The obvious disadvantage of a turret syatem that didn't get mentioned was the fact that there's always a chamber pointing back at the shooter. You'd want to be very certain that there was no possiblity of flashover or other cause of unintended discharge.
Yes, I was expecting him to mention that, but he never did. Those fiddly hand loaded guns, or even hand-made cartridges (I expect) were much more prone to accidental chain discharge.
In general terms yes, one of the reasons they never caught on in the percussion era, but this being a cartridge system there's really no way for that to happen.
@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries Your technically right but try telling that to a 1860s punter. You would never convince them having bullets pointing back at you was smart even if the gun was perfectly safe.
I think this usage of "steampunk" is perfectly acceptable, being a niche 19th century technology that never took off, which was probably considered innovative/futuristic in its day.
Despite owning no firearms, never going hunting, and barely having spent any time firing weapons, I love them. Can’t really explain why - might just be the engineering/mechanics behind them. Bolt actions from the late 19th/early 20th century are my weakness. Couldn’t care less about the more modern stuff if I’m being honest haha. There’s a certain beauty in older weapons that the newer polymer ones just don’t have. Craftsmanship. Idk lol
@@I_enjoy_some_things That's what's so fascinating to me too! Though I am a shooter (never a hunter though... I can't shoot Bambi or his mom!), I love historical firearms and the ingenuity behind them. I have a weakness for rifled muskets of the mid nineteenth century, and their simple clockwork-like locks are just amazing to me!
@@I_enjoy_some_thingswhat I find fun is these early designs where the makers are still working out the best way to do things or find an interesting way around a patent.
Regardless of what it is, it's absolutely beautiful just as an object. The engraving and carving and the brass with the black and the rich colours of the woodwork is stunning.
I’ve actually recently gone back and watched almost the whole back catalogue of the videos and remember the rifle version rather well. Bullets facing you when it goes bang….
This reminds me of the 8mm movie camera system, where standard 8 cameras you had to manually feed the film through the reels, then the super 8 cartridge system came along where you simply dropped in a loaded film cartridge. I wonder if the turret system had been developed further into a less cumbersome firing/cocking system whether it would have made military use an option where a soldier could carry multiple drop in preloaded cartridges like a super 8 camera.
@@rippervtol9516 Yup, I know. But the turret issue, why it's remarkable, is the chambers and the fact it can potentially fire out of any of them if something goes bad. I have seen, BTW, a turret pistol where the disc is dished and the rear-pointing chambers point up at about 30 deg--enough to fire over your head. Still rather a shock, mind you.
I assume the holes are not for loading or topping off but for safety. Should the system go out of time and shave lead into the nose of the chamber bedside it. It would potentially chain fire. Better to go out the side than through the frame. and seeing that those have a "tail" primer im sure that a good boop on the bullet nose could set off the primer. Also good for a hang fire. Cause as a hand loader that does happen occasionally.
Hey, just so you know, there isn't any link to littlegun in the description; what's worse is when I went to the site myself I couldn't find this gun on it, and I was quite looking forward to seeing the picture of the mustachioed creator! I'd appreciate any help
Even though it looks nothing like it, I remember hearing about turret guns first in Fable 2, especially because they were my weapon of choice. Great video as always!
You can't really convert this to pin fire or more normal metallic cartridges because it has to be loaded from the front of the cylinder. The best you could probably do for making it a self contained metallic cartridge would be something like teat fire, or maybe a modified rim fire where instead of the rear of the cartridge the priming band would wrap around the side like a ring. Either way the front loading of the turret makes it entirely unsuited to more common contemporary cartridges like pin fire or rim fire.
In my opinion, this is very reminiscent of the gestational development period of semi-automatic pistols, fifty years later. What we take for granted today as the obvious way that automatic pistols should work, with the slide and the moving/locking barrel and all those elements, weren't so obvious back then, and everyone was trying their own ideas. Just in the same way that back then, we hadn't fully settled on the idea that all the chambers of a revolver should remain parallel to the barrel and revolve around a central pinned axis to present themselves. So we get weird ideas like this. Of course, one ended up being almost universally agreed upon as they way forward and it's what we went with, in the 19th century it was Samuel Colt's basic layout and in the 20th it was John Moses Browning's.
Any idea how old the term "turret gun" is? According to Wikipedia (yes, I know, but for this kind of trivia it's reasonably accurate) the first warship with turrets wasn't laid down until in 1866 and not in service until two years later. Prior to that, the word "turret" generally referred to a small tower. So I'm mostly curious if the term "turret gun" or "turret revolver" is a modern term retroactively applied (like "arming sword") or if it was actually used in period.
@@johanmetreus1268 Well, yes, but that statement is true of any written source that isn't original research. I should perhaps observe that I'm a librarian, and trained to evaluate the reliability of sources. :)
@@davydatwood3158 Very true that. The tank history community certainly have suffered from otherwise reliable authors citing eachother, perpetuating hard-to-kill myths introduced by a single author in the early years after WWII. More specifically though, would you agree that it would be more adequate to regard Wikipedia more as a repository of unique articles, where each has to be judged individually, han a standard work?
@@johanmetreus1268 Wikipedia is a tertiary source. Like *any* tertiary source, the individual articles are written by a variety of authors and edited by people who are not subject matter specialists. When rigorous factual accuracy is required, a tertiary source is useful for a listing of primary and secondary sources, as well a source of terminology or jargon that can be used as search terms in a subject-focused database, but should not, in general, be relied upon in and of itself. *This* caution is just as true of the Encyclopaedia Britanica Macropedia as it is of Wikipedia, however. Indeed, if the subject is subject to rapid academic growth and involves mostly quantifiable data - astrophysics and organic chemistry are good examples - Wikipedia is usually more accurate than the Brit Mac, as its structure allows it to update faster. For areas with more subjective stat, social sciences, or areas that have somehow become connected to political ideology or personal, national, ethnic, or other forms of identity, Wikipedia is much less reliable.
The OED has "turret gun" (or at least "turret gunner") from 1870. But that refers to the gun in a turret on a warship, which is probably not what you're asking about.
You indeed gain more shots, but at the same time the chambers in this turret are far shallower than those in a classic revolver, so probably what it made up in capacity lost in terms of velocity and penetration, even with the gas seal.
Could the quick loading gates be to went gas leakage from shooting and stop it from entering the next chamber if it get around the bullet? And if it cooked of the bullet would simply fly out the hole 36 degree the direction you fire. Yes you could also use them for quick loading,
I was thinking the same thing. A chain-fire on that thing would be very exciting. A normal revolver would just send everything in front of you. Much less dangerous for the user.
I'm surprised that you didn't mention the Nagant revolver when discussing the gas seal. I regret not buying one when there was a glut on the American surplus market a couple of decades ago. I'd love to turn one into a suppressed revolver with a holographic sight.
This firearm is fascinating, I'd be curious how much inspiration that was shared one way or the other between these weapons and Colt revolvers of the time, if they was any shared inspiration. Also, if the Armory has the right examples, I'd love to see Mr. Ferguson do video where he lays out weapons of particularly prolific designers and show all the examples of their work and what they added to their designs that we still see today. I'm thinking of a large table with all the weapons attributed to John Browning would make a great start, but then less well known designers who still produced a variety of weapons.
I suggest, holding pistol in right hand , release barrel with left hand, depress turret catch with right thumb, rotate turret with left hand , releasing right thumb to allow index, close barrel lock with left hand.
I'd mentioned in a later video an idea for a series where various that I'd find an "anatomy of a gun" video detailing the various common parts of a gun stlystem and the myriad variatiojs on them very informative and interesting - not sure if in that comment I extended the interest to ammunition. I think the various features of rounds, shells, propellants, how bullets were made, how different calibers are assessed, various feed mechanisms and magazines or clips and the like work - are all very interesting too! I'm essentially a huge nerd for chemistry, manufacturing, and mechanics; the more info I'm provided the more I want to learn!
So a moral we can take from this story is, (19:00) if everyone back in the 1850s were complete imbeciles we all might be using THIS system instead of self contained metallic cartridges.
Your description of the cartridge sounds a lot like a teat-fire cartridge. Is it possible that the barrel locking into the turret was an attempt to prevent chain firing, since the turret system was somewhat known to have that problem?
The Genhart Pistol was also patented by Heinrich Genhart in the USA in 1857. He got the American patent because he was trying to sell it to the US Army, but the Army rejected it as impractical and considered the fiddly percussion cartridges to be unsafe to carry and handle. They contracted Samuel Colt for the Colt 1860 revolver instead.
Possibility of a chainfire from the primer end as there seems to be a large gap around the turret pivot. Perhaps the reason for the two holes on either side? I wouldn't want to fire it 😖
Hello, Mr Ferguson. I'm a big fan of your series where you review armaments from video games and I'd like to recommend the game Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, as it has a very unique weapon selection that often isn't seen in video games, consisting of mostly Chinese guns.
@@MansMan42069 No it’s gang firing, a problem that sometimes happened with early revolvers loaded with loose powder. A spark from the fired chamber could set off one or more of the other loaded chambers not in line with the barrel. Not only could this destroy the gun but in the case of a revolver rifle one of the shooter’s hands could be in the way or with a turret revolver like this the chamber could be the one pointed at the shooter’s face.
2:55 i dont know... it seems to me that turret revolver can hold way less ammo than standard. because outer part of turret is always bigger so there is lots of wasted space there. besides there are 20 shot revolvers seen... for that turret would have to be huge. i mean sure drum is pretty big too.
It seems pretty cool to gain an extra four rounds per load, but in order to increase the capacity you'd need to make the cylinder much, much larger in diameter than you would with a traditional revolver as each round is inserted toward the center of the circle rather than around it. It's much less space efficient.
Nice looking pistol, but if you get any sort of chain fire or all the Chambers firing at once, one or more of the Chambers are facing towards the user at all times.....😮
You didn't mention the biggest issue with turret revolvers. There are bullets *pointing towards you* if there's a chain fire you are going to get a hole in yourself. I believe this happened to the inventor of a turret revolver who traveled from town to town trying to show people how safe his new system was. I can't think of any contempary firearm system which has bullets pointing towards you. The P90 has bullets parallel to the shooter, but not pointing towards the shooter and that's the only one I can think of.
I believe you could dig through German designs for future rifle of the '70s (what would later become G11) and find some that would point bullets towards the shooter at some stage of the cycle. With caseless ammo that wouldn't be particularly safe, I presume.
The P90 ammunition is stacked up in a plastic box while it's turned sideways. These round would be chambered the whole time. That definitely makes a difference to how hard a round can spit.
12:50 If you loaded through those holes, i would think the cartridge would fall out. I would suggest they are in case of accidentally firing one of the "cylinders" next to the one you intend. With all the primers in close proximity, it would make sense to have a way for the weapon to go off in this manner without removing your hand in the process.
I didn't even need to play the video to know what was wrong with this design. The notion of a revolving long gun (in the conventional style) was considered, but you'll note you do not see them. Why not? Because it's possibe something could cause multiple rounds from the cylinder to fire at once. Through your support hand/arm. Something like that in this case would fire rounds in any random direction! An interesting curiosity, but I'd never load and fire it-and not for the risk of damaging a valuable artifact of history. No, I don't consider the thing safe! Fun to have a look at all the same, enjoyed the video!
So, if it has a gas seal, theoretically, you could have, with the right manufacturing methods, threaded a barrel for attachment of a very basic suppressor?
Being that it is more than likely black powder. And non jacketed soft lead. That suppressor would need more maintenance than the gun. Still a cool thought. 😂 wish they were less rare would be cool to test.
@alexanderdeifel4368 just thinking from the perspective of the Nagant revolver design also having a gas seal from the cylinder locking up with the breech face and being able to be suppressed as a mechanic result? It seems like it was one of those ideas that would have been cool to see how it would have progressed if it hadn't been an abandoned branch along the invention tree.
@@FyremaelGlittersparkle Suppressed Nagant revolvers were generally a bit more sophisticated with their cartridge as well, if memory serves. Jonathan had discussed it a while back, as I recall.
Seems to me with the cartridges being so short, this would a very low power pistol. Perhaps a target pistol but I would suspect it was inadequate for defense.
The *_other_*_ other_ way, so there are chambers pointing down at your hand as well as back at your face, allows you to wear it next to your body with a chamber pointing up into your armpit.
0:51 Conventional revolvers as well - early Lefaucheux models had similar trigger guards and somewhat similar grips. 3:00 ...And, more importantly, would result in very high bore axis, which has undesirable effects on perceived recoil. 5:39 I suspect quite a few Flemish-speaking viewers might be offended here, but I prefer to believe Jonathan ment Belgian French. 😉 And yes, the English version of the site is not without its defects: I've seen some rather strange turns of phrases there, which I suspect might rise from translation errors. 10:52 Given that the aforementioned Lefaucheux had already produced a conventional revolver and pinfire cartridges for it, I'm at a loss in regards to what could be gained with such a complicated system, especially in Belgium at the time when patent enforcement was mostly theoretical. Was it the first instance of the future Belgian obsession with gas seal designs? 19:00 I can't see why pinfire and rimfire cartridges would struggle with underhammer. The turret design would, however, but that wouldn't work with centerfire ammo too. 19:35 It wouldn't be such a problem with saddle holsters.
Ever see a chainfire in a turret revolver? In a regular revolver, it'll damage the gun, maybe even blow it up, but everything is pointed downrange. In a turret revolver, you're literally firing in all directions, including back at the person holding the gun.
"Belgium language" - The one that sounds like French, or the one that sounds like Dutch. Or like pretty much all north western Europeans, the can speak English.
pretty obvious it was designed by an Artillery man rather than a Calvary man, because it is inconvenient in every department, you'd have a quicker time reloading a barrel loaded pistol.
This seems like it would have been successful if only the cylinder wasn't integral to the gun. If you had the cylinder just carry rounds and operate a Martini Henry style breech to just drop ammunition in, it could have been way more useful.
OK Johnathon it's got 10 'shots', but this piece is 1853 - 20 years after the Colt Patterson, which most people would recognise as a revolver. This 'turret' type most would assume was reminiscent of the sort of thing that was around in the C16th (examples of which will be in your collection) so your 'steampunk' moniker ain't the half of it !
So it’s not that nothing of it was catching on. Only if you think in Revolver terms, but a round pan magazine on top, so that you can have more round? Yes, that’s often used in guns.
It seems to me as though the barrel was used more so as a safety mechanism to align the cylinder and the holes on either side may have been for any gas spillage to exit without moving in towards the next cartridge in any instance where there WAS some blowby backwards...but also those two ports could have been load one - turn cyl to fire, load a second one, unload the empty "casing" after shooting the first one, repeat, that sorta thing. my bigger worry is that i wouldn't want ANY repeater, certainly not one with all of the primers pointed inwards like that, but really woudn't want any repeater to have one-two of the rounds pointed backwards between my eyes!!! that just doesn't pass the comfort test haha
Am I the only one who wonders as to how that teat primer is extracted when reloading the pistol? I can understand the paper cartridge leaves an empty chamber but that primer? Maybe I missed something, could be, I am a bit younger the Biden and my mind is still fairly sharp, I did manage to install Windows 11 on a used compute I picked up with a wiped SSD drive the other day and get her up and running, in fact I am posting from it now, so my mind still works and I am only 73 now so not yet over the hill, however I can see the crest in my rear view mirror. My wonderful wife of 51 years and 4 days passed away when she turned 73, both my sisters died at 73, but mom hung on till 98, just days from her 99th birthday, dad, a fifth a day drinker died at 62 so I passed him, however I gave up drinking in 88 and gave up smoking in 93.
Why wasn't this in AC black flag? Would have been the ultimate weapon for an assassin. Too bad you couldn't fire this one, would have loved to hear and see it in action and of course, documented on youtube as well. Beautiful piece, love these odd ball guns. The only "turret" styled gun i can think of, still in use today is the Degtyaryov DP-27 machine gun, recently seen being used in Ukraine, but made in 1920. One could argue that the P-90 adapted or evolved from this. Thanks Jonathan.
Black flag took place about 100 years before this type of firearm existed. Fulminate didn't exist then, so any system like this would need a flint or wheel lock system. Maybe the game that took place in London could have used it.
@@daviddavidson2357or just say its secret Templar stuff they developed. After all the ancient magic tech items they acquired having some more advanced technology doesn't seem unreasonable, especially with the other wacky stuff in the series.
"Always keep the firearms pointed in a safe direction"
Turret pistol: "good luck"
At least bullet is...
The obvious disadvantage of a turret syatem that didn't get mentioned was the fact that there's always a chamber pointing back at the shooter. You'd want to be very certain that there was no possiblity of flashover or other cause of unintended discharge.
Yes, I was expecting him to mention that, but he never did. Those fiddly hand loaded guns, or even hand-made cartridges (I expect) were much more prone to accidental chain discharge.
In general terms yes, one of the reasons they never caught on in the percussion era, but this being a cartridge system there's really no way for that to happen.
@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries Your technically right but try telling that to a 1860s punter. You would never convince them having bullets pointing back at you was smart even if the gun was perfectly safe.
Yesssur, I may be drunk, but I'm pointing this thing at all 10 of us.
A "chain fire" would really ruin your day !
I think this usage of "steampunk" is perfectly acceptable, being a niche 19th century technology that never took off, which was probably considered innovative/futuristic in its day.
Steam never took off? OK. Whoosh.
@@FryingTiger Turret revolvers never took off.
The creativity of historical firearms has always fascinated me. Definitely an interesting microcosm of broader human ingenuity! Great vid!
Despite owning no firearms, never going hunting, and barely having spent any time firing weapons, I love them. Can’t really explain why - might just be the engineering/mechanics behind them. Bolt actions from the late 19th/early 20th century are my weakness. Couldn’t care less about the more modern stuff if I’m being honest haha.
There’s a certain beauty in older weapons that the newer polymer ones just don’t have. Craftsmanship. Idk lol
@@I_enjoy_some_things That's what's so fascinating to me too! Though I am a shooter (never a hunter though... I can't shoot Bambi or his mom!), I love historical firearms and the ingenuity behind them. I have a weakness for rifled muskets of the mid nineteenth century, and their simple clockwork-like locks are just amazing to me!
@@yakhooves With wolves displaced by humans, Bambi and his mom will devour the entire forest.
@@kanrakucheese well, go get them then! I just don’t want it to be me doing it, lol
@@I_enjoy_some_thingswhat I find fun is these early designs where the makers are still working out the best way to do things or find an interesting way around a patent.
Regardless of what it is, it's absolutely beautiful just as an object. The engraving and carving and the brass with the black and the rich colours of the woodwork is stunning.
I’ve actually recently gone back and watched almost the whole back catalogue of the videos and remember the rifle version rather well.
Bullets facing you when it goes bang….
Based on the video title, I thought it meant the cylinder revolving in the opposite direction. 😅
I was thinking colt vs Smith and wesson too lol
The artistry on it is just beautiful.
This reminds me of the 8mm movie camera system, where standard 8 cameras you had to manually feed the film through the reels, then the super 8 cartridge system came along where you simply dropped in a loaded film cartridge. I wonder if the turret system had been developed further into a less cumbersome firing/cocking system whether it would have made military use an option where a soldier could carry multiple drop in preloaded cartridges like a super 8 camera.
with the right extra engineering it could be a semi-auto with drop-in discs.
(Lewis gun enters the room, looks around, walks out)
@@rippervtol9516 but the chamber never points at the shooter, that's just a feed system on top. :P
@@thekaxmax True, I was just referring to the "turret style" drop in feed system.
@@rippervtol9516 Yup, I know. But the turret issue, why it's remarkable, is the chambers and the fact it can potentially fire out of any of them if something goes bad. I have seen, BTW, a turret pistol where the disc is dished and the rear-pointing chambers point up at about 30 deg--enough to fire over your head. Still rather a shock, mind you.
I assume the holes are not for loading or topping off but for safety. Should the system go out of time and shave lead into the nose of the chamber bedside it. It would potentially chain fire. Better to go out the side than through the frame. and seeing that those have a "tail" primer im sure that a good boop on the bullet nose could set off the primer. Also good for a hang fire. Cause as a hand loader that does happen occasionally.
Fun fact. They do revolve the other way. It is the universe that rotates around the barrel.
If you're a Smith and Wesson then a Colt goes backwards
16:00 no no, you’re right, Horse Street is hilarious for reasons I can’t articulate 👏
the old misfire, resulting in all of them going off, including the one facing you.
And the guys standing next to you
Wouldn't there be 3-5 facing you? Really narrow the odds of dodging. Lol
When you really need to shoot everyone in the room at the same time.
Murder mystery in a box!
Hey, just so you know, there isn't any link to littlegun in the description; what's worse is when I went to the site myself I couldn't find this gun on it, and I was quite looking forward to seeing the picture of the mustachioed creator! I'd appreciate any help
That is an absolutely beautiful firearm. Thanks for the video, Mr. Ferguson.
Even though it looks nothing like it, I remember hearing about turret guns first in Fable 2, especially because they were my weapon of choice. Great video as always!
I suppose it could have been updated to a pinfire system with a bit of work; but it was still going to be an odd duck.
Super interesting nonetheless!
You can't really convert this to pin fire or more normal metallic cartridges because it has to be loaded from the front of the cylinder. The best you could probably do for making it a self contained metallic cartridge would be something like teat fire, or maybe a modified rim fire where instead of the rear of the cartridge the priming band would wrap around the side like a ring.
Either way the front loading of the turret makes it entirely unsuited to more common contemporary cartridges like pin fire or rim fire.
Having seen Ian do a few turret revolvers, I was wondering what made this special. Then JF mentioned it wasn't percussion.
it /is/ percussion, as he said. It's not /cap/ percussion, is what he's described.
In my opinion, this is very reminiscent of the gestational development period of semi-automatic pistols, fifty years later. What we take for granted today as the obvious way that automatic pistols should work, with the slide and the moving/locking barrel and all those elements, weren't so obvious back then, and everyone was trying their own ideas. Just in the same way that back then, we hadn't fully settled on the idea that all the chambers of a revolver should remain parallel to the barrel and revolve around a central pinned axis to present themselves. So we get weird ideas like this.
Of course, one ended up being almost universally agreed upon as they way forward and it's what we went with, in the 19th century it was Samuel Colt's basic layout and in the 20th it was John Moses Browning's.
It's the man who keeps Ian mccollum awake at night
Any idea how old the term "turret gun" is? According to Wikipedia (yes, I know, but for this kind of trivia it's reasonably accurate) the first warship with turrets wasn't laid down until in 1866 and not in service until two years later. Prior to that, the word "turret" generally referred to a small tower. So I'm mostly curious if the term "turret gun" or "turret revolver" is a modern term retroactively applied (like "arming sword") or if it was actually used in period.
Wikipedia is only ever as accurate as the sources used to write the article. Still, a good question.
@@johanmetreus1268 Well, yes, but that statement is true of any written source that isn't original research.
I should perhaps observe that I'm a librarian, and trained to evaluate the reliability of sources. :)
@@davydatwood3158 Very true that. The tank history community certainly have suffered from otherwise reliable authors citing eachother, perpetuating hard-to-kill myths introduced by a single author in the early years after WWII.
More specifically though, would you agree that it would be more adequate to regard Wikipedia more as a repository of unique articles, where each has to be judged individually, han a standard work?
@@johanmetreus1268 Wikipedia is a tertiary source. Like *any* tertiary source, the individual articles are written by a variety of authors and edited by people who are not subject matter specialists. When rigorous factual accuracy is required, a tertiary source is useful for a listing of primary and secondary sources, as well a source of terminology or jargon that can be used as search terms in a subject-focused database, but should not, in general, be relied upon in and of itself.
*This* caution is just as true of the Encyclopaedia Britanica Macropedia as it is of Wikipedia, however. Indeed, if the subject is subject to rapid academic growth and involves mostly quantifiable data - astrophysics and organic chemistry are good examples - Wikipedia is usually more accurate than the Brit Mac, as its structure allows it to update faster.
For areas with more subjective stat, social sciences, or areas that have somehow become connected to political ideology or personal, national, ethnic, or other forms of identity, Wikipedia is much less reliable.
The OED has "turret gun" (or at least "turret gunner") from 1870. But that refers to the gun in a turret on a warship, which is probably not what you're asking about.
What a perfect example of humanity's irrepressible urge to ask and answer insane questions.
You indeed gain more shots, but at the same time the chambers in this turret are far shallower than those in a classic revolver, so probably what it made up in capacity lost in terms of velocity and penetration, even with the gas seal.
Could the quick loading gates be to went gas leakage from shooting and stop it from entering the next chamber if it get around the bullet?
And if it cooked of the bullet would simply fly out the hole 36 degree the direction you fire.
Yes you could also use them for quick loading,
I was thinking the same thing. A chain-fire on that thing would be very exciting. A normal revolver would just send everything in front of you. Much less dangerous for the user.
I'm surprised that you didn't mention the Nagant revolver when discussing the gas seal. I regret not buying one when there was a glut on the American surplus market a couple of decades ago. I'd love to turn one into a suppressed revolver with a holographic sight.
Always super interesting, thanks Jonathan
Knew i'd seen a silhouette like that before, but couldn't place it in my head.
This firearm is fascinating, I'd be curious how much inspiration that was shared one way or the other between these weapons and Colt revolvers of the time, if they was any shared inspiration. Also, if the Armory has the right examples, I'd love to see Mr. Ferguson do video where he lays out weapons of particularly prolific designers and show all the examples of their work and what they added to their designs that we still see today. I'm thinking of a large table with all the weapons attributed to John Browning would make a great start, but then less well known designers who still produced a variety of weapons.
I suggest, holding pistol in right hand , release barrel with left hand, depress turret catch with right thumb, rotate turret with left hand , releasing right thumb to allow index, close barrel lock with left hand.
Regarding size, could the turret not be rotated 90 degrees so that it is orientated like a wheel, i.e., on one side of the pistol?
I'd mentioned in a later video an idea for a series where various that I'd find an "anatomy of a gun" video detailing the various common parts of a gun stlystem and the myriad variatiojs on them very informative and interesting - not sure if in that comment I extended the interest to ammunition.
I think the various features of rounds, shells, propellants, how bullets were made, how different calibers are assessed, various feed mechanisms and magazines or clips and the like work - are all very interesting too!
I'm essentially a huge nerd for chemistry, manufacturing, and mechanics; the more info I'm provided the more I want to learn!
So a moral we can take from this story is, (19:00) if everyone back in the 1850s were complete imbeciles we all might be using THIS system instead of self contained metallic cartridges.
Your description of the cartridge sounds a lot like a teat-fire cartridge.
Is it possible that the barrel locking into the turret was an attempt to prevent chain firing, since the turret system was somewhat known to have that problem?
Are the primer tubes the same as the type used by the Austro-Hungarian musket/rifle musket conversions?
killing it as always Jonathon, good stuff mate
The Genhart Pistol was also patented by Heinrich Genhart in the USA in 1857. He got the American patent because he was trying to sell it to the US Army, but the Army rejected it as impractical and considered the fiddly percussion cartridges to be unsafe to carry and handle. They contracted Samuel Colt for the Colt 1860 revolver instead.
Possibility of a chainfire from the primer end as there seems to be a large gap around the turret pivot. Perhaps the reason for the two holes on either side? I wouldn't want to fire it 😖
Hello, Mr Ferguson. I'm a big fan of your series where you review armaments from video games and I'd like to recommend the game Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, as it has a very unique weapon selection that often isn't seen in video games, consisting of mostly Chinese guns.
Was gang firing a problem with that style? I can see why it wasn’t popular if the chambers facing you might also go off when it’s fired.
I know you meant hang firing but gang firing is too funny
@@MansMan42069 No it’s gang firing, a problem that sometimes happened with early revolvers loaded with loose powder. A spark from the fired chamber could set off one or more of the other loaded chambers not in line with the barrel. Not only could this destroy the gun but in the case of a revolver rifle one of the shooter’s hands could be in the way or with a turret revolver like this the chamber could be the one pointed at the shooter’s face.
@@PitFriend1 isn't that chain firing? Huh. You learn a new word every day.
200 rds in 15 minutes seems very impressive for 1850 even for such a novel operating system
Where's the link?
It's written in the Belgian language...aka...not there.
Such a glorious pistol. Thank you, Jonathan, for reinforcing my firearm addiction :p.
2:55 i dont know... it seems to me that turret revolver can hold way less ammo than standard. because outer part of turret is always bigger so there is lots of wasted space there. besides there are 20 shot revolvers seen... for that turret would have to be huge. i mean sure drum is pretty big too.
I mean, if this had a little steam turbine attached to make it auto, it might claim the title of earliest PDW
In that case PDW would stand for "personally dangerous weapon"
It seems pretty cool to gain an extra four rounds per load, but in order to increase the capacity you'd need to make the cylinder much, much larger in diameter than you would with a traditional revolver as each round is inserted toward the center of the circle rather than around it. It's much less space efficient.
I don't understand how you get the spent cartrige out after its been fired.
9mm so its a .35 Caliber mate?? The concept is straight forward enough to work with cartridges i wonder why it wasnt more popular. Good video
Yo, where's the link?
When I saw the title, I was thinking clockwise Vs anticlockwise cylinder rotation - does that come up at all?
Flash in the pan. Nice gun quip😂
The voice audio is much better in your latest content. 👍
Thank you. Quite an unusual design, but the engraving on top is very ornate.
Nice looking pistol, but if you get any sort of chain fire or all the Chambers firing at once, one or more of the Chambers are facing towards the user at all times.....😮
Seems it was an inspiration for the Protector palm pistol, wasn´t it?
I can't help but think "Discworld dwarves" every time you say Underhammer.
You didn't mention the biggest issue with turret revolvers.
There are bullets *pointing towards you* if there's a chain fire you are going to get a hole in yourself. I believe this happened to the inventor of a turret revolver who traveled from town to town trying to show people how safe his new system was.
I can't think of any contempary firearm system which has bullets pointing towards you. The P90 has bullets parallel to the shooter, but not pointing towards the shooter and that's the only one I can think of.
I believe you could dig through German designs for future rifle of the '70s (what would later become G11) and find some that would point bullets towards the shooter at some stage of the cycle. With caseless ammo that wouldn't be particularly safe, I presume.
The P90 ammunition is stacked up in a plastic box while it's turned sideways.
These round would be chambered the whole time.
That definitely makes a difference to how hard a round can spit.
12:50 If you loaded through those holes, i would think the cartridge would fall out. I would suggest they are in case of accidentally firing one of the "cylinders" next to the one you intend. With all the primers in close proximity, it would make sense to have a way for the weapon to go off in this manner without removing your hand in the process.
I didn't even need to play the video to know what was wrong with this design. The notion of a revolving long gun (in the conventional style) was considered, but you'll note you do not see them. Why not? Because it's possibe something could cause multiple rounds from the cylinder to fire at once. Through your support hand/arm. Something like that in this case would fire rounds in any random direction!
An interesting curiosity, but I'd never load and fire it-and not for the risk of damaging a valuable artifact of history. No, I don't consider the thing safe!
Fun to have a look at all the same, enjoyed the video!
Those "loading gates" also disperse the little bit of gas which bypasses the barrel seal.
12:44 I dont think thats why those holes are there..... you ever hear of chainfire?
I was wondering how to tell if a gun needs old ammo or new?
So, if it has a gas seal, theoretically, you could have, with the right manufacturing methods, threaded a barrel for attachment of a very basic suppressor?
Being that it is more than likely black powder. And non jacketed soft lead. That suppressor would need more maintenance than the gun. Still a cool thought. 😂 wish they were less rare would be cool to test.
@alexanderdeifel4368 just thinking from the perspective of the Nagant revolver design also having a gas seal from the cylinder locking up with the breech face and being able to be suppressed as a mechanic result? It seems like it was one of those ideas that would have been cool to see how it would have progressed if it hadn't been an abandoned branch along the invention tree.
@@FyremaelGlittersparkle Suppressed Nagant revolvers were generally a bit more sophisticated with their cartridge as well, if memory serves. Jonathan had discussed it a while back, as I recall.
It became more obvious why this style of system was not widely adopted with every utterance of a synonym for “weird”.
Seems to me with the cartridges being so short, this would a very low power pistol. Perhaps a target pistol but I would suspect it was inadequate for defense.
The *_other_*_ other_ way, so there are chambers pointing down at your hand as well as back at your face, allows you to wear it next to your body with a chamber pointing up into your armpit.
Holy hell I want one so bad
It is rare I can correct you on your French, but in this case I think it reads « breveté » (patented), as French for patent is just « brevet » !
0:51 Conventional revolvers as well - early Lefaucheux models had similar trigger guards and somewhat similar grips.
3:00 ...And, more importantly, would result in very high bore axis, which has undesirable effects on perceived recoil.
5:39 I suspect quite a few Flemish-speaking viewers might be offended here, but I prefer to believe Jonathan ment Belgian French. 😉 And yes, the English version of the site is not without its defects: I've seen some rather strange turns of phrases there, which I suspect might rise from translation errors.
10:52 Given that the aforementioned Lefaucheux had already produced a conventional revolver and pinfire cartridges for it, I'm at a loss in regards to what could be gained with such a complicated system, especially in Belgium at the time when patent enforcement was mostly theoretical. Was it the first instance of the future Belgian obsession with gas seal designs?
19:00 I can't see why pinfire and rimfire cartridges would struggle with underhammer. The turret design would, however, but that wouldn't work with centerfire ammo too.
19:35 It wouldn't be such a problem with saddle holsters.
The fact that when you aim at enemy you also aim at yourself is also a little concerning IMHO.
This would make a great Destiny exotic
Ever see a chainfire in a turret revolver? In a regular revolver, it'll damage the gun, maybe even blow it up, but everything is pointed downrange. In a turret revolver, you're literally firing in all directions, including back at the person holding the gun.
"Belgium language" - The one that sounds like French, or the one that sounds like Dutch. Or like pretty much all north western Europeans, the can speak English.
I wonder what ballistics you'd get from such a pistol with such a small area for powder and wad.
pretty obvious it was designed by an Artillery man rather than a Calvary man, because it is inconvenient in every department, you'd have a quicker time reloading a barrel loaded pistol.
"Belgian language" uh oh
>angry European noises can be heard across the Channel, they also seem to be fiddling with their bicycles.
I found the page and it's actually in French. For those who are curious, Belgium has three official languages, Dutch, French and German.
He is a secret Belgian francophone chauvinist, it's all part of his political agenda
Random misfire?
I was thinking of the risk of chain fire and hurting yourself or people alongside you, though I've no idea how much of a risk that would be.
it's still a cylinder. Just because the aspect ratio is different, let's not discard sound geometric nomenclature. Technically a coin is a cylinder
That face was actually meant to be a jew face.
@@mrfarts5176 I'm sorry, but what what the actual fuck?
Nope - still dont understand
Degtyaryov took one look and had an idea for a ligjt machinegun.
This seems like it would have been successful if only the cylinder wasn't integral to the gun. If you had the cylinder just carry rounds and operate a Martini Henry style breech to just drop ammunition in, it could have been way more useful.
OK Johnathon it's got 10 'shots', but this piece is 1853 - 20 years after the Colt Patterson, which most people would recognise as a revolver. This 'turret' type most would assume was reminiscent of the sort of thing that was around in the C16th (examples of which will be in your collection) so your 'steampunk' moniker ain't the half of it !
the thought of chainfires and chambers poining in all kinds of direktions are a bit scary
Those extra holes are there because of the danger of chainfire
Chain Fire fun!
Looks to me like a Lewis Gun with it round pan magazine on top.
now he ask, is the p90 a revolver? I mean it revolves the bullets to load them
Do you have a Remington Elliot .32 derringer or a beretta 1918?
What a whacky design. Can't say I hate it though, in fact I like the originality a lot.
So it’s not that nothing of it was catching on. Only if you think in Revolver terms, but a round pan magazine on top, so that you can have more round? Yes, that’s often used in guns.
Can you call this a cylinder? Isn't it more like a "disc"?
Unhinged. I wouldn't be anywhere near that thing.
If you squint very much at it, it could be the very 1st Lewis gun very early prototype🤣🤣
It seems to me as though the barrel was used more so as a safety mechanism to align the cylinder and the holes on either side may have been for any gas spillage to exit without moving in towards the next cartridge in any instance where there WAS some blowby backwards...but also those two ports could have been load one - turn cyl to fire, load a second one, unload the empty "casing" after shooting the first one, repeat, that sorta thing. my bigger worry is that i wouldn't want ANY repeater, certainly not one with all of the primers pointed inwards like that, but really woudn't want any repeater to have one-two of the rounds pointed backwards between my eyes!!! that just doesn't pass the comfort test haha
Am I the only one who wonders as to how that teat primer is extracted when reloading the pistol? I can understand the paper cartridge leaves an empty chamber but that primer? Maybe I missed something, could be, I am a bit younger the Biden and my mind is still fairly sharp, I did manage to install Windows 11 on a used compute I picked up with a wiped SSD drive the other day and get her up and running, in fact I am posting from it now, so my mind still works and I am only 73 now so not yet over the hill, however I can see the crest in my rear view mirror. My wonderful wife of 51 years and 4 days passed away when she turned 73, both my sisters died at 73, but mom hung on till 98, just days from her 99th birthday, dad, a fifth a day drinker died at 62 so I passed him, however I gave up drinking in 88 and gave up smoking in 93.
is it a turret revolver, or is it a drum magazine?
Why wasn't this in AC black flag? Would have been the ultimate weapon for an assassin.
Too bad you couldn't fire this one, would have loved to hear and see it in action and of course, documented on youtube as well.
Beautiful piece, love these odd ball guns.
The only "turret" styled gun i can think of, still in use today is the Degtyaryov DP-27 machine gun, recently seen being used in Ukraine, but made in 1920.
One could argue that the P-90 adapted or evolved from this.
Thanks Jonathan.
Black flag took place about 100 years before this type of firearm existed. Fulminate didn't exist then, so any system like this would need a flint or wheel lock system.
Maybe the game that took place in London could have used it.
@@daviddavidson2357 true, but then again, none of the other weapons in the franchise is very time accurate. just look at Ezio's arsenal .
@@daviddavidson2357or just say its secret Templar stuff they developed. After all the ancient magic tech items they acquired having some more advanced technology doesn't seem unreasonable, especially with the other wacky stuff in the series.
Ah yes, half of the chambered bullets pointing in the general direction of the shooter, what could possibly go wrong?
Of course it fiddly, it's in a British museum!
So it's like a kammerladder
It's the DP-28's grandpa