I used ‘tree branch’ to mean a sizable club shaped piece of dry wood. Far easier to swing than a musket held by the barrel. If it’s got a point on the end it can easily be longer than a musket and a more effective ‘pointy stick’. When it comes to clubbing a musket has no special advantage.
I am picturing a pirate ship or other naval vessel. They probably have plenty of firearms and cutlasses, but not too many tree branches or random scraps of wood lying around.
Add a chopping blade to the pointy end and you have…a boarding axe.
I think we may be envisioning different things by “musket”.
Those are 3 to 4 feet long.
Are you thinking more of flintlock pistols?
I would certainly agree a flintlock pistol is not ideal for clubbing or poking, and a baseball bat sized hunk of wood would be better.
Look, I’m not trying to justify Brown Bess muskets as clubs or pikes or axes. I think custom tools would serve any of those uses better. I’m just trying to to fathom what you are talking about when you say musket.
Fine, in Honor (?) of National Talk Like a Pirate Day, enjoy these replicas of actual combo firearms!
From piratefashions.com of course, all are non-firing replicas with base metal (cannot hold an edge) blades, do not try to use in a boarding party, you’re going to be even more at a disadvantage than this thread has advised!
There seems to be a misconception that boarding was mainly a pirate activity in the age of sail. Boarding was actually a common tactic (typically the last of an engagement) by the regular navies as well, from single ship combat to major fleet actions. The boarding axe was complementary to cutlass and musket in the boarding party. From boardingaxe.com:
The boarding axe was used to cut through anti-boarder nets and lines, to cut through rigging or ropes holding gun ports open, to smash through the doors and windows of cabins to attack the opposing crew who may be defending that as a stronghold. And of course in melee an axe may not be as good as a sword or cutlass but it was still a handy personal weapon.
A boarding party would always include a complement of axe carriers to support the main body of marines and sailors armed with musket and cutlass. As the axes were generally stored in racks near each gun they were also handy for defence against enemy boarders, being quickly available to the gun crews to cut grappling lines or defend themselves.
Thank you for that. Yes, military battles also lead to boarding and melee. Basically, if you don’t sink the ship and bring it to port instead, you get salvage for the ship or prize fees, as the military gets another ship, albeit one that’s a bit beat up.
Sea battles were complex affairs. Ships might stand off and exchange cannon fire, or might close to board and fight that way.
All I’m saying is a musket that doesn’t shoot has no advantage over a club, or a pitchfork, or an axe, or a hammer. Nobody makes musket shaped clubs or agricultural tools because there are better designs and when the fight turns into hitting each other with long heavy objects you’d rather have a better weapon than a musket that won’t shoot.
I think we are basically in agreement.
The gunstock war club was mostly made from wood, but had a metal blade attached to the end of the club, like a spear point. The club was shaped like the stock of an 18th-century musket.[5] The design of these gunstock clubs was directly influenced by the firearms that the European settlers used.[6]
For multiple shots, you could use the Metal Storm technique:
Basically, stack a bunch of bullets end to end with the propellant interspersed, and an electronic system to fire. You could easily pack a dozen or so bullets in the space.
Mechanically, it’s trivial and you’d probably reload simply by replacing the barrel with a new one. It does need some electronics and a battery, but that’s relatively easy and many batteries can last 10+ years between charges. That could be made part of the swappable barrel as well.
If you want to explore hybrid weapons in a futuristic fantasy setting, check out the Mad Max Furiosa subset. I just got done rewatching Furiosa. I haven’t seen the original trio in a while, but the Furiosa subset is especially noteworthy for this.
For starters, everything in this sub-universe appears jury-rigged and reimagined to be meaner, scarier, and more flexible in use.
Two that stand out:
The first appears to be the weapon from @DPRK 's pic above. It consists of a revolver chamber with the handle replaced by a foldable set of brass knuckles and a foldable knife blade on the side of the revolver body.
The picture doesn’t have a barrel, but the Furiosa incarnation does have one, though out appears it may be swappable as the first battle it has a somewhat longer barrel, about what you would expect from a standard pistol, except our is curiously tapered. In a later scene, it has a shorter, narrower barrel.
Judging by the size of the barrel diameter and the functional size to be held in the palm, I judge it to be a . 22. Not a great gun caliber, but that weapon is for very close defense work.
It is interesting because the folding handle and small size makes it a sort of emergency weapon one can carry all the time with limited obstruction but quick availability. The rapid deploy blade gives an alternate use against someone who grabs you.
Not necessarily a good military weapon, but rather useful in the context of this story.
The second appears to be an actual LeMat revolver.
It’s clearly visible in the scene where Furiosa prepares to execute Dementus, and loads the shotgun barrel.
The movie also sets up a boarding scenario, though axes aren’t the best choice since the target vehicle is not wood. But there is a bit of one-on-one weapon work on top of the war rig. There are a couple of boarding scenarios that play out.
The Apache pistol, generally considered one of the worst designs in the history of weapons, and a total failure.
Also a failure.
Thank you for identifying the guns.
I looked into the Apache and see what you mean. It looks cool, which is enough for the movie to make look good, but functionally is troublesome. Finicky does not make for great self defense. And I can see why the movie added a barrel.
Also for the LeMat, that’s a cap and powder revolver. Wow. I will note that the movie version is presented as if it’s a typical cartridge revolver, because even in the wasteland cap and powder would be a challenge.
Also, the scene for the shotgun uses and actual modern cartridge and sort of waves out as if being loaded. I wondered about that scene - now I know why the loading was glossed over.
The premise of having an extra kick just in case seems alluring. But firing demonstration videos show that as suspected hybrid weapons tend to be ineffective in at least one role.
So, visually the Rule of Cool works for movies where the screenwriter can fudge the facts. Reality doesn’t agree.
I found a photo of the experimental U.S. Navy Elgin cutlass pistol (with caplock mechanism) for boarding parties
but it’s not like this kind of thing was ever mass-produced.
Yes and no. Yes, all the originals were Cap and Ball. No in that are/were a hugely limited number of converted models to pinfire cartridges, and a number of hobbyist cylinder conversions to modern low power cartridges (generally .32 and .410). Or a gunsmith cartridge firing replica for, you know, like, a movie that someone found in a basement somewhere. So, yeah, technically it could be someone’s pre-collapse heirloom.
It was made and used for the US Exploring Expedition in 1838, when revolvers were not a thing. So a single shot pistol with a cutlass blade wasnt a crazy idea.
The knife became legend and George Elgin patented the Bowie Knife on July 5, 1837. With this patent, Allen produced this type of pistol. It was the first percussion handgun officially used by the U.S. military and the only knife pistol used by an U.S. military service. There were only 150 produced on Navy Contract – some being used by the Wilkes-South Sea Expedition.
The issue with the Lemat is that it was big, clumsy and the .44 was underpowered (only 15 grains of powder- the Colt Walker could hold 60) . It also took like forever to reload, and its reloading level tended to break or fall off. Once you lost that, you had a poorly designed club.
Very cool idea, but functionally it was poor. Which is why people just went for the old Colt Six shooter.
Your combination boarding axe / gun does not scare me, for I have my gun shield. That’s right - a shield with a gun in it! Eat tepid lead, Swede!
[as found on the Mary Rose, and ditto].