly killed George Washington, the Ferguson Rifle.
There’s a good chance those last gasp Bakers ended up arming the Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment. Would love to see a video on the Brunswick.
So when you got the 'rifle' in this state, assembled but missing the rifling - would it be disassembled again an then the rifling cut at Enfield? Wouldn't it have made more sense to make the barrel there and only get the rest from outside?
Remember that this vastly predates viable interchangable parts. The barrel and furniture would have been hand-fitted and you wouldn't want to take it apart again. Especially on a rifle where the sights had to be reasonably zeroed.
My guess - and this is ONLY a guess - is the plan was to take the mostly finished rifle, clamp it down, bore out the rifling, cut off the excess length, and fit sights to suit the bore and barrel fit. That, of course, is assuming Enfield had a process to drill out the rifling once the weapon was assembled.
An alternate guess would be that, if this was ever used, factories were told "here's all the bits. Here's how they fit together, so you know what you're working towards. But just make the bits and send them to us, and we'll do the hard parts and put it all together." A variation on that would be "You make these bits, we'll make these other bits, and then we'll send everything to this third company to assemble." But that comes back to the "need to be precise for zeroing sights" so I'd think 3rd party final assembly is less likely?
All just speculation. Don't overlook the possibility of people thinking this was a good plan until they ran into the very issue you describe. People in the 1800s weren't any better at seeing all the ramifications of a plan than we are now. :)
Maybe a pattern for a smoothbore for foraging small game? Two or three per company? But I don't know if that was a British thing.
No, you'd just use the standard Baker rifle. After all, it's small game so some degree of accuracy would be of benefit 🙂
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 rifling is not good for shot patterns for birds and rabbits and such. If memory serves some Trapdoor 1873 Springfields were made as such for foraging. I thought maybe the Brits might have done a similar thing but it was only a guess.
@@TrainmanDan I see your point, but at the time anyone carrying a Baker rifle was effectively a marksman, birds on the wing maybe not, but I suspect capable of hitting small game at close range.
The other thing is, the smooth bore military musket was the normal weapon of the day. That any one could be taught to shoot, and load quickly. A Rifled Musket was a bit harder to learn, and slower to reload. That's just my two cents worth.
Could just be a rush, not fitted with sights or rifling because the old chuffs in Whitehall had not yet agreed on a pattern or rate of twist they just needed a look alike to see if it matched their uniforms nicely.
Though I feel a bit cheeky offering a contradiction to your theory of this weapon, I'm sure I recall either yourself or "Forgotten Ian" relating a tale of how Britain used to issue sort of second class weapons to their colonial troops, as a precaution against them rising up against British regular troops. In that account they were issued with muskets instead of rifles and given shorter range sighting? Maybe it was one of those nights when I got into what my daughter calls a "deep dive" - getting sucked into one You Tube after another until your face hits the keyboard - and I imagined that?
Oops! The flag shown on the bottom right at ~0:30 is wrong- the upper right quadrant saltire should be red over white, not white over red.
I was in London a few years back and I have been kicking myself ever since that I didn't know the Royal Armouries existed!
One thing I wanted to ask; does the Royal Armouries have a sample of the experimental .280 bullpup FAL? I've seen one image of the weapon in the hands of a soldier and I've wondered ever since how many samples were ever made and if any still exist. Thanks
The Royal Armouries are in Leeds, not London. Many of the exhibits that used to be in the White Tower in the Tower of London are now in Leeds..!
There were FAL made in .280 but I am not aware of any bullpup versions. I was always told that the FAL was originally designed for the 7.92x33 Kurtz round, and 7.62x51 was always at the top end of what the design could cope with. There were also 7.62x51 versions of the EM2, but they are not as pleasant to shoot as the .280. Leeds has versions of all these, but they may not be on display.
For those to young to remember, 20 shillings equals £1 pound.
But a gentleman uses guineas at £1-1-0, one pound and one shilling or 21 shillings. FWIW that is 1,016 farthings….. Can’t imagine why they decimalised it.
What type of steel was used for the barrel and what is the price of the baker during the napoleonic wars ?
Well Army bakers real job is baking bread, so they’re only armed as a stock gap in case of an emergency (like what the M1 Carbine was made for), so the powers that be felt they didn’t require rifling.
The 95th Rifles
The Chosen Men
for the very Sharped eyed...🙂
If it's got proof marks, does that mean it's been proofed (which I assume means it's been fired)?
Anyone capable of making safe muskets could make unfinished Bakers and the precision work would be done by better gunsmith to achieve a higher production of good finished product than top-tier manufacturers could produce on their own.
That at least makes sense.
Spitballing here, but could it also be that those things that there were left off the pattern, were things that could could be custom ordered? There different types of sight, rifling, muzzles and bayonets, could this just be the absolute base model of the gun like a car has a base model and those things were options that were decided upon later to tailor the gun to the needs of the military branch at the time? Like say the Army wants just the sight like on the second model but the navy wants a different type of sight and different style of bayonet. So they leave those features off the pattern so that they can be decided upon later as needs warrant.
Wasnt there a flip up, adjustable sight on one of the versions?
Your theory that it was a muster gun makes sense, that or the inspector was drunk.
At what stage did they rifle the barrel I had assumed that they would rifle it before assembly?
I would love to know how the barrel was made, A great feat of engineering
So could you think of it as kind of like a basis for the 80% firearms that are made over in the US?
I work in a subcontract manufacturing company, and we get samples to build to that are similarly unfinished. IMO J. F. And his speculative thinking ring very plausible
Hmm.. I was thinking at the beginning that it was a shotgun version. Kind of small of bore, though...
Is this version based on the original caliber baker or the later one with the smaller bore which does not share ammunition with the brown bess?
Is the shotgun barrel made from a solid bar ....is the rifled barrel a. Damascus barrel there is no mention of this it would be nice to know....thanks
What is this brown finish on the barrel of a "proper" variant? Looks really neat!
Looks like fish oil or an oil treated patina.
My theory is as folllows:
"What, no, I said rifle the muskets, not musket the rifles. I think. Did I write it down? Oh. Oh dear. Yes, my bad. Little too much sherry, methinks."
Would reacting to Call of duty zombies wonder weapons be a possibility in the near future?
Jonathan, you are way to good at what you do… absolute informational sponge
*insert obligatory Sharpe comment here*
Asking people to insert obligatory Sharpe comments, now that's YouTubing.
Could it also be a pattern for use when making rifles with different non-standard rifling?
Is that a wood block in the lock jaws?
I am a 95/Over the hills and far away
In any manufacturing process the pattern only needs to cover the parts made or assembled by a particular unit or factory. Why send complete rifles to people who are only manufacturing the lock or the butt plate or the ramrod? Presumably this pattern relates to a certain stage of manufacture or assembly - before it is passed on for the next stage. The people who attach the sights might just have a barrel with the sights since the rest of the assembly would have been checked and approved before they got them. The mark on the bayonet lug puzzles me. it might mark the point where the dimension is critical so that the bayonet fits snugly - the rest being less critical. If the pattern was passed along as manufacture and assembly progressed - perhaps because it was held by a government inspector who followed several stages of the process - it might contain all the parts and dimensions for several stages.
Where those ever converted to percussion caps?
TIL the orign of Lock, Stock, and Barrel.
I prefer the Candlestick Maker rifle.
I appreciate that you are trying to resolve a puzzle here, but I'm not convinced that you've got close yet. I can see a couple of problems here. One is that rifling a barrel is a relatively slow process involving a dedicated machine and a skilled operator - two "commodities" likely to be in short supply as a crisis unfolded, so it's not clear how much help this approach would be. I would have thought it better to simply contract for rifled and breeched barrels and just deal with the sights and touch holes in house. Rifling wasn't a state secret after all! The other point is that, as I understand it, serious parts interchangeability didn't arrive until after flintlocks had been withdrawn from service. So if you received a batch of assembled but yet to be rifled guns you were looking at possibly having to do an awful lot of corrective work if the rifling process disturbed the seating of the breech plug - if it doesn't go back just so, nothing else would align properly. And you would have the hassle of keeping all the parts together throughout.
Could this gun perhaps be an assembled pattern for kits of parts intended to be finished at Enfield? or could it actually be the Sten gun of its day - a "modern" smooth bore quickly produced using existing parts for issue to scantily trained recruits who would be less likely to realise the benefits of a rifle anyway?
Really enjoyed the video - kept the leetle grey cells busy till bedtime!
Would it be a presentation piece?
What makes a good soldier?
An Excellent Presentation from Johnathon as usual. If I could speak to him face to face, I would conjecture that the pattern would be held as a template against which ongoing manufacturing tolerances could be checked. It should be borne in mind that at this time the concept of standardized industrial manufacturing was being evolved. The commonly believed point of recognition is the introduction of automated parts fabrication at the American Springfield arsenal. Although earlier than this event, gunsmiths were committed to maintaining the interchangeability of parts for fire arms and as the parts manufactured by hand, tolerances would be prone to variation over time. The existence of a master pattern would provide a baseline for the construction process and allow deviations in production to be recognized and rectified.
You must love your job. I know I would.
hey there! still wondering what that chunky looking assault rifle on jonathans left (from his view) side is... that 80's looking one you know...
Looks like some version of FAL. Not technically an "assault rifle" but a "battle rifle." Unless you're looking at something I'm not seeing.
@@tarmaque the thing that looks like an FAL and a SIG 550 had a little love affair. what version of the FAL? i'm really not so sure with that one cause of that carrying handle or sight or whatever that thing on top is... the FAL normally has a folding one that hangs to the side...
@@schore69 I dunno. There are many versions of the FAL, and my first thought is it's a pre-production version. However it does have distinctly FAL geometry and magazine. The receiver is much squarer than a typical FAL though.
But what the heck do I know? Most of what I know about firearms I learned from Forgotten Weapons.
@@tarmaque lets hope it will be shown by jonathan at one point
@@schore69 I'd enjoy that.
Cool
The Baker Not-A-Rifle. The Baker Shot-Rifle
"Ya cull thaht a rahfle? Wi' nho sahts ahnd a smooth bhore? Why, thahts nho rafle at'ull. Sahgeant Hahper,...."
"SIR!"
"...waht iz this?"
"THAT, is a glorifoid tant-pole, Major, Sir."
I know Sharpe's Rifles wore green as they were skirmishers, but they weren't Orks... 😅
@@RoganGunn, whadya mean?! Thats not Cockney! Those are clearly a mid-lands and Irish accent! ;)
@@colmhain Haha on second reading, you're quite right! 😂
*100% Blades!*
Sheffield, wuznit?
is that a John Wick t-shirt?
Oh. You have a production blank.
0:54 If it has a smooth bore, should it be called a rifle at all?
How many of the comments will have "Now that's soldiering" or similar in them... :)
So... a Baker musket?
It wouldn't be accurate but that leftover bit of metal next to be barrel could almost be converted into a bayonet mount.
Would it then be a Baker Musket , and not a Baker Rifle
There is a advantage to use a smooth barrel over the not smooth one..? I mean historical meaning.
Faster reload as you don't have to force the ball down the rifling.
8:17 Britain always wanting…wary of war with France…😂