I’m working on a sort of alternate history/postapocalyptic genre story, and I’m thinking about including a “fantasy” weapon…a “break action” musket. I’m just wondering if it would actually be practical to use.
The weapon would, basically, be a “Brown Bess” style flintlock musket. But the feature of notice would be that the barrel is hinged, allowing it to be “broken” open, and the contents of a paper cartridge to be loaded into the “breechblock” (for lack of a better word.)
Here’s an image of a break-action shotgun in mid “break.” Of course, in the version I’m imagining, a short section of barrel would remain attached the the breechblock assembly, and the cartridge would be loaded into that. Probably some sort of “flange” would be used to help keep the barrels securely together.
All in all, the design would be intended to speed up reloading time over a purely muzzleloading design.
So…what are the terribly obvious flaws in this design that I’m overlooking? Would it be just as slow to load as a conventional flintlock, or have a great tendency to explode in the user’s face?
Well, thanks for your patience,
Ranchoth
Not to say that such a design wasn’t tried in the past, but I think sealing the breech to prevent hot gases escaping would be an issue.
In modern firearms, the metallic cartridge, or partly mettalic cartridge in the case of most shotguns rounds, expands slightly upon firing. This creates a seal that prevents gases escaping out the breech. After the projectile has left the barrel, the elasticity of the metal causes the cartridge to return to almost it’s initial dimensions. Now there’s enough clearance between the cartridge and chamber to allow the empty cartridge to be extracted.
A paper cartridge would not be able to act as a seal, so at the very least, escaping gas would cause discomfort to the shooter.
IIRC, the 45-70 Trapdoor Springfield rifle was a muzzle loader converted to a breech loader when metallic cartridges were available.
Hmmm… IIRC, in a modern break-action shotgun, the shells are actually sticking into the tail end of the barrel. This means that upon firing the entire travel of the shot is through the barrel itself. This is essentially the same case for every modern small-arm except a revolver, where there is a small gap between chamber and barrel (to allow the cylinder to rotate).
Then again, Colt’s original revolvers WERE “muzzle-loader” paper-cartridge type weapons. So it can be done… apparently with with early 1800s tech, as opposed to mid-1700s. So your challenge seems to be one of technological evolution, to wit, machining good enough so that the barrel segments will be properly aligned with reliability, to face yet one more point in the barrel where you leak pressure, and one more source of potential misalignment. The smoothbore musket was already short-ranged and inaccurate enough. (and were it rifled, you’d need the rifling to stay aligned, too, unless you rifle only the distal end of the barrel). Making it a “break” weapon may not have been feasible 50 years before Colt’s time. Also, I get the feeling that simple break-and-flange would be enough – you’d probably require some sort levered or rotating locking mechanism, just as you do with a breechloaders’s bolt
.
(It could speed up the loading and ramming, but you’d lose some of that time on the reassembly and locking drill.)
Now, unless I’m wrong, a musket is smooth-bored, whereas a rifle has, well, rifling inside the barrel to spin the bullet. This page says the British Army small arms developed from muzzle-loading muskets, to muzzle-loading rifles, to breech-loading rifles, to bolt-action repeating rifles, where repeating means it has a storage for new cartridges that cycle into the chamber when the action is cycled.
But certainly hinge action, rolling block and falling block single-shot rifles existed. The only reason why breech action muskets never did in this world, is that we invented rifling before we invented breech-loading. Essentially, what is the difference between the break-action shotgun loaded with a slug, and the hypothetical break-action musket?
Some antique rifles including breech loading single shot carbine (I believe a carbine is a shorter-barreled rifle), and breechloading flintlocks which appear to have a trapdoor that flips up to open the chamber.
IIRC those old revolvers were famous for spitting little shards of lead and plenty of hot gases out of the sides from tiny misalignments of the barrel and cylinder.
Also when talking about doing it with a rife. Chamber pressures in rifles are significantly higher requiring thicker chamber walls and stronger actions. Building a rifle with a latch that stays closed against 100,000+ psi without some kind of seal (like a modern brass cartridge) without spewing hot gas out of the back end is pretty difficult.
As an example of what that seal prevents. Gun saavy folks please correct me if I am wrong but I believe the term “case head failure” is when the back of the brass casing pops off from the pressure of the shot and usually ends up wrecking the gun and sometimes injuring the shooter by venting hot gases near the shooters face.
Its very rare but it can happen especially to shells that have been reloaded a couple times.
Well, now you’ve gone and piqued my curiosity, and google is giving me no joy as far as pictures of these things is concerned. So here’s a condensation of pp17-18 in Wayne van Zwoll’s `The hunter’s guide to ballistics’:
``Guns with a hinged breech date to at least 1537, but went nowhere without the percussion cap.’’
He describes a 17th century French musket with a cylindrical breech plug that could be dropped out of the way to load the gun, but closing the block had an unfortunate habit of pinching powder and setting it off too soon. In 1776, British Major Patrick Ferguson improved on this by threading the plug so you unscrewed the trigger guard to remove it.
The Theiss breech loader of 1806 used a block that slid out of the way to load. This one was a flint-lock like your Bess, but according to Zwoll, it tended to leak gas. Captain John Harris Hall of Maine improved on the basic design in 1811 and came up with something successful by having the hammer, pan and frizzen all ride on a movable block.
In 1835, the von Dreyse needle gun went into use by the prussian army. This one had a pellet of fulminate at the base of the bullet, which was loaded onto the end of a powder charge in a paper cartridge. The needle pierced the end of the paper, travelled through the powder and crushed the fulminate against the bullet, igniting it. Unfortunately, my book does not mention what action this one used to open the breech.
Well, at least that gives some more search terms to try on google
Trapdoor rifles and carbines as shown in your link were cartridge weapons, not flintlock or caplock. The confusion may come from the fact that they were first made as conversions of muzzle loading rifles. The original Allin conversion removed the orignal breech block then cut and chambered the rear of the barrel to thread into the Allin breechblock. The 50-70 Allin didn’t last long before it was replaced by the 45-70. Essentially the same but with a brand new barrel rather than a recycled one from a muzzle loader.
Sealing an opening breech without a brass case is a problem that’s taken a long time to solve for caseless ammunition. Black powder makes it much tougher becuase it doesn’t burn completely, leaving lots of hard, crusty residue to foul any sealing breech.
As for Colt’s pistols they would only shave lead when grossly out of time. I shoot reproductions of those in competition and spitting lead is not a problem but lots of hot gas and fire comes out the cylinder gap as well as the nipple where the hammer strikes the percussion cap. Here;s a video clip of a friend shooting one of his '60 army models at night.
I didn’t see any of y’all mention the fact that shotgun shells used to be paper I even had an old rifle once that had the powder and primer in a waxed paper casing.
The Ferguson rifle was a real weapon similar to what the OP describes.
Instead of a “break-open” action, the breech-block (the lump of metal behind the rear end of the barrel was mounted on screw-threads, and attached to a lever on the bottom of the weapon.
To load, one would turn the lever, retracting the breech block down into the gun, exposing the rear of the barrel’s chamber area.
A ball would be inserted (the chamber bored looser than the bore, so the ball would roll in and stop) then a paper packett of powder torn and dumped in.
Then the breech lever is rotated, raising the breech back into place.
With the action raised, the rifle othewise performed exactly as a flintlock rifle of the normal muzzleloading variety.
The thread-twist of the breech is a very “fast” twist, allowing the breech to move the distance required with very little rotation of the lever.
This would be hard to create in a low-tech world, but is doable where steel is strong enough for rifles.
The same sort of “different” breech system could be used for a faster-than-muzzleloading musket.
Sharps rifles and carbines used paper cartridges witha falling block. IIRC, they had a “magazine” of percussion caps so that the shooter would not have to fumble with them. The block would be lowered, a paper cartridge put in, the rising block would shear off the end of the cartridge (I’m not really sure about that part though), and a percussion cap would be fed into place. Then the gun could be cocked for firing. (I have a Shiloh Sharps model 1874 that uses metallic .45-70 cartridges, but Shiloh (U.S.) and Perdersoli (Italy) also make Model 1863 percussion guns.)
{I should sell it. I’ve never fired it, and it has appreciated in value.)
Actually Gary you’re right and wrong. While it is true that the old shotgun shells for the most part were paper w/ a brass cap. The rifle I was referring to did not have brass attached. It had a powder charge wrapped completely in waxpaper w/ the bullet attached. There was no brass or metal primer caps. After the round was fired, the only EVIDENCE was down range.
The rifle came in very accurate long range calibers and was not available to the public…nuff said?
