Ferguson rifle

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Ferguson rifle
SIA-2004-26282-02.jpg
general information
Country of operation: Kingdom of Great Britain
Developer / Manufacturer: Patrick Ferguson
Development year: 1776
Manufacturer country: Kingdom of Great Britain
Weapon Category: rifle
Furnishing
Overall length: 1,250 mm
Weight: (unloaded) 3.4 kg
Barrel length : 810 mm
Technical specifications
Caliber : .65 (16.51 mm)
Ammunition supply : Flintlock
Cadence : User dependent; maximum 6 to 10 rounds / min
Fire types: Single loader
Number of trains : 8th
Visor : adjustable rear sight
Closure : Screw cap
Charging principle: Breech loader
Lists on the subject

The Ferguson rifle ( English Ferguson Rifle ), according to the developer Patrick Ferguson , from 1776 was one of the first military used Hinterlader - guns . The rifle was used on a small scale in the American Revolutionary War on the British side. It didn't catch on, among other things because the production was too complex.

Development history

Previous developments

The principle of the Ferguson rifle was not new, breech loading rifles with similar breeches had been around for decades. The first attempts with breech-loaders can be traced back to the late 15th century, but due to numerous technical problems these were not yet widely used. There were experiments with this type of closure in the 17th century in Germany and Denmark, among others. The powder chamber was accessible through a screw attached perpendicular to the barrel axis , depending on the construction from above or below. The bullet was inserted into the barrel with a finger through the powder chamber; an optional gun patch followed. The powder chamber was filled with black powder . Finally the screw was screwed back in. Weapons with wheel locks dating from 1650 to 1665 are probably the oldest of this type.

In 1689, the British gunsmith Wilmore developed a breech loading rifle . The screw to the powder chamber was attached to the trigger guard and could thus be unscrewed. The screw still had to be completely removed; the rifle had to be turned to load, as loading was done through the screw hole.

The French Huguenot Isaac de la Chaumette improved the system decisively in 1704. Since the Huguenots were persecuted in France, Chaumette had to flee to England, where he obtained the patent number 434 on August 12, 1721. The locking screw went through the barrel from top to bottom. The locking screw therefore only had to be partially unscrewed so that the powder chamber was accessible from above. It was turned with the movable trigger guard as a lever . Some places think it possible that France equipped some dragoon units and sailors with rifles in 1723. However, there is no evidence to support these claims.

The Chaumette system was considered one of the best for breech loaders at the time. A certain number of rifles based on this system were made in London around 1730 by Samuel Bidet, also a Huguenot who had fled. In parallel, there were systems in which the screw had to be turned with a special wrench . From 1740 to 1770, various English gunsmiths made rifles based on the Chaumette system. A big problem with the closures of this system was the smoke residue , which could lead to the thread jamming after just a few shots. Some of these rifles had slightly conical screw plugs. On the one hand, they should reduce the problem with smoke residue and, on the other hand, create a seal that is as gas-tight as possible. The weapons with this principle were mainly not suitable for military use as sport or hunting weapons .

Developed by Ferguson

Patent from 1776
Lock with rotatable trigger guard

As a young officer in the Seven Years War, Patrick Ferguson came into contact with German hunter troops armed with clumsy rifles with rifled barrels. In these plaster boxes , the ball, wrapped in plaster, was driven through the narrow, drawn barrel. This made the loading process tedious and took more than twice as long as with a smooth muzzle loader, in which the bullet was merely rolled into the barrel. On the other hand, the firing range and precision were significantly improved by the twist stabilization . Both smooth and drawn muzzle loaders had to be loaded upright. The ordinary soldiers at that time as line infantry, on the other hand, were equipped with smooth muskets and fought with quickly successive concentrated salvos at short combat distances, whereby the precisely aimed shot was not important.

In his later career, Ferguson served in the West Indies , where he recognized the value of light infantry and the benefits of targeted counterinsurgency weapons . It is very likely that Ferguson owned a rifle made by the gunsmith Warsop, which was also based on the Chaumette design. Since Ferguson himself was a very good shooter and was interested in firearms, he came up with the idea of ​​adapting this weapon for use in the military.

From around 1774 Ferguson worked specifically on the implementation of his ideas and commissioned the gunsmith Durs Egg to manufacture a corresponding rifle. Ferguson recognized Chaumette as the inventor of the system; the improvements over the Chaumette design were not in principle, but in details. The locking screw was designed so that it only needed three quarters of a turn to open or close the lock. Deep cuts that crossed the screw grooves collected smoke residue when screwing in and out. That helped to keep the thread flowing. In addition, the rifle was equipped with a bayonet mount and adjustable sights . Ferguson bundled these improvements in patent number 1139, which was awarded to him on December 2, 1776.

In 1775, Ferguson began promoting his rifle to influential officers, including George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend as chief equipment master. In April 1776 he was invited to make initial attempts at shooting by the Board of Ordnance , the agency for arms and equipment of the British armed forces. After that, Durs Egg was instructed to make two more copies with minor improvements. Another demonstration was held on July 1st in front of George Townshend and other senior military officials.

After the successful test, the Board of Ordnance signed contracts with the gunsmiths Barker & Whately, Galtons & Sons , William Grice and Benjamin Willets. These four gunsmiths from Birmingham received orders for 25 rifles each. They were the same gunsmiths who had previously been hired to make the Pattern 1776 Infantry Rifle plaster can . Therefore, the same barrels were used in the Ferguson rifle as in the 1776 rifle, caliber .65 (16.51 mm) with eight slides and not with four slides, as described in the Ferguson patent.

The manufacture of the 100 rifles was completed by October 1776. Some sources conclude from indirect evidence that possibly 200 rifles were made for the British military. In any event, an unknown small number of guns privately procured by officers were added.

After Ferguson's death, various gunsmiths from London and Birmingham, notably Egg, Henry Nock and Joseph Hunt, produced rifles based on the model, the last around 1800.

technology

Charging method

There is no uniform pattern of Ferguson rifles. Even the hundred military rifles of the Board of Ordnance differ somewhat, the sporting and hunting rifles manufactured later even more. On the one hand, there are aesthetic differences, but also technical differences such as the material of the ramrods, the type of visor, the material of the lock, the number of thread turns and the type of measures against smoke. The reasons for this diversity are the manual production by various gunsmiths, but also improvements that arose during production.

The rifle has generally the appearance and basic characteristics of a contemporary musket flintlock . The main features are the locking screw with multiple thread and the movable trigger guard that drives the locking screw. The locking screw is made of bronze or brass , depending on the specimen . The rifle has an adjustable sight and a bayonet mounting device for a spout bayonet below the barrel . The Board of Ordnance's military rifles have a .65 caliber barrel with eight slides. There are variations in both caliber and barrel length for sport and hunting rifles.

The military rifles had ramrods made of wood, other examples are made of steel. There are variations in the tubes that held the ramrod in the rifle. Should the breech block, the rifle could be loaded conventionally over the muzzle with the ramrod.

The military rifles had a U-rear sight for 200 yards (183 m), behind it a folding sight with a hole rear sight for 300 yards (274 m) and above that another U-rear sight for 350 yards (320 m). Other specimens have a sliding visor instead .

The military rifles of the Board of Ordnance have locking screws with 11 threads, other rifles have ten threads. The trigger guard made of metal is locked in the firing position by a prong protruding from the butt. The locking screw was not secured against being completely unscrewed. The end cap was tapered, at an angle of 10-11 degrees, which made it less prone to blockages from smoke and ensured better closure.

In order to minimize the problem with smoke, various measures have been taken with the Ferguson rifle. On the one hand, there were deep cuts that crossed the screw grooves. Not all rifles have anti-smoke incisions in the screw plugs. Grease could be housed in these incisions . Although there is no mention of lubricants in contemporary sources, it is likely that the screw plug was lubricated to prevent it from sticking with smoke residue. In some specimens the lower part of the locking screw was smooth d. H. without thread. On the other hand, there were vertical cuts in the thread. Both measures promoted that when turning the smoke was pushed out of the thread so that it did not get stuck there and could be removed more easily. Some specimens had a small cavity behind the locking screw, which also served to hold the smoke.

The loading process differed significantly from the usual muzzle loaders; especially the time-consuming handling of the ramrod was not necessary. The shooters carried paper cartridges as well as a powder bottle and bullet pouch as ammunition . To load, the shooter first set the flintlock hammer to half-stop , then opened the bolt by turning the trigger lever. He placed the bullet in the powder room; the chamber ended up with a slightly smaller average than the rifled barrel to ensure that the ball pushed in there stayed in place. Behind the bullet, he filled the powder chamber with black powder from either the paper cartridge or the powder bottle and closed the closure by turning back the trigger guard. The shooter then poured powder on the pan , either the rest of the paper cartridge, the powder bottle or he snapped the excess powder brought up through the screw plug directly onto it with his finger.

commitment

The evidence for the use of Ferguson rifles is sketchy. Certainly they were used in the campaign in New Jersey and at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, where Ferguson was wounded.

While Ferguson was recovering from the injury, the Commander in Chief of the British Army in North America disbanded William Howe Ferguson's rifle companies. It is likely that the soldiers took their rifles with them when they were distributed to other units. There is some evidence that the rifles were used in the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778. In July 1778 an order was given to collect the rifles and from here on they will be lost. It is possible that Ferguson was able to regain at least part of it; An indication of this is his order for bullets in the rare caliber of the Ferguson rifle. Therefore, it is possible that at least some of the rifles were used in the Battle of Little Egg Harbor in October 1778 and also in the Battle of Kings Mountain . Towards the end of the American Revolutionary War, in March 1783, the British armory in New York had only seven defective Ferguson rifles in its inventory.

Preserved copies

A total of 12 surviving specimens based on the Ferguson design are known.

Of the 100 Board of Ordnance rifles, only two surviving specimens are known; one in Morristown National Historical Park and another in the Milwaukee Public Museum . These were found by Union troops in the Deep South after the Civil War .

A privately procured officer's weapon that Ferguson had given to Captain Frederick de Peyster is in the Smithsonian Institution . It is a copy of Durs Egg that Ferguson used in his demonstrations. An officer's weapon, also privately procured, is in the private possession of an American collector.

A 1780 example by the gunsmith Joseph Hunt is in the National Army Museum .

rating

For usability , there is little contemporary reviews. The modern reviews are based on experiences with modern replicas and are therefore controversial.

In direct comparison with the English standard musket Brown Bess of the time , the Ferguson rifle shows impressive advantages. At 7.5 pounds (3.4 kg) it is 3 pounds (1.4 kg) lighter than the Brown Bess. The maximum effective range is 200-300 yards (180-275 m) versus the 50-100 yards (45-91 m) of the Brown Bess. The Ferguson rifle could be reloaded while lying down. The rate of fire was 6-10 rounds / minute versus 3-4 for the Brown Bess. The disadvantages, however, weren't that obvious.

For one thing, the gun needed a different gunpowder, just like the Pattern 1776 Infantry Rifle, which was six times more expensive than the one for the muskets. On the other hand, it was logistically more difficult to obtain. Damage to the shaft was common because the wood around the clasp was too thin. But the Board of Ordnance's weapons were still prototypes; the shaft could have been improved relatively easily. Despite the good craftsmanship, the thread of the closure was not completely gas-tight. If the locking screw was loosened too far, it fell out of the lock to the floor and could get dirty or even lost.

A major disadvantage of the rifle was the costly production, which was roughly twice that of Brown Bess. The manufacture of the hand-cut thread was particularly time-consuming. Although little is known about the manufacturing techniques, it is estimated that the manufacture of the screw plug took about 10 hours on a rocker lathe .

Ultimately, the Ferguson rifle didn't catch on. Instead, the conventional Baker Rifle muzzle-loading rifle was procured by the British Army. The Ferguson rifle was ahead of its time for military use. The early death of von Ferguson, the main advocate of the rifle, put an end to the use of the first military breech-loading rifle. Only the Hall Rifle , developed in 1819 and introduced by the United States Army , was a breech-loader with limited success. The lock was constructed differently, but still no better than that of the Ferguson rifle. The key to the success of the Hall Rifle was not in the design, but in the production process. When the Ferguson rifle was developed, the industrial revolution was just beginning. It began in the textile industry in the middle of the 18th century , while around 1770 firearms production was still handcrafted. So the parts still had to be adjusted to each other by hand. Eli Whitney introduced a consistent replacement for his muskets in 1790, which was the prerequisite for further mechanization of production. John H. Hall made his breech loading rifles in the Harpers Ferry Armory with machine tools , which made mass production possible. A sustained breakthrough in breech loading rifles did not occur until the middle of the 19th century with the invention of the metal cartridge .

Web links

Commons : Ferguson rifle  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r The Ferguson Rifle , in: The Armourer's Bench , October 15, 2018
  2. ↑ Howard Ricketts: Firearms - Exquisite Hobbies , 1967 [1]
  3. ^ Theodore Savas, J. David Dameron: New American Revolution Handbook: Facts and Artwork for Readers of All Ages, 1775–1783 , Verlag Savas Beatie, 2010, ISBN 9781611210620 , p. 148 [2]
  4. ↑ David Westwood: Rifles: An Illustrated History of Their Impact , Verlag ABC-CLIO , 2005, ISBN 9781851094011 , p. 43 [3]
  5. ↑ Pole rifle for rear loading, inventory no. W 3348. In: Object database. German Historical Museum , accessed on May 26, 2019 . From the time around 1500, which followed the principle of chamber guns, which was already widespread at the time .
  6. ↑ a b Richard Holmes, Hew Strachan, Chris Bellamy, Hugh Bicheno (eds.): The Oxford Companion to Military History , Oxford University Press , 2001, ISBN 9780198662099 , p. 148 [4]
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h John Walter: Snipers at War: An Equipment and Operations History , Greenhill Books, 2017, ISBN 9781784381875 , pp. 15-17 [5]
  8. ^ Brian J. Heard: Handbook of Firearms and Ballistics: Examining and Interpreting Forensic Evidence , Issue 2, Verlag John Wiley & Sons , 2011, ISBN 9781119964773 , p. 328 [6]
  9. ^ A b W. Y. Carman: A History of Firearms: From Earliest Times to 1914 , Verlag Routledge, 1955, ISBN 9781317411161 , pp. 115-116 [7]
  10. ↑ Bennet Woodcroft: Reference index of patents of invention, from 1617 to 1852 , Patent office, 1855 p. 86 [8]
  11. ↑ Oyvind Flatnes: From Musket to Metallic Cartridge: A Practical History of Black Powder Firearms, publishing Crowood, 2013, ISBN 9781847975942 , p 322 [9]
  12. ↑ Harold Leslie Peterson: The treasury of the gun , Golden Press, 1962, p. 164 [10]
  13. ↑ David Westwood: Rifles: An Illustrated History of Their Impact , Verlag ABC-CLIO , 2005, ISBN 9781851094011 , p. 62 [11]
  14. ↑ Early firearms of Great Britain and Ireland from the collection of Clay P. Bedford , Metropolitan Museum of Art , 1971, p. 121 [12]
  15. ↑ a b c d e f W. Keith Neal: The Ferguson Rifle and its origins , American Society of Arms Collectors, Bulletin # 24 (Fall 1971)
  16. ↑ a b c Lance Klein: This Barbarous Weapon , Muzzle Blasts Online, February / March 2000, Volume 5, Number 1
  17. ↑ Kevin Dockery: Stalkers and Shooters: A History of Snipers , Penguin Verlag , 2007, ISBN 9781440628900 , pp. 60–61 [13]
  18. ^ Roger Pauly: Firearms: The Life Story of a Technology , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 9780313327964 , p. 65 [14]
  19. ^ Louis William Steinwedel: The gun collector's fact book , Arco Pub. Co., 1975, ISBN 9780668037822 , pp. 62-63 [15]
  20. ^ David Westwood: Rifles: An Illustrated History of Their Impact , Verlag ABC-CLIO , 2005, ISBN 9781851094011 , p. 43 [16]
  21. ↑ a b c d e f Bill Ahearn, Robert Nittolo: British Military Long Arms in Colonial America , Dorrance Publishing, 2018, ISBN 9781480950993 , pp. 415-417 [17]
  22. ^ Marianne McLeod Gilchrist: Patrick Ferguson: a Man of Some Genius , National Museums of Scotland , 2003, ISBN 9781901663747 , p. 28 [18]
  23. ^ Henry Lumpkin: From Savannah to Yorktown: The American Revolution in the South , Verlag iUniverse , 2000, ISBN 9780595000975 , p. 141 [19]
  24. ↑ a b Harold Leslie Peterson: Arms and Armor in Colonial America, 1526–1783 , Stackpole Books, 1956, ISBN 9780486412443 , pp. 219–220 [20]
  25. ^ A b Michael Harris: Brandywine: A Military History of the Battle that Lost Philadelphia but Saved America , Verlag Savas Beatie, 2014, ISBN 9781611211627 , pp. 428-430 [21]
  26. ↑ David Geiger: A Rare and Important Documented Ferguson Breech Loading Flintlock Pattern Rifle, Numbered 2, by Durs Egg in: Morphy Auctions
  27. ^ Ferguson Breech-Loader , National Museum of American History
  28. ↑ Robert L. Tonsetic: Special Operations in the American Revolution , published by Casemate, 2013, ISBN 9781612001654 S. 169 [22]
  29. ^ A b Gary Yee: Sharpshooters , Verlag The Rosen Publishing Group, 2018 ISBN 9781508186496 , p. 25 [23]
  30. ^ Martin Pegler: Out of Nowhere: A history of the Military Sniper, Osprey Publishing, 2006 (1st edition 2004), ISBN 978-1846031403 , p. 50
  31. ↑ David Westwood: Rifles: An Illustrated History of Their Impact , Verlag ABC-CLIO , 2005, ISBN 9781851094011 , p. 45 [24]
This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on June 22, 2019 in this version .