Posted on 11/16/2013 11:37:27 PM PST by Reaganite Republican
*** ping ***
If you load it with number 1 shot, you can get 25 rounds to come out with one pull of a trigger. Just the thing to clear a room.
That is exactly correct!
A standard-issue ‘Brown Bess’ Tower flintlock rifle, using a 3/4 inch thick piece of English brown flint, igniting a powder charge sufficient to propel a 69-caliber lead ball to a target nominally 75 yards distant. The best musket men could load and fire THREE rounds per minute.
(Three rounds a minute was also the standard for the Union troops in the Civil War.)
Sounds like a violation of New York's new law on magazine capacity.
I’m going to counter that with rate-of-fire and nominate a Winchester Lever Action...maybe model 1873 or so as the first true “assault rifle.”
The Spencer repeating rifle was a decade earlier and the Confederates swore that the Yankees "loaded it on Sunday and fired it all week."
Except it was a smooth bore.
“Except it was a smooth bore.”
Yep. Whenever I hear someone say “well, assult weapons had not been invented when the constitution was written”. The implication being that they would have been banned had they been. I respond by telling them they’re wrong; if our authors of the constitution had intended to stratify gun ownership by technology they had the opportunity to do so by banning the Pennsylvania/Kentucky long rifle. These are the weapons that created the sniper. In fact, the Brits hated them so much that they declared them to be unfair and that they should be banned from the field of battle. So, there you have it.....
True fact
http://www.seabee.info/spencer.htm
Interesting article on one of Spenser’s sons, an aviation pioneer who died in 1995.
This tells a bit about his father demonstrating his repeating rifle to Pres. Lincoln.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Miner_Spencer
“Although the Spencer rifle had been developed as early as 1859, it was not initially used by the Union. On August 18, 1863, Christopher Spencer walked into the White House carrying one of his rifles and a supply of cartridges. He walked past the sentries, and into Abraham Lincoln’s office. After some discussion, he returned the following afternoon, when Spencer and Lincoln were joined by Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War and other officials, and the group then proceeded to walk out on the Mall. Near the site of the Washington Monument, they engaged in target shooting.”
Very interesting to see how much history & technological advancement occurred in the space of two generations!
Now if one of those Yankees had invented a metal detector for the White House first, them ‘d***** Yankees’ would not have had the Spencer rifle and might have lost the War of Northern Aggression!
/s
for those that didn’t know, the song “Black Betty” was written about this gun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMLnDuzgkjo
“I’m going to counter that with rate-of-fire and nominate a Winchester Lever Action...maybe model 1873 or so as the first true “assault rifle.””
It was long preceded with a greater rate of fire by the 22 shot rapid fire Girandoni System Austrian Repeating Air Rifle, Circa 1795. Used by the Lewis and Clark Expedition to overawe the Amerinidan nations with its rapid and noiseless fire, no other firearm of the time could even approach its firing capacity. The Austrian Army found it necessary to abandon the firearm after Austria’s enemies threatened to execute Austrian soldiers captured with the weapon. The weapon was considered by them to be a violation of the laws of war due to its unfair advantage in noiseless rapid rate of fire.
Ironically, a weapon that was deemed to be too lethal for military use in the 18th Century is now an antique which may be exempt from the latest so-called firearm and assault weapon banning laws.
Believe Brown Bess fired a 75 cal. bullet. The French pattern Charlesville were 69 cal.
Remind them back then that speech was written on parchment with quill and ink, and then ask them if they want that freedom confined to that standard.
Thanks! I did not know that - how interesting.
The things I learn on FR!
All I want for Christmas is an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model assault rifle!
Look up the Cookson repeater and Kalthoff repeater. Both pre-date even the Girandoni air rifle. The Kalthoff does by a century, along with the Lorenzoni repeating pistol. Can’t say I knew that before this morning.
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