GUNS AND GUNMAKERS

an illustrated guide to guns, gunmakers,

inventors, patentees, trademarks and
brand names
COMPILED BY JOHN WALTER
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION: PART ONE
GUNS, GUNMAKERS AND GUNMAKING : PAGE 5
This version frst published in 2013 by
NEVILL PUBLISHING
www.archivingindustry.com/nevillpubliing
with the assistance of
INTERNATIONAL MILITARY ANTIQUES, INC.
www.ima-usa.com
Copyright John Walter, 20012013
The right of John Walter to be identifed as the author of this work has been asserted by him in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise), without the prior written permission of the author.
This edition updated to 13th January 2013
PRI NTED I N GREAT BRI TAI N
Tis project had its roots partly in my habitual list-making, and partly in information
accumulated from links which had been forged with enthusiasts throughout the
world. Te frst result was Airguns AZ, the directory-style listing that was
serialised in the Airgun Scene column of the British periodical Guns Review from
1984 into the early 1990swithout ever reaching Z. Te basic manuscript was
then greatly expanded to include frearms and associated topics, reappearing in
2001 as Te Greenhill Dictionary of Guns and Gunmakers, published simultaneously
by Greenhill Books of London and Stackpole Books of Mechanicsburg. Several
thousand books were sold, but a declaration of out of print in 2006 brought
progress a halt.
Te 2001 book had sought to identify in a single volume as many brand
names, trademarks and gunmakers monograms as possible; to date the activities
of individual manufacturers from changes of corporate structure or address; to
provide brief details of selected individual guns; and, particularly, to direct the
reader to sources of detailed information.
Te project initially concentrated on the machine-made breechloader at the
expense of the single shot cap-lock, which was largely due to my personal interests.
However, even if the beginning of the modern era can be defned as the patenting
of the frst Colt revolver in 1836, cap-locks retained their importance for several
decades; indeed, in remote areas of Africa, or even the most distant backwaters
of the USA, the scarcity of self-contained metal-case ammunition ensured the
survival of the cap-lock rife into the twentieth century.
Te days of American gunmakers steeped in the traditions of eighteenth-
century Long Rife smiths, who could make each and every gun component, were
numbered by the advent of the machine-made sporting gun; and, by the end of
the nineteenth century, steadily improving distribution networks (railways, in
particular) were taking the products of Remington, Sharps, Winchester, Colt,
Smith & Wesson, Iver Johnson, Lefever, the Crescent Gun Company and uncounted
others to the farthest corners of the USA.
Te output of the largest manufacturers, numbered in millions, fnally
undermined the need for individual craftsmanship. Consequently, gunmakers
working in the USA prior to 1880 were originally excluded from the dictionary
INTRODUCTION
Guns, gunmakers, trademarks, brand names, designers and patentees
PART ONE: HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
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HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION: PART ONE
GUNS, GUNMAKERS AND GUNMAKING : PAGE 7
one small part of the subject of guns and gunmaking; and studies of individual
gunmakers may exceed a half-million words.
Some trademarks and brand names still defy interpretation, but a special
efort has been made to unravel monograms, which, at their most complex, can
seem bafingly obscure. Te principles under which these have been analysed are
described in greater detail in the directory entries entitled Monograms, National
markings and Trademarks and brand names.
When I began working on the guns and gunmakers project in the mid 1990s,
I rashly sought an overall success rate of ffty per cent: a reader should have one
chance in two of fnding what was sought. Once I began enlarging entries to include
product-details, even in shorthand form, content grew so rapidly that a book once
conceived as eighty thousand words exceeded 500,000 when my publisher, Lionel
Leventhal, fnally called time. To put this total in context, I estimate my published
output to approach four million words, and my good friend Ian Hogg (19262002),
author of more than 150 books, reckoned to have written at least nine million.
Consequently, though the dictionary seeks to be genuinely ecletic, some topics are
inevitably represented in far greater detail than others. Seeking the brand name
found on a Spanish 6.35mm Browning-type pocket pistol or an American Suicide
Special revolver will encounter greater success than a quest for descriptions of
each of the hundreds of individual patents granted to Andrew Burgess or John
Browning. And it will be easier to identify a shotgun-cartridge brand name than a
military headstamp, at least until much more work has been done.
No guide to the worldwide gunmaking industry can hope to be truly
comprehensive, but all projects reach the point where it is better to ofer the benefts
of incomplete research than wait decades until every last piece of information has
been sifted. Te arguments ofered in 2001 seem to be as valid today even though,
increasingly eager to trace the origins of the guns that had been current in 1836
(by implication, with earlier origins), I began to work back in time. Te material
ofered here, therefore, still far from completion, refects my progress.
John Walter, 2011
unless I could prove a connection with multi-shot or breechloading frearms. Te
gunmaking fraternities in Europe, however, and especially in Britain, worked very
diferently from their North American counterparts prior to the First World War.
Mass production was confned largely to military establishments, and to aggressive
government supported private conglomerates such as Wafenfabrik Mauser AG or
sterreichische Wafenfabriks-Gesellschaft, whose output was more military than
sporting.
Te British had a particularly durable tradition of craftsmanship which had
never been entirely subordinated to the machine. Tis could also be said of most
other European gunmaking centres, until the unprecedented demands made by the
First World War put a premium on quantity at the expense of quality.
Te claims of individual nineteenth-century European gunmakers to inclusion
have often been difcult to dismiss. Tough many men bought components
from specialist gun-lock makers or barrel rifers, assembly and fnishing were still
undertaken personally. Consequently, many provincial British gunmakers were
originally included on the grounds that multi-shot handguns or breechloading
sporting guns have been (or may still be) found with appropriate marks.
Directory entries were also biased towards Anglo-American afairs, paying
less attention to the gunmakers operating in Brescia, Eibar, Ferlach, Lige, Saint-
tienne, Suhl or Weipert. However, an acknowledgment of the most important
European makers was still be found.
Inventors and patentees were included where possible, though space
limitations meant that priority usually had to be given to designs which were
exploited commercially at the expense of paper projects (interesting though these
may have been).
Some designers achieved stupendous totals of individual citations, particularly
in twentieth-century days when the catch all patents of the 1860s had given way
to the separate registry of each major component of a design. Andrew Burgess,
among the most versatile of gun designers if by no means the most successful, was
granted no fewer than 836 frearms-related patents in his career; John Browning
(perhaps the greatest of the great) received about 950, mostly for automatic
weapons. Yet, in September 1957, Te Gun Report related a claim made by the
otherwise overlooked Crawford Loomiswho spent most of his working life with
Remingtonto have held more assignable patents than any other gun designer.
It is, of course, impossible to include every known brand name or trademark,
or to summarise the career of every gunsmith and gun dealer. Writing in October
1970 in Shooting Times & Country Magazine, the late Gough Tomas claimed to
have information about more than four thousand British gunmakers in his fles;
Gardners Small Arms Makers itself contains nearly 400,000 words devoted to just
PART ONE: HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
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HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION: PART ONE
GUNS, GUNMAKERS AND GUNMAKING : PAGE 9
con fusing examples have been listed under every combina tion of their individual
letters! Brand names and trademarks have been listed wherever possible, but
numerical designations have been ignored anywhere other than in the section
devoted to an individual manufacturer. Tus details of the Remington Model 700
bolt-action rife will be found in Remington, rifes, bolt-action, but not under
Model. Numerical designations do not always appear on guns, and those that
do are often easily identifed by referring to sources of information listed in the
individual directory entries.
Some of the best-known ammunition makers are also included, alongside
many headstamp codes. However, only the surface of this complex subject has
been scratched. Proof marks may be identifed from letters accompa nying them,
and the frst attempts have been made to explain the abbreviations used by military
formations (e.g, German military unit marks). However, inspectors marks have
been largely ignored, with the exception of American examples; US government
frearms inspectors customarily applied marks that are easily deciphered and can
be used to date other wise anonymous items.
Terminology and corporate structure
Te introduction of limited liability, where the risks taken by promoters were
restricted in law, brought a series of new abbreviations. Limited partnerships
were formed by a general partner, who accepted complete liability, and a number
of sleeping partners whose risk was limited only to their capital investmentbut
only if they took no part in running the business. Tese operations were known
as Socit en commandit in France, frequently abbreviated to S.N.C.; as Societ in
accomandita (S.I.A.) In Italy; and as Kommanditgesellschaft (KG) in Germany.
True limited-liability operations in Britain were distinguished by Ltd or Company
Ltd, although, from 1977 onward, public companies have been identifed as plc
(public limited company). Similar businesses in the Netherlands are naamloze
vennootschap (NV), and are Aktiebolag (AB) in Sweden; Danish and Norwegian
equivalents are usually identifed as AS or A/S.
Public companies in France and Belgium are classed as Socit anonyme (SA),
the latter often gaining the addi tional qualifcation Belge (SAB); comparable
terms include Societ per azioni (SPA, SpA) in Italy, and Aktiengesellschaft (AG) in
Germany.
Private companies, each formed in accordance with its own national rules,
include Socit responsabilit limite (SARL, s.a.r.l.) in France, Gesellschaft mit
beschrnkter Haftung (GmbH) in Germany, and Societ a responsabilita limitata
Te dictionary has been organised on as logical an alphabetical basis as can be
compatible with its goals, although punctuation, ampersands and some word
breaks have been ignored. In addition, some businesses and many brand names
(especially on shotgun ammunition) have always considered a prefatory Te as
part of their title; these have been listed as Arms & Ammunition Company Ltd
[Te] to minimise confusion.
Company names may cause problems if they are list ed as Smith, James, &
Sons Ltd, which could be a partnership of Smith and James, or a business that
had been started originally by a sole trader called James Smith and subsequently
expanded to include his sons. Te style James Smith & Company has been
preferred here, even though it appears to disrupt alphabetical progression. Te
basis of classifcation, therefore, is efectively:
Smith
Smith [&] Company
Smith [&] Son
A.A. Smith
A.A. Smith [&] Company
A.A. Smith [&] Son
A.B. Smith
Smith [&] Brown
Smith Carbine
Smith Pistol
Smith Rife
Smith, White [&] Company
Cross-references are indicated in several ways. Most simply say see Garand. It is
obvious in these cases that the keyword is Sharps or Garand. Where this is not so
obvious, particularly as there is great scope for confusion in corporate names, the
key word is either prefxed by the symbol or underlined (e.g., James Paris Lee,
Lee-Enfeld).
Particular care is necessary with monograms, which can be difcult to decipher,
but the problems are summarised in the relevant directory entry, and the most
ORGANISATION AND TERMINOLOGY
And a note on sources of additional information
PART ONE: HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
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HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION: PART ONE
GUNS, GUNMAKERS AND GUNMAKING : PAGE 11
(SRL, s.r.l.) in Italy. Any French company described as Socit Mixte (SM) is a
partnership of private individuals and government agencies.
Additional information may appear in the form of Brothers (often rendered
simply as Bros.) and equiva lents such as Fratelli (F.lli, Italy), Frres (France
and Belgium) and Gebrder (Germany). Among the variants of Son are Sohn
(plural Shne, German), Zoon (plural Zonen, Dutch), fls (French and Belgian),
Figlio (plural Figli, Italian) and Hijo (plural Hijos, Spanish). Abbreviations for
Proprietor, often itself listed simply as Prop., include Inhaber (owner in German,
Inhaberin if female). Te terms Witwe (German) and Veuve (French) both mean
widow.
Te spelling of Lige was altered ofcially to Lige in 1946, refecting changes
in local pronunciation. Te older form is preferred throughout the dictionary, as
the greater part of coverage dates prior to 1945; however, Ligeois and Ligeoise
(both still in use) are unafected.
Sources of information
References to sources of additional information have been provided in many
entries. Further details will be found in the Bibliography.
General studies. Firearms Past & Present by Jaroslav Lugs, which has been
published in Czech (1955), German (1962) and English (Grenville Publishing,
London, 1973) is an underrated source of information, particularly as it takes a
diferent perspective to the customary Anglo-American viewpoints. It has an
excellent bibliography.
Gunmakers. Among the studies of individual gunmakers are Johan Stckels
Haandskydevaabens Bedmmelse (second edition, Copenhagen, 1962), reprinted
in 1992 by Journal-Verlag Schwend of Schwbisch Hall as Der Neue Stckel, with
a third volume contributed by Eugen Heer. Although rarely intruding into the
modern era, it is indispensable. Colonel Robert E. Gardners Small Arms Makers
(Bonanza Books, New York, 1963), understandably biased toward US topics, was
a pioneering and greatly underrated study that represented nearly ffty years of
research. Its coverage may be inconsistent and occasionally frustrating, with
comparatively little attention paid to individual products, but these are minor
faws. Cataloguing British gunmaking has benefted greatly from the scholarly
work of the late Howard Blackmore, whose A Dictionary of London Gunmakers
13501850 (PhaidonChristies, London, 1997) and 1999-vintage supplement are
invaluableparticularly when supported by English Gunmakers (Te Birmingham
and Provincial Gun Trade in the 18th and 19th century) by D.W. Bailey and
PART ONE: HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
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HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION: PART ONE
GUNS, GUNMAKERS AND GUNMAKING : PAGE 13
D.A. Nie (Arms & Armour Press, London, 1978). Te latter desperately needs
reprinting in an enlarged and revised form. Boothroyds Revised Dictionary of British
Gunmakers (published privately, 1997), by Geofrey Boothroyd and his daughter
Susan, is another invaluable source of information. John A. Beltons Canadian
Gunsmiths from 1608 (Museum Restoration Service, Bloomfeld, 1992) is helpful,
while Claude Gaiers Five Centuries of Liege Gunmaking (ditions du Perron, 1996)
is as attractive as its scholarship is excellent. Le Qui est Qui de lArmurerie Ligeoise
by Guy Gadisseur and Michel Druart (ditions du Pcari [Atlantica], Biarritz, 2005)
provides an indispensable directory of Ligeois gunsmiths. A similar role for the
French gunmaking industry is fulflled by the two-volume study Le Qui est qui de
larme en France de 1350 1970, compiled by Jean-Jacques Buign on the basis of
initial research by Pierre Jarlier (ditions du Portail, La Tour du Pin, 2001); and
Yves Cadious Grands Noms de lArmurerie (Crepin-Leblond, Paris, 1999) can help to
refne detail.
Company histories. With the exception of an occasional sponsored, self-
promotional or commemorative review (e.g., F.N., 18891964 and the fftieth
anniversary history of DWM), and reprinted catalogues that give snapshots of
individual activities, comparatively little information is available regarding any
but the best -known makers. Colt and Winchester are served almost to saturation,
whereas the activities of Sauer and Savage (to name but two) hardly receive a
mention. Individually-sponsored studies of lesser manufacturers, which are often
excellent in themselves, merely highlight the difculty of balancing manufacturing
history with the details sought by individual collectors. Excellent examples of
one company studies are Lieutenant Colonel William S. Brophys Marlin Firearms
(Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, 1989), which delves into its subject in meticulous
detail, and Harold F. Williamsons Winchester. Te Gun that Won the West (A.S.
Barnes, South Brunswick, 1962), which accepts that the history of a gunmaker
is not simply that of the guns. Ellsworth S. Grant, in Te Colt Armory (Mowbray
Publishing, Lincoln, 1995), goes behind the scenes to show not only how the guns
were made, but also how the manufactory operated.
Te guns. So many books deal with individual topics that it is impossible to
recommend more than a few. Particularly useful, however, have been the all-
enveloping Small Arms of the World (Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, eleventh edition,
1977), compiled by W.H.B. Smith, Joseph E. Smith and Edward C. Ezell; Te
Greenhill Military Small Arms Data Book, by Ian V. Hogg (1999); and Military Small
Arms of the World (Krause Publications, Iola, seventh edition, 2000) by Ian Hogg
and Colonel John S. Weeks. Te Handgun, by Geofrey Boothroyd (Cassell, London,
1976), and Handguns of the World, by Edward C. Ezell (Stackpole Books, Harrisburg,
1981), presented detailed overviews, whereas Pistols of the World by Ian V. Hogg,
A rarely -seen Walther leafet
advertising the P1 (P38), P5 and PP,
dating from a time when the company
was celebrating its centenary.
PART ONE: HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
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HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION: PART ONE
GUNS, GUNMAKERS AND GUNMAKING : PAGE 15
John S. Weeks and John Walter (DBI, Inc., Northfeld, fourth edition, 2004), and
Rifes of the World by John Walter (Krause Publications, Iola, third edition, 2006)
took a directory approach. Detailed gun-by-gun listings, such as the Gun Traders
Guide (John E. Traister, ed., Stoeger Publishing Company, South Hackensack)
and S.P. Fjestads Te Blue Book of Used Gun Values (Blue Book Publications, Inc.,
Minneapolis), are published annually in the USA. Although these can subordinate
history to observational details, they represent invaluable sources of information.
Airguns. Tere is still no reliable history of this particular subject, despite steadily
growing interest. W.H.B. Smiths Gas, Air and Spring Guns of the World (1957) is out
of date, and John Walters Te Airgun Book (the third edition of 1984 was the most
historically orientated) has been out of print for many years. Te later editions of
Dennis Hillers Air Rifes and Air Pistols (published privately in Britain) had much
to ofer, but the most comprehensive survey is currently The Blue Book of Airguns by
Robert Beeman and John Allen (Blue Book Publications, Inc, Minneapolis, eighth
edition, 2010).
Cartridges and ammunition. Tere are several excellent sources of information
concerning the history and identifcation of ammunition, not least being the work
of Jakob H. Brandt and Horst H. Hamann in Identifzierung von Handfeuer-Wafen
Munition (Journal-Verlag Schwend, Schwbisch Hall, 19713). I am concerned
mainly with recording aids to identifcation; thus works such as Te Cartridge Guide
by Ian Hogg (Arms & Armour Press. London, 1982) are invaluable. I would also
like to single out Collecting Shotgun Cartridges, by Ken Rutterford (Stanley Paul,
London, 1987) for particular praise; although this would beneft from critical
review, the book ofers a tremendous amount of information.
Key cross-references
Te entries below have been extracted from the main directory, partly because
of frequent references and partly because it will be some time before the entire
project has been uploaded in even its most basic form.
CYPHERS, IMPERIAL AND ROYAL
Although the small -arms of many armies bear distinctive national markings,
others are easier to identify by the markings applied by their kings, queens and
emperors. Some of these cyphers were elaborate monograms; others were simply
small crowned Roman letters.
Bavaria. Kings Leopold II (186486), Otto (18861913) and Ludwig III (191318)
used a crowned cursive L or a crowned O.
A promotional leafet published by Beretta USA
to highlight the adoption of the Beretta 92
(M9) pistol by the US armed forces.
PART ONE: HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
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HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION: PART ONE
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Kaiser of Germany in 1871, reigning as Wilhelm I until 1888. He and his grandson,
Wilhelm II (18881918) used crowned W cyphers. Tere is n0 evidence that the
mark of Friedrich III (1888)presumably a crowned Fwas ever applied to
small-arms.
Romania. Carol I (18811914) used an addorsed CC monogram on behalf of himself
and his consort, Charlotte of Luxembourg. Customarily encircled beneath a crown
within a wreath of laurel, it will be found on machine-guns. Ferdinand (191427)
is believed to have used a crowned F; Mha I (192730 and 19407) adopted an
elaborate monogram consisting of four crowned letters M joining at their bases
in the form of a cross. Carol II (193140) perpetuated the CC monogram of his
nineteenth-century predecessor.
Saxony. Te cyphers of Kings Albert (reigned 18731902), Georg (19024) and
Friedrich August III (190418) took the form of cursive AR, GR and FA beneath
crowns.
Sweden. A black-letter C beneath a crown appeared on many frearms made by
the state ordnance factory is Eskilstuna, Carl Gustafs Stads Gevrsfaktori. Tis,
however, should not be classed as a monogram, even though many Swedish kings
have been named appropriatelye.g. Gustav V (190750) and Carl XVI Gustaf
(195073). Oskar II reigned from 18721907, during the period in which many
Mauser rilles were made.
Wrttemberg. Small-arms were marked simply with a crown over a Roman W, as
King Wilhelm (18911918) shared his name with the Kaiser. However, a fraktur W
is commonly encountered on swords, uniforms and accoutrements , and may yet
be reported on frearms.
MONOGRAMS
Te penchant for these methods of marking dates back to the nineteenth century,
the origins perhaps lying in the successful development of methods of moulding
rubber. Tese were particularly popular fttings on pre-1914 revolvers, the frst
perhaps originating in the 1880s. Unfortunately, the mould-makers were keen
to show their skills in handling the tinest design-detail, resulting in technically
highly impressive but often almost totally illegible results. Tis is particularly true
of concentric or superimposed lettering, though linear designs are often (but not
always) signifcantly easier to read.
Tere are three basic types of monogram: superimposed, with the letters
on top of each other or intercutting; concentric, when they take a circle-within-
circle form; and linear, where the letters, though conjoined, are in a sequence that
can be read as a continuous string. However, the characteristics can be blurred
by superimposing only a few of the letters. Tis makes it difcult to decipher
Belgium. Kings Leopold II (18651909), Albert (190934), Leopold III (193450)
and Baudoin (1950 to date) used the letters L, A, L and 13 respectively. Te L
and A marks are customarily cursive, whereas the 13 is usually a Roman letter -
often hatched hori zontally in its largest sizes.
Britain. Prior to the acces sion of Queen Elizabeth II (E. II R.) in 1952, only three
cyphers had been used since the 1830s: V.R. (Victoria Regina) by Queen Victoria
between 1837 and 1901; E.R. (Edwardius Rex) by Edward VII, 190110, and Edward
VIII (1936 only); and G.R. by George V (191036) and George VI (193652). Date
determines which is appropriate. Te marks on small-arms consisted simply of
crowns above Roman letters, although each monarch also had a cursive cypher
that could take a very diferent form from the simple version. While cursive forms
often graced the hilts of swords, uniforms and accoutrements, they have never
been reported on frearms.
Bulgaria. Prince Ferdinand I (Tsar from 1913) used a crowned F from 1887 until
superseded by Boris III (191843). Simeon II reigned from 1943 until 1946, but was
deposed by pro-Communist forces before attaining his majority.
Germany. Te cyphers of Kaisers Wilhelm I (187188) and Wilhelm II (18881918)
took the form of an imperial or squared-top crown above W; it is thought that the
F of Kaiser Friedrich III, who reigned for a few months in 1888, may never have
been applied to small-arms. Imperial cyphers were used only on the weapons of
the navy and colonial protection forces; the armies of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and
Wrttemberg continued to apply their own royal cyphers.
Netherlands. King Willem III (reigned 18491890) was succeeded by three queens
Wilhelmina (18901948), Juliana (194880) and Beatrix (1980 to date). Cyphers
customarily take the form of a crowned W, J or B. In their larger applications.
over the chambers of Mannlicher rifes or on the slides of FN-Browning pistols, for
example. the letters were customarily outlined and hatched horizontally. Smaller
versions, on the Parabellum pistols or edged weapons. were often simply small
cursive letters beneath crowns.
Norway. Te cyphers of King Haakon VII (190557) and King Olaf V (1957 to date)
may be found on Krag- Jrgensen rifes and other military stores. Tey take the
form of H with 7 on the crossbar or V within O respectively.
Portugal. King Luis I (186189) used a crowned L I
O
; Carlos I (18891908) preferred
an elabo rate crowned CI monogram, often found above the chambers of Mauser-
Vergueiro rifes; and Manuel II, deposed in the revolution of 1910, adopted a large
crowned M with a small 2 looped around the point. M2 marks will be found on
7.65mm army-type Parabellum pistols.
Prussia. King Friedrich Wilhelm IV used a crowned FW mark. Tis was superseded
by a simple W when Wilhelm I gained the throne. Te King of Prussia became
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HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION: PART ONE
GUNS, GUNMAKERS AND GUNMAKING : PAGE 19
also Cyphers, imperial and royal.
Bolivia. Te arms consist of a shield bearing a depiction of Potosi mountain
in a landscape, with a breadfruit tree, a llama and a wheatsheaf, within a circlet
containing the name of the country and nine stars. Te Arms are customarily
surmounted by an enwreathed condor and backed by a trophy of two crossed
cannon, four bayonetted rifes, and three pairs of national fags. One cannon-
mouth holds a Phyrgian Cap; the other contains an axe. Te marks may be found
beneath EJERCITO DE BOLIVIA (Bolivian army); inscriptions will be in Spanish.
Brazil. Customarily accompanied prior to 1968 by ESTADOS UNIDOS DO BRASIL (or
simply E.U. do Brasil), the crest consists of a large fve point prismatic star impaled
on a sword, point uppermost. A constellation of fve stars, the Southern Cross,
lies within a circlet of small stars on the centre of the prismatic star; the circlet
originally contained twenty stars representing the original provinces, but the total
was increased to 21 in 1960, to 22 in 1962, to 23 in 1977, to 24 in 1981 and fnally
to 27 in 1989. Marks found on weapons ranging from Mauser rifes to Madsen
submachin-guns and FN FAL rifes customarily have twenty-star circlets. Te
device is generally contained within a wreath of laurel and cofee leaves, and may be
placed on a stylised sunburst, particularly on post-1930 guns. Te legend ESTADOS
UNIDOS DO BRASIL and 15 DO NOVEMBRE DE 1889 (the date of the formation of the
Brazilian republic) may be found on a scroll. Property marks may take the form of
the letter B, for Brazil, within a circle or an encircled six-point star. Inscriptions
will be in Portuguese, highlighted by a preference for Berlim (Berlin); EXERCITO
BRASILEIRO (Brazilian army) has also been used.
Britain. No national marks have been used, though the BO of the Board of
Ordnance (prior to 1855) and the WD of the War Department (post-1855) will be
found with the Broad Arrow. See also Cyphers, imperial and royal.
Bulgaria. Te Arms comprised a lion rampant on a shield, sometimes, especially
on older guns, superimposed on a pavilion and supported by two lance-bearing
lions. Tis was replaced early in the twentieth century by a rampant lion on a
shield beneath a crown supported on two batons, found on Parabellum pistols and
Maxim machine-guns supplied shortly before the First Balkan War began. From
1947 onward, the lion appeared on a demi-cogwheel within a wreath of wheat ears
separated at their tips by a fve-point star. A small version of the Bulgarian lion has
been used as a military proof- or property mark.
Canada. Small-arms used during the period of British domination, including Ross
rifes, bore a Broad Arrow within C. Modern military stores may instead bear a
stylised maple leaf.
Chile. Encountered above the chambers of 7mm Mauser rifes or on the slides of
9mm Steyr-Hahn pistols, the Chilean Arms consist of a fve-point prismatic star
monogramsletter forms may be too distorted, or the dominant letter difcult
to determineand they have been listed in the dictionary under each of the most
obvious permutations. A mark that apparently reads ABC, therefore, could be
listed under ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB or CBA and it may be necessary to try several
possible sequences before an answer can be found. A monogram containing fve
letters of equal signifcance has 120 permutations, so attempts have been made
(helped by the subordination of CO. or Co., for Company) to the name to assess
dominant letter(s) in each trademark in an efort to keep entries to a minimum.
NATIONAL MARKINGS
Te absence of countries or states from this list indicates either that they applied
no marks which could be classifed as national, or, alternatively, that no reliable
information has been obtained. Arms have often been changed when crowns have
changed hands, when republics have superseded monarchies, or with the addition
(alternatively, loss) of provinces and colonies; consequently, the notes that follow
can be regarded merely as guidelines. In addition, restrictions of space have
often forced the die-engravers to simplify or even omit details. See also Cyphers,
imperial and royal.
Argentina. Found on stores ranging from Maxim machine-guns and Mauser
rifes to Ballester-Molina pistols, bayonets and accoutrements, the national Arms
consisted of an oval shield containing two hands clasping a Phrygian or Liberty
Cap on a pole within a wreath of laurel, generally surmounted by a sunburst (Sol
de Mayo). Inscriptions will be in Spanish, and may be accompanied by EA or
EJERCITO ARGENTINO.
Australia. No readily identifable national marks have been used, other than D
or DD (Department of Defence) and the marks applied by individual statese.g.,
W.A. for Western Australia or TAS. for Tasmania. Many state-marks were applied
before the 1900 confederation.
Austria. Some post-1945 guns will bear a displayed eagle mark, often accompanied
by BH (Bundesheer, state army). Te Austrian eagle has a single head topped by
a mural (or civic) crown, and a breast shield charged with a single horizontal bar.
One talon holds a hammer, while the other clasps a sickle; broken shackles signify
release from oppression.
Austria-Hungary. No national marks were applied, though the double-headed
Habsburg eagle was used as a military proof mark.
Bavaria. Few national markings were ever used on small-arms, though the shield
of the state Armsa distinctive lozengy patternhas been perpetuated in the
mark applied by the Mnchen proof house. See also Cyphers, imperial and royal.
Belgium. No specifc national marks have been identifed. See also ABL, GB and
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scene. A single supporter in the form of a fasces topped with a Phyrgian Cap lies
behind the shield, which may be enreathed in oak and laurel. Inscriptions will be
in Spanish.
Czechoslovakia. Guns will sometimes bear the crowned two-tailed Lion of
Bohemia, charged prior to 1960 with a breast shield (for Slovakia) bearing a double-
armed cross on a base of three mountains. Tey may also be marked SK for
eskoslovenska (Czechoslovakia).
Denmark. National markings were rarely used on frearms. See also Cyphers,
imperial and royal.
Dominican Republic. Te Arms consist of a plain cross on a shield, charged
with six national fags, a Cross of Christ and an open Bible. Te shield may be
enwreathed in palm- and laurel leaves. Marks will be in Spanish.
Ecuador. Te Arms consisted of an oval shield or cartouche displaying a landscape
(featuring the volcano Chimborazo) rising, beneath a shining sun set on a band
bearing the MarchJune zodiacal signs. A steamer rides of the mouth of the Rio
Guyas. Surmounted by a condor, the device is backed by two paired fags and a
wreath of palm and laurel, and will usually also feature a fasces at its base. Marks
will be in Spanish.
Egypt. A country with a troubled history, this has rarely applied distinctive marks
to its guns. However, the Eagle of Saladin was used in 19528 and from 1984 to date,
and a stylised Hawk of Quraish during the Federation of Arab Republics (19727).
Te Egyptian army marks customarily had breast shields divided vertically into
three. Marks will be in Arabic.
El Salvador. Rifes will bear a triangular seascape with fve volcanoes beneath a
rainbow and a staf supporting an enrayed Phrygian Cap, which may be encircled
by the date of independence 15 DE SET. DE 1821. Tis is usually backed by fve
national fags and may be enwreathed in laurel.
Estonia. Te Arms comprised three lions passant guardant on a plain shield. It is
not known to have been used on small-arms.
Ethiopia. Guns used in Ethiopia may bear the Lion of Judah, apparently a property
mark, and a mark consisting of the imperial crown above an Amharic inscription
and a stylised lions-head mask within a wreath of laurel (?). Others are said to bear
the cypher of Haile Selassie within a wreath of a grapevine and a wheat-ear.
Finland. Small-arms used in Finland rarely bear national markings, though S.A.
and Sk.Y marks (qq.v.) are common. A few guns have been reported bearing
a fylfot, or swastika, with its arms pointing to the left (cf., the marks used in
Germany during the Tird Reich pointed to the right), but so have some modern
Chinese frearms and the attribution is unclear.
France. National insignia has rarely, if ever appeared on military smallarms.
on a shield halved horizontally, with a crest of three rhea feathers, supported by a
crowned Huemal (Andean deer) and a crowned condor. Tey will usually be found
on a mound strewn with laurel, particularly when impressed into butts; stock-
marks may be accompanied by M.F. in a rectangular cartouche, sometimes placed
above the date of manufacture or reconstruction. Some guns display a chamber
mark consisting of crossed slung Mauser carbines, CHILE and ORDEN Y PATRIA;
others have an unidentifed stock roundel that seems to consist of C, I, A and E,
with the frst and last letters dominant. Inscriptions will be in Spanish.
China. Marks in Chinese characters are usually distinctive, but can easily be
confused with Japanese. Guns made in the principal Chinese arsenal in Hanyang
will be marked with a double interlocking diamond logo, which, particularly on guns
made in the 1930s, may be combined into a fattened octagonal border enclosing
the designation. Others may have a stylised cogwheel enclosing a bow-and-arrow,
the signifcance of which is still not known; and others may show a stylised disc-like
sun with twelve short pointed rays, adopted in 1928 but customarily used merely as
a property or proof mark on military stores.
Colombia. Customarily surmounted by a condor with shackles in its beak and
a scroll bearing LIBERTAD Y ORDEN, the Arms consist of a pomegranate and two
cornucopiae above a Phrygian Cap on a spear-head, and a representation of the
Isthmus of Panama separating a sailing ship on the Caribbean Sea from a similar
ship on the Pacifc Ocean. Te shield was customarily placed on two pairs of
fags and backed by a sunburst within an oval border, though guns supplied by
eskosolvensk Zbrojovka after c. 1930 lacked the sunburst and border and had
REPBLICA DE COLOMBIA added beneath the Arms. Others displayed EJERCITO
DE COLOMBIA (Colombian army), whereas Mauser rifes supplied in the 1950s by
Fabrique Nationale used COLOMBIA and FUERZAS MILITARES (Military forces).
Inscriptions will be in Spanish.
Costa Rica. Te Arms consist of a shield bearing seven stars above the three
volcanoes (representing the Isthmus of Panama) separating sailing ships on the
Pacifc ocean and Caribbean Sea, the latter being accompanied by a sun rising over
the horizon. Marks will be in Spanish.
Croatia. Marks applied during the German occupation during the Second World
War featured the traditional chequered shield beneath the letter U within an
eight-looped rope border. Tis denoted the Utaze, a right-wing Catholic militia
raised by Ante Pavelic.
Cuba. Found on frearms ranging from Remington-Lee rifes to the FN FAL, the
Arms used from 1902 until 1958 consisted of a shield divided into three. Te top
bears a key superimposed on land- and seascape representing the Gulf of Mexico;
the lower portions contain fve diagonal bars and a Royal Palm in a stylised pastoral
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Iran. Some guns will bear the mark of the imperial dynasty, which consisted of a
scimitar-wielding lion backed by a rising sun. Tis customarily appears beneath a
Pahlavi crown within a wreath of oak and laurel leaves. See also Persia.
Iraq. Some gunsLee-Enfeld rifes, for examplewill bear a mark comprising
an Arabic character (appearing as a reversed angular S) within a triangle. More
modern weapons may display what appears to be a monogram comprising A and
an inverted 2, which is said to be an Arabic abbreviation used by the Republican
Guard.
Ireland (Eire). No national markings.
Israel. Te six-point Magen David (Star of David) appears in the Defence Force
badge, accompanied by a sword, an olive branch and a scroll bearing the national
motto. Marks will be in Hebrew.
Italy. Te Arms of Savoy were used by the Kingdom of Italy until 1946, but rarely if
ever appeared on weapons. Tey consisted of a shield bearing a St Georges Cross
within a plain border. A bundled Fasces, however, may be found on frearms made
during the supremacy of Benito Mussolini (192243).
Japan. An imperial Mon in the form of a stylised chrysanthemum was used on
small-arms.
Korea. Te emblem of a circular yin-yang and four Kwae trigrams representing the
four seasons (or the elements of creation) may have been used.
Laos. Guns may be marked with an emblem depicting three elephants beneath a
parasol.
Latvia. Te Arms consisted of a shield charged with a rising half-sun above a lion
and a grifn in separate quarters.
Liberia. A shield bearing a star above eleven vertical bars may have been used.
Marks will be in English.
Lithuania. Te Shield of Arms consisted of a sword-wielding knight mounted on
a rearing horse, his own shield being charged with a Patriarchal Cross. However, a
highly stylised crown may be found on small-arms.
Luxembourg. Te Arms consisted of a crowned lion rampant on a horizontally-
barred shield, originally with an inescutcheon in the form of a small shield bearing
the Netherlands lion (q.v.) on a billeted ground. Te term Letzebourg may be used
instead of Luxembourg.
Manchuria (Manchukuo). Tis short-lived republic, formed in the 1930s under
Japanese control, does not seem to have used any identifable national marks other
than the cross-and-concentric-circle attributed to Mukden arsenal.
Mexico. A distinctive mark of an eagle with a snake in its beak, perched on a
cactus on an island in a lake, has been used on military frearms for many years.
Te device is usually enwreathed in oak and laurel. Marks on guns imported into
However, R.F. for Rpublique Franaise (French Republic) has been reported on
the grips of Unique and other handguns.
Germany. Tough imperial cyphers and displayed-eagle military proof marks
were used prior to 1918, no national marks were applied with the exception of
DEUTSCHES REICH (German Empire) on captured guns or Beutegewehre. Guns
made during the Tird Reich may bear an assortment of marks based on the
displayed-eagle state emblem, but these were customarily used simply as proof and
inspectors marks. Te swastika or Hakenkreuz was rarely used, excepting in marks
applied by some of the paramilitary formations.
Greece. Tese frearms may bear the National Arms, comprising a cross on a
horizontally-barred shield enwreathed in laurel. Marks will be in Greek lettering.
Guatemala. Guns often bore a quetzal bird perched on a scroll reading LIBERTAD
DE 15 DE SET. DE 1821 (Liberation day, 15th September 1821), with two bayonetted
rifes crossed above two crossed sabres within a wreath of laurel tied with a riband
recording the national motto (?). Marks will be in Spanish.
Haiti. Te National Arms consisted of a trophy of anchors, swords, fags, drums,
rifes, cannon and cannon balls in front of an Emperor Palm, superimposed (or
topped by) on a Phrygian Cap on a vertical staf. Marks will be in Spanish. 32.
Honduras. Last revised in 1935, the national Arms consists of a triangle with fve
fames (now a sun?), fanked by two towers, in front of a Mayan pyramid rising
from the sea. Topped by a quiver of arrows and two cornucopiae, this was set
inside a border bearing the date of independence (15th September 1821). Marks
will be in Spanish.
Hungary. Part of Austria-Hungary (q.v.) until 1918. Hungarian frearms made in
191843 will occasionally bear a shield, halved vertically. One half contains seven
bars; the other has a double-armed cross, encircled by a coronet, on a triple-step
base or (particularly in later examples) a grassed mound. Te mark is customarily
surmounted by St Stephens Crown, which is topped by a distinctive bent cross.
Hungarian small-arms produced since the Communists came to power in 1948
(e.g., Tokarev 48M pistols) may display a crest of a crossed hammer and sword
within a circlet of wheat-ears.
India. Part of the British Empire until 1947, the Indian authorities applied marks
in the form of I beneath a Broad Arrow to their military stores. Post-independence
weapons will display the cap of the Pillar of Sarnath, created by the Buddhist
emperor Asoka (by whose name it is often known). Only three of the pillar-cap
lions are visible.
Indonesia. Te national emblem, the Garuda, a mythical half-human bird, may be
found on Beretta-made Garand rifes and a range of machine-guns. Other frearms
will bear a large fve-point star, from the Presidential fag. See also TNI.
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Romania. A large crown was used on many pre-1918 small-arms, customarily above
the designation (e.g., ARMA MD. 1892). See also Cyphers, imperial and royal.
Russia (Tsarist, pre-1917). Te double-headed imperial eagle was widely used in
proof and property marks. It can be distinguished by its double crowned heads,
beneath a single large crown symbolising the unity of the many provinces. It should
bear a breast shield showing St George slaying the Dragon (taken from the Arms of
Moscow), an encircling collar of the Order of St Andrew, and four small shields on
each wing bearing the Arms of major cities and provices of the Empire. However,
most small-arms marks are too small to show these in detail. Inscriptions will be in
Cyrillic (shared only by Bulgaria, Serbia and Yugoslavia prior to 1948).
Saudi Arabia. Te National Arms consists of crossed scimitars beneath a palm
tree, though the current fag bears only a single Sword of Abd al-Aziz (straight-
bladed since 1981) beneath the shahadaan expression of the creed of Islam in
Arabic script.
Saxony. No national markings. See also Cyphers, imperial and royal.
Serbia. Found on Mauser rifes, amongst other guns, the pre-1918 Arms consisted
of a pavilion containing a double-headed eagle on a shield, with an inescutcheon
or breast shield bearing a cross with a decorative striking-steel in each quarter.
Siam. Te Chakra mark was widely used on Siamese military stores. Originally used
in Indian to describe a spinning wheel, Chakra came to signify a war-quoit with a
series of fame-like blades issuing from a circle. Te largest examples, particularly
those used prior to the 1920s, sometimes contained lines radiating from the top
centre of the inner ring; later examples usually have concentric-circle interiors.
Slovakian Republic. Formed by the German authorities during the Second World
War, the armed forces of this short-lived territory marked small-arms with a
Patriarchal Cross atop three mounds.
South Africa. Part of the British Empire and Commonwealth until 1960, South
African weapons of this period were marked U (for Union of South Africa), often
containing a Broad Arrow.
Spain. Te National Arms have been revised many times, but, owing to the need for
compact marks, those used on small-arms have almost always taken a standardised
simplifed form. Te marks found on stores ranging from Mauser rifes to Astra
pistols comprise a crowned shield quartered with a castle (for Castile), a lion
(Leon), vertical bars (Aragon) and a wheel of chains (Navarra). An inescutcheon
bore three feurs-de-lis for the House of Borbon on a plain ground, but a small
compartment at the shield-tip, which should have contained the pomegranate of
Granada, was customarily voided owing to lack of space. Spanish-made Mausers
often omitted the Arms, instead bearing a crown over FBRICA DE ARMAS, OVIEDO
and the date. Te so-called Falangist guns, made during the Spanish Civil War of
Mexico generally take the form of an heraldic displayed eagle, and often also
bear REPBLICA MEXICANA; indigenous products use a less formal mark, more
traditionally Aztec, accompanied by FBRICA NACIONAL DE ARMAS MEXICO D.F.
Weapons used by Mexican insurgents may bear a Phyrgian Cap on a sunburst,
accompanied by R and M or R de M. Inscriptions will be in Spanish.
Netherlands. Rarely encountered on frearms, the National Arms bear a rampant
lion (clutching a sword and a sheaf of arrows) on a plain ground strewn with gold
billets. See also Cyphers, imperial and royal.
New Zealand. Part of the British Empire and Commonwealth, the New Zealand
authorities often marked their service weapons with N and Z , separated by a
Broad Arrow.
Nicaragua. Te National Arms comprised fve volcanoes and an enrayed Phrygian
Cap, on a staf rising out of a seascape beneath a rainbow.
Norway. A mark of a crowned lion bearing the Axe of St Olav has been widely
used. See also Cyphers, imperial and royal.
Orange Free State. Tis short-lived republic simply used O.V.S. on its small-arms.
Paraguay. Te principal mark found on Mauser rifes and FN-Browning pistols
consisted of a fve-point prismatic star (Estrella de Mayo) on a stylised sunburst,
generally within a wreath of palm- and olive leavesthough laurel alone seems to
have been used on most guns. An oval border and also sometimes REPBLICA DEL
PARAGUAY will also often appear. Inscriptions will be in Spanish.
Persia. See Iran.
Peru. Te National Arms consisted of a shield divided into three, with a llama
and a chichona tree (each in an upper compartment) above a cornucopia. Te
shield was usually placed on two pairs of national fags, surmounted by a sunburst
and (alternatively, or) wreath of laurel, surrounded by a wreath of palm- and olive
leaves. Guns may also be marked REPBLICA PERUANA or REPBLICA DEL PERU.
Philippines. Guns may be marked R.O.P. (Republic of the Philippines).
Poland. Part of Russia until the Revolution of 1917. Guns may bear a crowned
single-headed displayed eagle, often accompanied by R and P for Reszpublika
Polska (Polish Republic) or F.B., RADOM (q.v.), and the date; FB within a triangle
may also be found.
Portugal. Small-arms may bear a version of the National Arms, which comprised
a shield within a shield, containing fve small shields each charged with fve discs;
seven castles (the Bordure of Castile) lay around the outer edge of the large shield,
the whole being placed on an Armillary Sphere and surrounded by an unusually
naturalistic spray-wreath of laurel leaves. See also Cyphers, imperial and royal.
Prussia. Te displayed-eagle national mark was customarily confned to proof
marks. See also Cyphers, imperial and royal.
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USSR. Small-arms made prior to the fragmentation of the Soviet Union in 1991
will bear a hammer-and-sickle mark. See also C.C.C.P.
Venezuela. Te Arms consist of a shield divided into three, with a wheatsheaf and
a trophy of fags and sabres above a white horse. Te mark is surmounted by two
cornucopiae and may be surrounded by a wreath of cofee and palm leaves (sugar
cane?). A riband bearing the dates of independence and federation of the Estados
Unidos de Venezuela (EE.UU. Venezuela), 19th April 1816 and 20th February 1889
respectively, binds the limbs of the wreath. Some modern frearms will also be
marked FUERZAS ARMADAS DE VENEZUELA (Venezuelan armes forces).
Yugoslavia. Te Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, formed after the First
World War, initially used marks based on those of Serbia (q.v.). Te shield bore
a crowned double-headed eagle with an inescutcheon or breast shield divided
with two compartments above a third. Used on ZB machine-guns, Mauser rifes
and FN-Browning pistols, these are believed to have honoured the Arms of the
three principal consitituents of the federation. Post-1948 guns may bear the State
Emblem of six torches forming a single fame within a circlet of wheat-ears; some
may also be marked S.F.R.J.Socialist Federal Republic of Jugoslavia. Pre-
revolutionary marks will often be in Cyrillic; later examples are in Roman lettering.
Guns may be marked BTZ for Voino Tekhniki Zavod, the state ordnance factory in
Kraguyevac; others may display PREDUZEE (q.v.) in Cyrillic or Roman.
NATO STANDARD NUMBERS (NSN)
Applied by the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO), this system was based on
on the US Federal Stock Numbers (FSN), introduced as part of an Act of Congress
in 1952 to assist governmental stock control, which extended to virtually any
article of military value. A typical FSN consisted of a four-digit prefx, the Federal
Supply Code (FSC), and a seven-digit serial number. In September 1974, a two-
digit National Codifcation Bureau (NCB) component was added to identify the
originating country and the NSN was formed. All NSNs have thirteen digits,
customarily separated into groups of four, two and seven. In addition to a general
11, which simply refers to NATO itself, identifers for individual NATO members
include 00, 01 and 06 for the USA; 12, Germany; 13, Belgium; 14, France; 15,
Italy; 17, Netherlands; 21, Canada; 22, Denmark; 23, Greece; 24, Iceland; 25,
Norway; 26, Portugal; 27, Turkey; 28, Luxembourg; 33, Spain; and 99 for Britain.
Te system has been expanded intermittently to include non-NATO members, 30
signifying Japan, for example, and 66 for Australia. Te marks will sometimes
be found on small-arms. For example, a British 7.62mm L8A1 armoured-vehicle
machine-gun, an indigenous variant of the FN MAG, will be marked on the left
side of the receiver with the designation MACHINE GUN 7.62MM TK L8A1 over the
19369, often by Industrias de Guerra de Catalua, were marked with a crossed
fasces and a sword. Modern small-arms may bear revised Arms, lacking the
inescutcheon, placed on the displayed Black Eagle of the Holy Roman Empire with
a Nimbus and a scroll charged with UNA GRANDE LIBRE around its head. Badges
of a ribanded yoke and a sheaf of arrows are placed to the right and left of the
eagles tail respectively. Some guns may be marked LA CORUA; others will bear
the modern Spanish air force mark, an encircled displayed eagle beneath a crown,
superimposed on stylised wings.
Sweden. Many older small-armsMauser rifes, for examplebear a crowned
black-letter C, the mark of Carl Gustavs Stads Gevrsfaktori, the state-owned
gunmaking plant. Modern weapons may display property marks in the form of
three ultra-simple stylised crowns.
Switzerland. Swiss Schmidt-Rubin rifes, Schmidt revolvers and Parabellum
pistols may display a cross (Schweizerkreuz or Croix Helvetique) on a sunburst or,
usually post-1909, on a vertically-barred shield. Small crosses may serve as proof-
or inspectors marks, the latter customarily including an indentifying letter.
Syria. Small-arms issued since the 1960s may bear the Hawk of Quraish with a
breast shield divided vertically into three. Virtually identical with the marks used
by Egypt (see above) in the days of the Federaton of Arab States (19727), Syrian
examples could be distinguished by two small fve-point stars on the centre bar of
the shield. Inscriptions will be in Arabic.
Tailand. See Siam.
Transvaal. Tis short-lived republic marked its military stores with Z.A.R. (Zuid
Afrikaansche Republiek, South African Republic).
Turkey. Some Turkish guns will bear a Toughra, customarily placed above the
chamber of Mauser rifes, which is basically a calligraphic version of the sultans
cypher. Others may be marked with a star-and-crescent, with a TC monogram
(Trkiye Cmhuriyeti, Republic of Turkey), or with an As.Fa mark representing
the military factory or Askeri Fabrika in Ankara. Marks will be in Arabic prior to
1926, and then customarily in Roman lettering.
Uruguay, also known as Republica Oriental del Uruguay (R.O.U.) or simply
Republica Oriental (R.O.). Te Arms consist of a laurel-enwreathed quartered
oval beneath a rising sun, bearing the Scales of Justice, the Cerro citadel of
Montevideo, a horse and a bull. Te marks are customarily accompanied by a
date, and, on later examples, by R.O.U. EJERCITO NACIONAL (National army of the
Oriental Republic of Uruguay). Inscriptions will be in Spanish.
United States of America. Military stores are simply marked U.S., or US
PROPERTY. A few gunsthe American Luger, for examplemay bear marks in
the form of a displayed Bald Eagle with arrows and thunderbolts in its talons.
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was signed in Madrid in 1891. Tough some international consensus exists,
however, intra-national views vary appreciably.
Protection for marks in Germany, prior to 1945 at least, was granted for ten
years; at the end of the period, unless the renewal was prompt, anyone was free
to register the same mark. Tere are a few cases where gun-related marks have
changed hands three times or more. And some countries, notably the USA (and
Britain, to a lesser extent), deem protection to have ended once a name is classed
as generic.
Trademarks found on frearms may be divided into several categories. Te easiest
to identify are those accompanied by a name: the well-known Mauser and Walther
banners, for example. Next comes the group accompanied by abbreviations, and
then the marks composed of *monograms (interlocking initials). Marks consisting
of an illustration and an abbreviation are usually easy to read, and can be identifed
if the abbreviations can be linked with a specifc manufacturer. However, this is
still impossible in the case of some marks; in others, a range of possibilities may
exist.
Monograms range from simple and easily read, customarily true of more
recent designs, to complex and confusing in the case of many nineteenth-century
patterns. Tis is usually due to the zeal with which pre-1900 lettering was
decorated: tendrils, foriation and hatching often makes the letter-forms difcult to
detect. Brandnames are customarily easily read, and as easily identifed. However,
very little research amongst brand-name registriestedious, but potentially
very usefulhas yet been undertaken within the gun-collecting fraternity and,
consequently, many names are still difcult to date precisely.
manufacturers code (RSAF Enfeld), the date (1965) and serial numberUE 65
A282above the NSN. Te NSN group contains the 1005 prefx common to all
guns and small-arms of 30mm calibre and below; the code for Britain, 99; and an
arbitrary stock-number 9606851. Te codes will also be found on much more
mundane items: the Cloth coated bayonet frog, polyurethane on textured nylon,
IRR bears 8465990112306. Tough most of the marks may be read without
difculty, some will include the country of manufacture instead of the country
of use. Consequently, the Belgian-made MAG machine-guns used by the British
Army (7.62mm L7A1) exhibit 13 in the NSN instead of 99.
TRADEMARKS
Te marks granted to protect the rights of manufacturers and distributors (and
to assure purchasers of merchantable quality) provide some of the best ways
of identifying guns, ammunition and accessories if they can be read efectively.
Trademarks have their origins in the masons marks of the Middle Ages and in the
marks applied by Guild members thereafter, which helped to diferentiate the work
of individuals in an era where literacy was an exception instead of the rule.
Where frearms are concerned, trademarks (excepting in the form of initials) are
rare prior to the American Civil War of 18615, but then become increasingly
common. Tis was entirely due to the perfection in the 1870s of a moulding process
that allowed gutta-percha to be used to make grips for handguns.
Te facility with which this material could receive a design led to a proliferation
of decoration, and to the embodiment of marks and monograms in the basic
designs. Te complexity was limited only by the skills of the mould-maker, which
were often exceptionally high. Dogs heads, birds, fowers, impressive scrolls and
delicate chequering were just some of the many designs that each manufacturer
guarded jealouslyand their rivals just as eagerly copied. Consequently, though it
is usually easy to link a design with a particular manufacturer, grips commissioned
by distributors could grace a variety of inexpensive rimfre revolvers with difering
origins.
Trademark acts have been passed in most European countries, though registry
in Germany did not begin until 1874, Britain followed in 1877, and many Spanish
marks were originally registered as patents. In the USA, uniquely, frst use of a
mark often guarantees legal protection; prior to the Lanham Act of 1946, which
made important changes, registration conferred only minor additional advantages.
Te frst international agreement protecting Industrial Property was signed
in Paris in 1883, the Paris Convention thereafter being modifed many times until,
by the time of the meeting in Lisbon in 1958, more than eighty countries had
subscribed. Te Arrangement for the International Registration of Trademarks
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Te origins of the military frearm stretch back to the fourteenth century, but
not until technology improved did it become a viable weapon. Te frst guns were
exceptionally clumsy, even after a tillerthe forerunner of a stockhad been
added to what had previously been an unsupported barrel, once made by hammer-
welding short strips of iron onto a mandrel that could subsequently be drilled
out to provide a bore. Later guns were cast in a single piece, allowing them to be
stronger and less likely to burst by unwinding along an inadequately welded seam.
Many small guns have been retrieved from the ruins of castles and
fortifcations, dating as early as the fourteenth century, but most of these were
simply diminutions of the tiller-gun. Tey usually have sockets in the breech-end
of the tube, and the smallness of their bore suggests that they were simply the
playthings of the nobility, or perhaps the sons of the nobility. Tere is no evidence
that they were made in quantity. Indeed, guns of all types were in short supply
prior to 1400. It is hard to believe that they would have had much ofensive threat,
as the bores were very small and the capacity for the poor-quality gunpowder of the
day was extremely limited.
Te idea of a one-hand gun remained in limbo until the invention of the
wheel-lock, attributed to a variety of menincluding Leonardo da Vincibut
almost certainly a product of the south German clock-making industry in the early
1500s. Te clockmakers were amongst the most skilled of the earliest mechanical
engineers, used to working accurately in small scale. To function efciently, clocks
needed to combine skill in design and great precision in the cutting of gears. It was
a small step from a clock to the clockwork mechanism of the wheel-lock, in which
a small chain (often of only three or fve links) connected a spring with a rotating
wheel. To work the lock, a small key was used to span the mechanism by winding
the chain against the pressure of the spring onto a spindle fxed in the wheel. Te
other major part of the action was a piece of iron pyrites held in the jaws of a cock
that could be rotated until held against the serrated rim of the wheel by a small
spring.
Pressure on the trigger or tricker released the captive wheel, which was spun
by the action of the spring pulling on the chain. Sparks generated from the contact
of the pyrites and the serrated edge of the wheel cascaded into a pan of fne-grain
THE RISE OF THE GUN
From the earliest times to the twenty-frst century
An illustration from Jakob de Gheyns Wapenhandelinghe van Roers, Musquetten ende Spiessen,
published in the Netherlands in 1608 merely ten years before the start of the Thirty Years War. Even though
the frst wheel-locks had appeared ffty years earlier, they were still regarded as the expensive toys of the
aristocracy; consequently, the two soldiers are still carrying matchlocks, a linstock and an array of cartridge
holders (right), and a powder fask and hanks of slow-match.
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priming powder and, after an infnitesimal delay, the main charge of gunpowder in
the chamber also ignited.
Te advent of the wheel-lock had two important efects. It not only freed the
frearm from the frst, but essentially primitive method of ignition, the lighted
match or tow, but also removed the need for two-hand use by providing a self-
contained mechanism that worked automatically once released. In addition, by
involving the highly-skilled clockmakers, it ensured that the status of gunmakers
was rapidly elevated to the status that was jealously guarded for generation after
generation. Te recognition of gunmakers guilds and the steadily increasing
output allowed the small frearm to fnd military use, and the increase in use
created an environment in which innovations-not always universally praised-could
be promoted.
Te wheel-lock was an efcient mechanism, but had several weaknesses
judged from a military standpoint. Production was limited by the need of skilled
craftsmen and costs were correspondingly high, even though considerable numbers
of plain-looking guns were made for military service; the pyrites was comparatively
weak, often disintegrating after a few shots had been fred; and the employment
of a separate key or spanner to wind the spindle was undesirable in combat.
Something better was needed; something that could be used time and time again
with a minimum of motion and a certainty of repetition.
Te answer was the finted lock, made in several forms. Tere has been much
debate about the origins of these locks, and the diferences between them. Te
most popular forms are the Spanish miquelet, the Dutch/German Snaphance,
and the French lock or fintlock. Tough the principal diference between the
snaphance and the French lock is often said to be the combination of the steel and
pan cover in one component, it seems that the frst French Locks, introduced early
in the seventeenth century (allegedly by the French gunmaker Marin le Bougeoys,
Arquebusier du Roi), also had separate pan covers. Te true diference will be found
in the design of the sear, which works vertically to engage notches or bents in the
tumbler attached to the cock spindle. In the snaphance, the sear works laterally;
in addition, notably in the miquelet, the nose of the sear projects through the lock
plate to release the tail of the cock when the trigger is pressed.
Te French lock gradually attained a position of supremacy by the end of the
seventeenth century, which lasted until the advent of the percussion cap more
than a hundred years later. Te principle of the lock was simple: a specially shaped
or knapped fint, held in the jaws of a rotating cock, was brought into contact
with a rapidly-moving roughened surface so that a shower of sparks was diverted
into a panful of priming powder. A true French-style fintlock, therefore, had the
steel and the pan cover formed as a single part, and a sear that moved vertically to
The wheel-lock was the earliest major
improvement in frearms technology.
Conceived in the frst half of the
sixteenth century, its creation was due
to clockmakers working in soutthern
Germany and Bohemia. Many guns,
like this 13-bore pyrotechnic pictol of
c. 1580, made in Nrnberg and once
in the Amalric collection until sold at
auction in 2006, were richly decorated
to refect the rank of their aristocratic
purchasers.
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intercept a tumbler fxed to the axis-pin of the cock after it had passed through the
lock plate. Te dog lock, particularly favoured in England, was simply a fintlock
with a large safety catch or dog on the outside tail of the lock plate to intercept
the tail of the cock.
Te fintlock ofered no real economy of size compared with the preceding
wheel-lock, but had the merits of simplicity and durability. Te fint was much
harder than pyrites, and gave more consistent ignition; and, excepting the
relationship between the striking point of the fint on the steel, the parts of the
fintlock were comparatively easy to make and easy to regulate. Te ease with which
the new lock could be made boosted production to a point where armies could
issue frearms universally, at the expense of the bow and the pike. Te guns were
simple and sturdy, though often initially large, long-barrelled and cumbersome;
as the years passed, however, even the regulation military weapons became more
compact and better to handle.
Te pre-eminence of the fintlock endured for more than two hundred years,
until the realisation that the explosive properties of a group of chemical compounds
known as the fulminates could be harnessed to provide a self-contained ignition
system. Credited to a Scottish clergyman, Alexander Forsyth (though the potential
use of fulminates as an igniter had been predicted by the Frenchman Claude-Louis
Berthollet as early as 1786), the original percussion-ignition lock was patented in
England in 1807. Known as the scent bottle, it relied on a rotating reservoir to
deposit a small amount of fulminate powder alongside a touch-hole, where it could
be struck and ignited by the hammer. Te fulminate lock was difcult to make, and
prone to sufer the efects of corrosion. It was soon improved, however, and the
efect it had on the sporting-gun market persuaded many enterprising gunmakers
to produce alternatives: pill-locks, tube-locks, and a variety of other proprietary
designs. Tese were soon all swept away by the cap, a pellet of mercuric fulminate
contained within a small envelope-initially of board, later of tin and then copper,
shellacked to be waterproof.
Te genesis of the cap has always been in some doubt, though the consensus is
to give the honour to John Shaw even though his claims are vigorously contested in
France in particular. Te percussion cap was the greatest step forward in frearms
technology since the introduction of the fintlock. Tough the mechanics of the cap
lock difered from the fintlock only in the substitution of a nipple for the pan and
steel, the means of ignition was far more efcient. Tests undertaken by the French
army in the 1830s suggested that the certainty of ignition improved by a factor of
six once the cap had replaced the fint.
One of the most important factors in the development of the military weapon
was the introduction of breech-loading, largely unheralded in its frst, often
This English-made two-barrel fintlock
pistol dates from about 1680. The barrels
rotate around a horizontal pivot, the
so-called turnover or Wender principle,
requiring two pans and two steels.
Christian Cranmer collection.
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primitive forms. Tough the rudiments of breech-loading can be seen in some of
the earliest guns, in which separate cylindrical breech chambers were retained by
a wedge, inefectual breech seals were a perpetual problem. Te gas-leaks were so
bad, in fact, that the universal acceptance of breech-loading was delayed until the
nineteenth century.
A popular early method of achieving a higher density of fre was simply to
load powder charges, bullets and wads alternately into a single barrel, and then
attempting to fre each charge sequentially. Unless the wads sealed the system
properly, these guns were prone to fre all the shots at once and could even explode.
Superimposing loads was soon seen to be risky-as well as inefcient-and the next
step was to group several single-shot barrels together around a central axis. Tis
led indirectly to the revolver, though the multi-barrel block proved long lived.
Neither the rotary barrel cluster nor a barrel-block limited weight or size, the
best compromise being a single-barrelled gun either with multiple breech-chambers
(the revolver) or some kind of magazine. An important early step towards the
perfection of the magazine rife was the work of the seventeenth-century Danish
gunsmith Peter Kalthof, which had a laterally moving breech-chamber system,
actuated by radial movement of the trigger guard, which transferred powders
and balls from the butt magazines, and the breech (much copied) ofered by the
Florentine gunsmith Michele Lorenzoni, which consisted of a large vertical
disc with peripheral chambers designed to transfer balls and powder from the
magazines into the butt to the chamber by means of a large radial charging lever.
Unsuccessful attempts were still being made to devise an efcient powder-and-ball
repeater as late as 1840; early single-shot breechloaders initially encountered much
more success.
Typical of these was the British Ferguson rife, with a rapid-pitch thread
which, when turned by the trigger-guard, dropped the plug to give access to the
breech. Tis could then be loaded with a tight-ftting ball, wadding and a suitable
powder charge, and the plug wound back to seal the breech. In March 1777,
Ferguson set sail for North America with a special unit of rifemen; unfortunately,
despite early successes, there were too few Ferguson rifes to make much impact
on contemporary warfare. Ferguson was seriously wounded at Brandywine Hill,
his men being assimilated in the regular infantry, and was later killed on Kings
Mountain in 1780; the rife died with him.
Later British eforts centred on an adaptation of the Crespi breech-loading
system, which had been extensively (but unsuccessfully) tested by the Austrian
army in 1770-9. Made by Durs Egg, with Hennems Screwless Lock, more than
thirty of these chamber-loaders were tested in 1784-8 in several difering forms.
Te opinions were substantially that the rifed versions performed best and that
the spear bayonet was not advisable. However, the Board of Ordnance expressed
concern that the breech would leak badly when the chamber mouths began to
wearas had happened with the Austrian gunsand the project was abandoned.
Unlocking was achieved by pivoting the chamber lever until it was parallel to the
barrel axis, disengaging it from its retaining slot and permitting the chamber to
be tipped upwards to receive a cartridge. A later modifcation, patented by the
gunsmith Sartorius c. 1800, solved some of the leakage tendencies by using an
interrupted screw to lock the sliding chamber into the breech.
Other unsuccessful British breech-loaders included Eggs pattern of c.1788, in
which a stout pin running down through the action could be removed to set an
automatic safety and allow the chamber to be withdrawn backwards. James Wilkes
submission in 1801, based on the Baker fintlock rife, featured a detachable link-
retained screwed plug on the left side of the breechhardly innovativewhile
Hulmes rife of 1807 had a vertical disc-type breech block actuated by a lever on
the left side of the barrel.
Another old idea was to load more than one charge in a single barrel, as the
Roman Candle or Espignole had originated in mediaeval times. Te difculties
of igniting individual charges were well known: most of the earliest guns were
designed to fre the entire barrel-load of projectiles sequentially, without
attempting to stop the process until the last charge had been fred. Some are even
known in which a series of charges, loaded from the breech, were fred sequentially
by igniting the front one conventionally (usually with a fintlock) and then allowing
each successive shot to be fred with the assistance of a fuse running back through
all the projectiles and charges. Te recoil of the gun must have been excessive, and
the strength of the breech mechanism may not always have been great enough to
ensure the frers safety. Comparatively few of these weapons survive.
Attempts were made by many inventors to provide sliding locks and a series of
touch-holes, each protected by a pivoting cover. A patent of this general class was
granted in England in 1780 (no. 12700) to a surgeon, John Aitken, who proposed
multiple touch-holes and intermedia or colfngs-wads of leather or suitable
substitute-to separate each charge. Better known was the work of Joseph Belton
of Philadelphia, who had petitioned the US Congress to test his gun and had been
authorised to make a hundred eight-shot muskets on 3rd May 1777. Tere is no
evidence that these guns were made, as Belton eventually departed for London.
Tere the Master General of Ordnance granted his gun an ofcial trial, which
was undertaken at Woolwich on 28th July 1784. Tis particular Belton gun was
a musket with a detachable 11-inch chamber holding seven charges, operated by
two triggers. Tough the Woolwich exhibition had failed to attract the interest
of the army, Belton entered into partnership with the London gunmaker William
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Jover and approached the Commissioners of the East India Company with his
plans. Te submission was welcomed, as the multiple charges were believed to give
cavalrymen a great advantage in skirmishes where they were greatly outnumbered.
Te Company subsequently paid Jover & Belton 2292.8s.0d for muskets and,
presumably, some pistols. Howard L. Blackmore, British Military Firearms 1650
1850, p. 249, records that one surviving EIC musket dated 1786 also bears the
number 124. Tis and the payment, a large sum in its day, both suggest that
substantial quantities were involved.
Multiple-charge guns were predictably long, clumsy, and prone to chain-fring
unless the seals between each successive charge/projectile combination were
exceptionally good. Superimposed loads, therefore, were another evolutionary
dead-end even though attempts were made from time to time to increase frepower
by combining turnover barrels and superimposed charges.
By the 1830s, within a decade of its introduction, the cap-lock had become
sturdy, efectual, and had a misfre rate one-sixth that of the fintlock. However,
the British Brunswick Rife of 1837 was little improved from the Baker apart from
its ignition: it was still slow-fring, and accurate only to a little over 200 yards.
Progress in frearms technology was still frmly obstructed by the negligible
improvement in ammunition.
Consequently, it became a matter of importance to fnd a way of improving
the performance of the standard muskets without drastically changing them. Te
importance of rifing had been established for some time, and the frst attempts
to improve the grip between the projectile and the bore had consisted of wrapping
the former in a patch. Tis complicated logistics, slowed loading and led to a higher
than acceptable proportion of misfres. Te patched ball was replaced by the belted
ball, the raised ribs being inserted in the deep wide grooves before the bullet was
rammed into the barrel. Tis system was credited to Captain Berners of the Royal
Brunswick Army.
Te belted ball and its near-relation, the ribbed slug, was an improvement on
the patched ball; but it still required care in ensuring the belts mated satisfactorily
with the rifing. Te goal then became a projectile that could be dropped down
the barrel with ease, yet which would expand to fll the rifing on fring. Te
frst attempts involved dropping a slightly sub-calibre projectile down the bore,
relying on gravity to distort the malleable lead sufciently to fll the bore when
the projectile struck a ring in the breech. Tis was an old idea, dating back to the
Frenchman Deschamps (1718) and briefy revived by the Gardner Nail-breech
and Nock Ring-breech in Britain (17969). Unfortunately, the high incidence of
cleaning rods catching on the ring caused the British to abandon the idea in 1813.
When it reappeared in the 1830s in France, a sturdy ramrod and, perhaps, a small
The French model 1763 musket (top) and the
essentially similar 1766 (bottom), with a locking
ring on its socket bayonet. Gazette des Armes.
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mallet sufced to upset the projectile sides into the rifing. Te Delvigne chamber
breech was then superseded by the Touvenin pillar system (or Tige) in which
the projectile was expanded over a rod protruding centrally from the breech-face.
Neither system was ideal, owing to the deformation of the projectile, but was
sufciently advantageous to improve shooting. Tis was clearly evident in a French
trial in which pillar-breech rifes and standard infantry muskets were fred at
ranges varying from 200 to 1,000 paces. At the shortest range, a behatted soldier-
size target measuring 2 metres high and a half-metre broad was hit 30 per cent of
the time by the musket and 62 per cent by the rife; at the 500-pace target (2 metres
square) the fgures were 5 and 52 per cent respectively; beyond this, however, the
musket ceased to have value while the rife recorded 42 per cent on the 800-pace
target (2 metres high, 4 metres broad) and even 23 per cent at the longest range
(target 2 metres high, 6 metres broad).
Te next stage was the invention of a self-expanding bullet, utilising the power
of the propelling gases to force the comparatively malleable lead bullet into the
rifing. Tis improved accuracy still further, as the bullet no longer needed to be
struck onto a pillar. Tis signifcant breakthrough is generally credited to the
Frenchman Claude-tienne Mini though Norton and Greener in Britain both
claimed to have pre-empted him. Minis hollow-base bullet could be dropped down
the bore with minimal efort, its comparatively thin base-walls being expanded
into the rifing by the violent ignition of the main propellant charge: the system
worked surprisingly well, and was greatly improved by the discovery that a plug
set in the base facilitated expansion. Te British used a boxwood plug, but other
armies used iron or tin.
Great strides being made in machine-tool design and mass-production
techniques permitted the expanding bullet to be issued to British line infantry in
time for the Crimean War (18536) and, typifed by the British P/53 Enfeld and US
M1855 Springfeld, had become widespread by the commencement of the US Civil
War in 1861. Rife-muskets could shoot with surprising accuracy at distances of up
to 1,000 yards. Tests undertaken with the standard British P/53 Enfeld infantry
rife-musket returned a mean radius of 2.24 feet at 500 yards, 4.11 feet at 800 yards
and 8.04 feet at 1100 yards. And though the P/53 was among the best of the weapons
of its type, the small-bore cap locks were capable of even fner shooting: the British
.451-calibre Whitworth, with its special mechanically ftting projectile, recorded
the staggering mean radius of only 4.1 inches at 500 yards (a fgure some modern
rifes would be hard pressed to beat) and 4.62 feet at 1400 yards, a distance at which
the P/53 had shot so wildly that shooting had ceased to be recorded during the
1857 trials. At 100 yards, the Whitworth bullet penetrated 33 half-inch elm planks
compared with only twelve for the P/53. It was, however, notoriously difcult to
keep clear of propellant fouling; in a fouled state, the Whitworths shooting was
not only on a par with the Enfelds, but excessive force was required to force the
projectile down the bore.
With the widespread issue of rife-muskets throughout European armies, as
well as in the USA, battle tactics could be fnally be divorced from stereotyped
geometry. Oddly, the Crimean War, the opening stages of the US Civil War and
even the Seven Weeks War (at least from the Austrian viewpoint) showed no
appreciation of this.
Te distribution of an efectual weapon of any sort throughout an entire
standing army presented a difcult problem for most governments, particularly
for the great colonialist countries such as Britain and France which had to fnd vast
numbers of guns. It is a popular fallacy, particularly in Britain, that an industrial
revolution occurred with such startling rapidity that cottage industries struggling
to make articles by the tens or hundreds transformed overnight into conglomerates
capable of making items by the million. In most industries, this was simply not
true; in the frearms industry, the gradual move towards full interchangeability of
parts took at least a hundred years.
Progress varied from country to country, depending on need and, to a large
extent, the availability of two principal commodities: capital and labour. Te US
frearms industry presents the best example of rapid growth, progressing from the
cottage industry base of the 1820s to an ability to satisfy the needs of the Civil War
within forty years. In Britain, conversely, the transition never really took place at
all: the gun trade in 1900 was as primitive as it had been in 1800, excepting the very
few true mass producers. Of these the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfeld only
began to mass-produce in the mid-1850s, using a fair proportion of American-made
machine tools, BSA was not founded until 1861 and companies such as Vickers,
Sons & Maxim did not attain prominence until the end of the century.
Much of the credit is due to American entrepreneurs such as Eli Whitney,
Eliphalet Remington and Samuel Colt, who each made tremendous contributions
to the science of mass production. Te importance of the diferences in approach
between the USA and Britain may be gained from the experience of BSA, which
contracted to alter twenty thousand Egyptian Remington rifes from rim- to
centre-fre in the early 1870s; the BSA assembly room is on record as registering
disbelief to a man when it was discovered that the guns could be stripped, the
parts piled indiscriminately and then reassembled into working guns with almost
no handwork. Usually, the gunsmiths crib boxes were full of parts that had to be
juggled until one was found to ft. Lest it be thought that the British workmanship
was bad-it was, in fact, usually very good-the diference was that Britain was
small country with a comparatively large population; the USA was the reverse,
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with vast under-populated tracts and a shortage of labour in all but some of the
north-eastern states. Consequently, the British tended towards labour-intensive
production whereas the Americans had almost no option but to mechanise.
By the early 1800s, metallic cartridges began to appear. At frst, many took the
form of detachable chambers in which separate powder and ball could be loaded in
a manner redolent of the old chamber-loading cannon of the fourteenth century.
Chief among the early inventors was the Swiss Samuel Pauly, who spent much of
his time working in Paris and London. In 1812, Pauly received a French patent for
a breech-loading gun which fred a special cardboard cartridge with a thick metal
base into which priming compound was set. Te diference between this and the
earlier chamber-loading principle was largely that the Pauly cartridges were to be
discarded after fring. Te Pauly rife generally embodied a hinged breechblock with
a long lever extending backwards along the top of the wrist of the butt; to open
the gun, the lever was simply lifted upwards to expose the breech, which withdrew
the breech plunger, a cartridge inserted and the action closed. Some guns cocked
automatically, others had external hammers; a few even embodied a strange form
of hot-air ignition.
Te French were particularly active; early cartridges included the centre-fre
Galy-Cazalat pattern of 1826, French Patent 3355, which contained its powder charge
in the leather or parchment case with the fulminate in a central pocket; Pottets
metal-based paper cartridge of 1829 (3930) with priming pockets in the centre of
its base; and Roberts primed shell of fusible alloy of 1831 (8061); Houilliers frst
crude pinfre (Patent no. 1936 of 1846); and Lefaucheuxs detachable copper-base/
copper tube or metal head/paper tube pinfre (4839 of 1850). Te development of
the pinfre has been dated back to the late 1820s, but no such design could be found
in the French patent specifcations - though a number of the designs of this period
had fash-tubes in which the genesis of the pinfre is obvious.
Few of these early attempts to produce self-contained ammunition had much
military value, largely because they were either too delicate or insufciently
powerful. A 16mm-calibre Robert-type musket, stocked in government musket
fashion, was tested extensively by the Comit de lArtillerie but the fnal report,
submitted in February 1833, was unenthusiastic: though easy to load, the breech was
prone to fouling and red hot cartridge debris occasionally ignited a new cartridge
before the trigger could be pressed. Te gun had a concealed underhammer, cocked
as the breech was opened by the long ring-tipped lever runningas Paulys had
doneback down the wrist of the butt. A special indicator protruded ahead of
the trigger guard to show that the mechanism was cocked. When the trigger was
pressed, the hammer few upwards and ignited the cartridge by crushing the
primer tube projecting from its base; this was a diferent and quite inferior system
Dating from about 1850, this two-barrelled cap-lock
sporting rife by Manton was found in Nepal. It is believed
to have been taken back by Jang Bahadur, the frst
Nepalese premier to visit Britain, and later found its way
into the hands of his uncle Ranodip Singh.
Marcus Ray collection.
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to Roberts 1831 patent, giving countless premature ignitions during loading on
trial. Ironically, no sooner had the authorities rejected the Robert musket than its
sporting version received a gold medal at the 1834 Paris Exposition!
Next came the Lefaucheux rife, patented in 1827, whose dropping barrel
was controlled by a radial lever beneath the breech ahead of the trigger guard.
Te reinforced paper combustible cartridge, fred by a conventional external back-
action cap-lock, could not prevent gas leakage and the gun was rejected. It later
became a very successful sporting gun, particularly when adapted for pin- and then
centre-fre metallic-case ammunition.
Te French authorities in this period were quite happy to test guns, but very
reluctant to recommend anything unusual. Among the early casualties of this
attitude were the Leroy rife, tested at Vincennes and Douai in 18313 but rejected
as too complicated and too weakly made; a centre-hammer gun developed by the
arsenal at Charleville in 18312, with a tipping breech system adapted from the
Fusil de Rempart Mle.1831; and the 1835-vintage pivoting barrel 17.1mm-calibre
Le Page, unsuccessfully considered by Vincennes as a cavalry carbine. All of these
fred combustible cartridges with varying degrees of efciency. Te only breech-
loader to be introduced to French service was the Mle. 1831 rampart gun, whose
47-inch barrel made muzzle loading impossible. Tis 21.8mm-calibre rife featured
a tipping chamber-type breech, a combustible cartridge, and a conventional back-
action sidehammer cap-lock. It fred a 640-grain ball with up to 285 grains of black
powder. Te Mle.1831 measured 66) inches overall and weighed about 19 pounds
without its pivot.
Tough the French experimented with trials rifes submitted by Plastow
(Chtellerault), Mini, Charleville arsenal and Descoutoures in 184653, nothing
came of any of them. Tey had a vertical sliding breech-block, a laterally pivoting
barrel, a side-hinged block and a vertical disc breech respectively; all fred
combustible ammunition, and, consequently, had no efect on the modern military
rife. In 18534, however, a trial seems to have taken place to develop a suitable
frearm for the Corps de Cent Gardes, the imperial bodyguard, to whom show was
of more consideration than efciency; yet Napoelon III seems to have demanded a
breech-loader for such an elite squadron. Carbines by Gastinne-Renette, Ghaye and
Arcelin (Chtellerault) appeared, plus an odd design submitted by the perfector
of the Mle. 1831 rampart gun, Capitaine dArtillerie Treuille de Beaulieu (1809-86,
later a general).
Te 13mm-calibre Gastinne-Renette carbine featured a barrel that turned on a
vertical axis; the Belgian Ghaye had a barrel that slid forward as the trigger-guard
lever was depressed; while the Arcelin musketoon had an interrupted-screw lock.
Each was passed over in favour of the extraordinary Treuille de Beaulieu system,
strange even by French ordnance standards as it fred a unique cartridge with a
long upward-projecting extractor pin and a rearward projecting primer tube.
While the military authorities in Europe dithered over the adoption of
improved weapons, the American mechanic John Hall had successfully produced a
breech-loading fintlock rife. Eight years work had culminated in the adoption of
the system by the US Army in 1819, though only in small quantities and only for
special purposes. Te essence of the Hall breech was a removable chamber, carrying
the lock, which could be detached for loading. Tough this permitted a tighter-
ftting bullet, and enhanced accuracy, it did so at the expense of considerable gas
leakage around the imperfectly made seat between the chamber and the bore. Te
Hall system advanced through a number of designsrife models of 1826 and 1836,
carbines of 1833 and 1836but was never entirely satisfactory, despite the change
to percussion ignition after 1836 and notwithstanding the improvements made in
the basic action by Henry North in 1840. Te most praiseworthy feature of the Hall
rife was the speed with which it could be fred, tests in 1826 showing that for each
of its hundred shots the standard fintlock rife could only fre 43 and the musket
merely 37.
On the debit side, considerable powder charges were needed in the Hall
compared with the standard muzzle-loaders even though power was appreciably
less. Trials at West Point in 1837 discovered that penetration in oak (at a range
of 100 yards) was one inch for the muzzle-loading musket, 0.93 inches for the
muzzle-loading rife and only 0.34 inches for the percussion-ignition Hall. A later
trial showed that the muzzle velocities of the Hall-North Carbine was only 1240
feet per second compared with 1687 for the Jenks, which fred the same 70-grain
charge and had a barrel of approximately comparable length. Tough some Hall
and Hall-North guns remained serviceable until the Civil War, they had long since
been declared obsolescent.
Te principal challenger to the Hall system in US service initially came from
the Colt Revolver Rifes, a few of which were acquired for service during the Second
Seminole War in Florida. However, the advantages of the eight-shot Colt-Patersons
were soon seen to be outweighed by their delicate lockwork and a distressing
tendency to chain-fre. Te single-shot carbine patented by William Jenks in
May 1838 (no. 747) soon proved to be much more efectual than either the Hall or
the Colt; a hundred experimental fintlock guns were acquired in 1839, but most
were subsequently converted to percussion. Trials with the 1st Dragoons in 1841
confrmed the Jenks potential, and an endurance test at Fort Adam ceased only
when the nipple split after 14,813 shots had been fred with no obvious problems.
In 1845, a Board of Ofcers meeting at Washington Arsenal on behalf of the
army and navy, recommended that the Jenks Carbine be adopted; unfortunately,
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military opinion had so hardened as a result of the poor service history of the Halls
that nothing further was done even though some Jenks Carbines were converted
to the Merrill cartridge system in the late 1850s.
Te cap-lock Jenks has a very distinctive sidehammer (which earned it the
sobriquet Mule Ear) and a toggle-type breech system actuated by an elongated
breech-cover pivoted at the back of the action. When the lever is raised, the lock is
broken and the breechblock withdrawn from the chamber to permit reloading. Te
mechanism sealed very well, though the actuating lever, which covered the breech,
would have tended to defect any such blast down and away from the frers face.
Te failure of Jenks Carbine opened the way for the dropping-block pattern
patented by Christian Sharps in September 1848 (no. 5763). Te essence of
the Sharps system was a block that slid vertically in a substantial receiver, the
combustible cartridge being ignited by a conventional sidehammer and a percussion
cap. Te initial test, in 1850, was highly satisfactory; but later trials in 1851-3 showed
that the early Sharps carbines leaked gas alarmingly. Attempts had been made to
provide a platinum bush on the face of the breechblock, but, though durable, this
minimized rather than prevented leakage. In 1853, the Conant gas-seal was ftted
in the bush aperture where, it was hoped, gas would expand the seal against the
breech and prevent any leaks. Te frst such seals were improvements, but not until
the modifed pattern of 1859 was the problem fnally solved; by 1860, however, the
Marine Corps was able to confrm that all the earlier troubles encountered with
Sharps Carbine had been corrected. Tough only 5540 guns had been acquired prior
to 1861, no fewer than 89,653 were ofcially purchased by the Federal government
during the Civil War.
Trials of the 1853-model Sharps Carbine in 1854 showed that accuracy was
poor; despite being optimistically sighted for 800 yards, 25 shots at an 8-feet square
target at 200 yards resulted in one 24 shots returning a mean vertical dispersion of
nearly 24 inches and a horizontal dispersion of almost eight. However, penetration
of 7.3 inches of pine at 30 yards showed that the Sharps was appreciably more
powerful than the Hall or the Jenks.
In Prussia, Johann Niklaus Dreyse (17871867), once apprenticed to Pauly,
made the frst of his needle-fre pistols in association with Kaufmann Collenbusch
after returning to Smmerda in 1824. After patenting a percussion cap, Dreyse
turned to the problems of successfully fring a self-contained paper-cased cartridge,
the frst of his designs being patented in 1828. During the early 1830s, Dreyse &
Collenbush produced some pistols in which the internal fring needle was cocked
by a backward-pointing crank-lever on the right side of the breech.
Te earliest guns were muzzle-loaders but, by c. 1834, a variant of the crank-
cocking system had been developed in which the crank spindle was elongated and
The metallic cartridge was a leap in
frearms technology. This pin-fre shotgun
by Purdey dates from the 1860s.
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hollowed to receive a short self-contained cartridge loaded through an aperture on
top of the barrel.
Pistols and rifes were made on this system, though the comparatively small size
of the loading chamber restricted the efcacy of longarms of this type; certainly,
they had no military application. Tough pistols on this system were made for some
years, a bolt-action needle gun had been submitted to the Prussian War Ministry
in 1836. Its mechanism consisted of a simple sliding bolt containing the needle, its
spring and a locking catch. Te massive square base of the bolt handle locked on a
special bridge in the receiver. To fre these guns, it was necessary to press down on
the locking catch and then pull the catch and needle together backwards until they
locked; the bolt handle was then turned to the left through about 30 degrees and
the entire bolt drawn rearward to expose the chamber. A cartridge is then inserted
in the chamber, pushed home with the thumb, the bolt closed and rotated to the
right to lock the action. Te closing stroke cocked the needle and the gun was ready
to fre. 155 experimental Zundnadelgewehre were purchased for large-scale troop
trials in 1839 and the Leichte Percussions-Gewehr M 1841deliberately named to
hide the fact that it was a needle-fre breechloaderwas formally adopted on 4th
December 1840.
Attempts to keep the Dreyse system secret were abandoned in 1855, when the
Leichte Percussions-Gewehre were renamed Zndnadelgewehr M 1841; by this
time, however, guns had been sent for trials in Britain in 1849, where despite a
high rate of fre and acceptable accuracy they had proved difcult to operate when
hot or fouled. Others had been issued for active service in Baden, Dresden and
Schleswig-Holstein in 1849. By 1850, the 1841-pattern Dreyse was being carried
by all the fusilier battalions of the Gardekorps and three of the army corps; two
grenadier battalions; the Garde-Reserve regiments; and fusiliers of the frst 32 line
infantry regiments.
Many of the guns were still serving in the GermanoDanish War of 1864 and
the AustroGerman or Seven Weeks War of 1866. Tese are described in greater
detail below. However, they all embodied the standard Dreyse action and fred the
standard oviform ball seated in a papier-mch sabot in a stif paper cartridge. Te
principal problem aficting the early Dreyse guns was that, because the periphery
of the bolt-head and the mouth of the chamber were rarely concentric. Prussia
was not at that time regarded as a leading industrial power, and the guns are
an adequate refection of the comparatively poor manufacturing standards. Te
problem was particularly bad on the 1849-pattern Zndnadelbchse, in which the
conical bolt-face slid inside the chamber mouth in attempt to shorten the clumsy
action of the standard infantry rife; unlike the standard M 1841, where the cone
was on the chamber, this permitted gas to leak directly back into the frers face.
Not surprisingly, the seat-breech was less successful than the standard cone
pattern, and the 1849 rife remained unique apart from the two later carbines of
1855 and 1857.
Tough the much-vaunted success story of the Dreyse in the Seven Weeks
War is said to have inspired the French, the Italians and one or two of the smaller
German states to adopt comparable designs, work in France had actually started
some years previously. In 1858, Antoine Alphonse Chassepot had submitted a
modifed infantry musket in which an interrupted-screw bolt gave access to the
breech. Mindful of the problems of gas leaking from the metal-to-metal surfaces
of the breech, Chassepot included an indiarubber obturating washer between the
bolt head and the body. Te pressure generated in the chamber when the gun was
fred forced back on the bolt-head and squeezed the washer outward until it sealed
against the chamber walls to prevent blow-past. It is believed that Chassepot had
adapted his ideas from an earlier experimental Manceaux-Viellard cavalry carbine,
tested in 1856, which had a diferent type of bolt system in which a leather washer
between the bolt-head and the body was intended to achieve a similar seal. Te
Manceaux breech was also tested in Britain in the late 1850s, but was rejected
owing to the complexity of its wired cartridge.
Te French were well aware of the values of small calibres, even for black-
powder guns, and had experimented with a series of such guns: the British .451
Whitworth, the 10.4mm-calibre Swiss Stutzen and a 12mm Mini rife. Observing
the lessons of the brief struggle between AustroPrussian and Danish forces in
1864, the French realised the value of the Dreyse breech. Tough the 11.5mm-
calibre muzzle-loading Carabine de la Commission de Vincennes was nearly
adopted in 1865, commonsense prevailed and work switched to the experimental
Chassepots. Te previous cap-lock was replaced by an internal needle unit, the
cartridge modifed so that it contained its own igniter, and encouraging trials
were undertaken in 18645. Testing dragged on until the growing bellicosity of
Prussia, together with the signing of a non-aggression pact between Prussian and
Italy in April 1866, forced a fnal decision to be taken. Consequently, all competing
designs were discarded except for the experimental Chassepot, a Chassepot with
Plumerels improvements, and the Fave rife. Te Plumerel adaptation consisted of
a leather boot on the bolt-head into which the cartridge was inserted, the intention
being that stronger non-combustible cartridges could be fred. Tese would need to
be extracted manually from the leather boot before the next one could be loaded.
On trials, this predictably proved to be very unsatisfactory and the standard
Chassepot was preferred. Invented by the aide-de-camp to Napolon III, General
Faves rife was a Dreyse-type bolt action with an interrupted screw lock. It fred a
cartridge with a leather base and a paper body, an extractor being provided to pull
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the remnants of the base out of the chamber after fring. Its trials were spoiled by
accidents which, together with the poorly made cartridges, caused what may have
been a promising gun in other circumstances to be withdrawn.
Te sudden and somewhat unexpected defeat of the Austrians in the Seven
Weeks War caused the French to redouble eforts to perfect the needle-rife, the
11mm-calibre Fusil Chassepot des essais du Camp de Chalons passing trials
well enough in the summer of 1866 to be adopted on 30th August as the Fusil
dInfanterie Mle. 1866 after a few minor alterations were made. By the time of
the FrancoPrussian War, therefore, the French had a needle-rife of their own.
But the self-contained combustible cartridge proved to be incapable of further
development.
Te frst Colts were longarms, made in Hartford in 1832 and then in Baltimore.
British Patent 6909 was granted on 22nd Occtober 1835, to be followed by
comparable US No. 136 on 25th January 1836, each claiming advantages such as
ease of loading and rapidity of fre by connecting the hammer and cylinder-rotating
pawl. In 1835 Colt founded the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company in Paterson,
New Jersey, to make revolver-rifesinitially rejected by the US Army in 1837
alongside the frst concealed-trigger Paterson Revolvers. About 180 No.5 Holster
Pistols were acquired by the government of the independent State of Texas in 1839-
41, where, though now often associated with the Texas Navy, they were issued to
the Texas Rangers. However, an incident between the Texan and Mexican navies in
1843 provided the inspiration for the maritime battle-scene rolled into the cylinder
peripheries of many later Colts.
Te Patent Arms Manufacturing Company went into liquidation in 1842.
However, admitting Texas into the Union (1846) caused friction between the USA
and Mexico, and an army commanded by General Zachary Taylor was despatched to
the Mexican border. Taylors men included Samuel H. Walker, who had experienced
Paterson Colts during the Seminole Wars. Walker was sent north not only to recruit
more volunteers, but also obtain more frearms. He sought out Colt, to whom the
patents had reverted, and the two men successfully refned the Paterson Colt into a
more battle-worthy weapon. A thousand-gun government contract was negotiated
in January 1847, the guns being made in the Whitneyville, Connecticut, factory of
Eli Whitney.
Tough the cumbersome 1847-vintage six-shot Walker Colts measured more
than 15 inches overall and weighed in excess of 4.5 pounds, their efcacy soon
brought an additional order on whose strength Colt founded his own manufactory
in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1848. Here, Colt developed the frst of the Model 1848
or Dragoon Revolvers. Tese initially embodied some old Whitney-made parts,
but improvements were soon made: the second model featured pins between the
nipples, a roller on the hammer and a leaf-type mainspring, while the Tird Model
had an improved back sight and a provision for a shoulder stock. Between 1849 and
1855, the US Army purchased 00,000 Dragoon revolvers.
Te greatly improved Navy Colt M1851, otherwise known as the Old Model Belt
Pistol, measured 13 inches overall and weighed only 2) pounds. Its navy association
came simply from the calibre and the naval scene rolled into the cylinder; many
saw land service during the American Civil War. By the mid 1850s, therefore, the
percussion revolver was well established in the USA and was gradually spreading
to Europe.
Colt was particularly keen to establish a foothold in the British military
market, and even opened a factory in Pimlico, London, in 1854 as a result of the
successful exhibition of his revolvers at the Great Exhibition in 1851. However, the
British already had a revolverthe Adams, which was to plague Colt for many
years,. Patented in Britain in February 1851, this had some superior features: its
calibre was greater (38, 54, 80 and 120 Bore) and the solid frame was stronger than
Colts open-top pattern. Te Adams also had a double-action trigger, rather than
requiring thumb cocking for every shot.
Te Board of Ordnance subsequently acquired guns for trials and concluded
that the Colt was preferable, but the competition was a near thing and sufcient
doubt remained to permit Adams to claim victory. Te advent of the Crimean War
forced the British authorities to acquire about 23,560 Navy Colts (March 1854
August 1855), and many others were purchased privately. But combat experience
soon showed that the .36-calibre bullet was a poor manstopper, and opinion swung
back to the 38 Bore (.500) and 54 Bore (.442) Adams. By 1855, the Adams had
been ftted with Rigbys and Kerrs patent rammers. Finally, improved lockwork
patented by Lieutenant Frederick Beaumont of the Royal Engineers in February
1855 was adopted; the improvements persuaded the Board of Ordnance to replace
the Colt, and 19,123 Beaumont-Adams revolvers were acquired between October
1855 and the end of 1860.
The American Civil War
While European authorities dallied with capping breechloaders and needle-guns,
attempts were being made to perfect the metal case cartridge. Tough much of the
early experimentation was French, the result was the pin-fre - one of those dead-
end developments which seem to promise much, but have no lasting signifcance
in frearms design. Te frst step towards the modern military weapon was taken
by Samuel Morse, who presented a breech-loading carbine to the US Army in 1857.
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of the cartridge cases had proved to be capable of fring a hundred times or more
without noticeably deteriorating.
In 1860, Major Colston reported to the Commissioners of Virginia Armory that,
of the four carbines with which he had had experience, the paper-cartridge fring
Smith loaded easily when clean but became so foul after sixty shots that it could
not be loaded at all; the somewhat similar Merrill had proved solid and gas-tight
even after 100 shots; the Burnside shot admirably, with no evidence of fouling;
and the Maynard, which Colston regarded as very powerful, shot the best of the
special cartridges. However, he also recorded that he would not recommend any
gun that did not take a conventional paper-case cartridge, owing to the difculty
of re-loading a Burnside or Maynard Carbine if none of the special cartridges was
available.
Tis provided a proving ground for almost all the leading European rife
muskets, but also proved that poorly trained menapt to panic in the heat and
noise of battlewere apt to ram charge after charge into their rife-muskets as a
result of an unheard misfre. One gun recovered from the battlefeld at Gettysburg
is said to have been loaded no less than 23 times. However, if the Civil War did much
to destroy the reputation of the rife-musket, it was the single greatest testimony
to the efcacy of the breech-loading rife and metallic-case cartridge. Tese vital
advances in technology were not always recognized at the time, largely because
the guns tended to use unique cartridges of widely difering calibre (complicating
logistics unacceptably), often with suspect ignition and poor-quality propellant.
But the lessons were clear to those who were astute enough to heed them.
In the decade preceding the war, small numbers of Volcanic frearms had sold
commercially. Teir origins lay in patents granted to Walter Hunt of New York in
18489 to protect an unpractical repeating rife and the Volition Ball - a bullet
which, anticipating the rocket cartridges of the twentieth century, contained its
own propellant and igniter. Despite improvements made by the gunsmith Lewis
Jennings, the entire project was then sold to Courtlandt Palmer for $100,000.
Palmer contracted for 5,000 Jennings-type rifes with Robbins & Lawrence, but the
modifed rife was a failure. By 1854, however, Horace Smith and Edwin Wesson
had patented an improved cartridge and a magazine pistol, and production of the
latterplus an occasional carbinebegan immediately in Norwich, Connecticut.
Unhappily, the guns were comparatively expensive, low powered and inaccurate,
and the fulminate powder was very corrosive. In 1855, the partners sold out to
the Volcanic Arms Company of New Haven, Connecticut; Wesson was retained
as works superintendent while Smith left, disillusioned. Te original fulminate
propellant was abandoned after spontaneous ignition blew of the magazine too
frequently, and was replaced by a charger of weaker but more stable black powder.
Tough Morses cartridge was inefectual and developed little real power, it had an
internal primer and could genuinely be called self-contained.
At this juncture in frearms history, there were two principal avenues of research
where metal-case cartridges were concerned: one which believed that the cartridge,
as in the Morse rife and the Dreyse needle-gun, should carry its own primer and
another reliant on standard external cap-locks. While the Morse underwent its
trials and tribulations, the US armed forces experimented with the Burnside and
Maynard Carbines in 18589. Te former was patented in March 1856 (no. 14491) by
Ambrose Burnside, subsequently a renowned if erratic army commander during
the Civil War. Te action is basically a dropping block controlled by a trigger-guard
lever, the unique tapered copper cartridge case being inserted backwards into the
block through the top of the frame. As the action is closed, the protruding bullet is
seated in the chamber-mouth. Ignition is by a conventional cap-lock.
Te original Burnside carbines, made by the Bristol Firearms Company of
Bristol, Rhode Island, had a separate breech-lock lever beneath the hammer and
appear to have lacked a fore-end. However, the near-success of the Burnside
system after the 18578 trials, in which it was given the grudging compliment of
being the best of the imperfect systems submitted, evaporated in the absence of
government orders. Its promoter went bankrupt, his patents and the assets of the
Bristol Firearm Company being sold. Te gun was later revived by the controllers of
the patents, who, reorganised as the Burnside Rife Company, made many Burnside
Carbines for the Federal Government during the Civil War. Later guns have the
breech-locking lever on the trigger guard. Of the Bristol-type Burnsides, 200 were
purchased in April 1856 and 709 in September 1858. Tested at the Washington Navy
Yard in 1859, the Burnside fred 500 shots without misfring, though 30 of the 470
aimed-fre shots missed the 8-feet square target at 500 yards. Penetration at 30
yards proved to be 6.15 inches of pine.
Patented in the USA by Edward Maynard in May 1856 (Cartridges, no.15141)
and December 1859 (Breech-loading Firearms, no. 26364), the Maynard Carbine
was an unconventional dropping-barrel gun locked by an underlever; unlike the
Burnside, it had no fore-end. Te guns were made by the Massachusetts Arms
Company and fred a conventional-looking copper-case cartridge with a fash-
hole in the base. Like Burnsides, the Maynard design used a cap lock. It featured
a centrally-hung rather than external sidehammer. An 1859-vintage test of the
Maynard rife suggested that it was more accurate than the Burnside, probably
on account of its more consistent bullet seating system, and all 250 shots at 500
yards hit the regulation target. At 1300 yards, fourteen shots out of 43 hit and
penetrated the one-inch thick 1030-feet target; 562 shots had been fred without
cleaning or misfring, the maximum rate of fre being twelve per minute. Some
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Te efciency of the lever action and tube magazine of the Volcanic system
was masked by the eccentricities of its ammunition, despite the impressive (if
customarily fraudulent) testimonials produced by its manufacturers to support
their claims. However, after the Volcanic Arms Company had been declared
insolvent, its assets were acquired by a shirt-maker called Oliver Winchester. Te
substitution of a rimfre cartridge derived from patents granted to Smith & Wesson
in 185x allowed the greatly improved Henry Rife to be patented in October 1860
(no. 30446). Te lever-action Henry subsequently developed into the Winchester
Model 1866, but had been perfected sufciently to see service in the Civil War, 1731
being purchased by the Federal government in 18635 and perhaps nine thousand
others privately. Te Henry was comparatively delicate for a service weapon and as
low powered as all comparable large-calibre rimfres, but was singularly fast-fring.
Tests undertaken in Switzerland with an 1866-model Winchester, which fred the
same ammunition as the Henry, indicated that even an untrained rifeman could
achieve 21 unaimed shots each minute; accuracy was such that mean radii of 4 and
24 inches were returned at distances of 300 and 1200 paces respectively.
Statistically, though, the Henry rife was to play an insignifcant part in the
Civil War; its reputation was to be established, retrospectively, by the improved
Winchesters as they tamed the West. Te Spencer repeater had a much greater
efect on hostilities. Patented by Christopher M. Spencer in March 1860 (no.27,393),
the rimfre Spencer had been successfully tested in Washington Navy Yard in
1861. Apart from an inherent weakness in the extractor, which was substituted
by an improved version eventually patented in July 1862 (US no. 36062), the rife
performed fawlessly; an order was subsequently secured from the US Navy for 700
guns and 70,000 rounds of ammunition on 22nd June 1861, and the frst shipments
were made in 1862. Te principal advantages the Spencer possessed over the Henry
were robust construction and a larger bullet.56-calibre weighing 362 grains,
compared with .44 and 216. Te powder charges were 34 and 25 grains respectively
when tested by the Navy in 1862. Muzzle velocity has been estimated at 900 feet
per second for the Spencer and 1125 feet per second for the Henry cartridges giving
the former a forty per cent advantage in muzzle energy.
Unfortunately, the Chief of Ordnance, Brigadier-General James Ripley, a
notorious conservative, refused to countenance issue of Spencers in the US Army;
it took the intercession of President Lincoln himself before Ripley was forced
to concede. Te frst government-order guns began to reach the troops in the
winter of 1862, though many had already been purchased privately. Te earliest
authenticated use of a Spencer is generally agreed to have been by Sergeant Francis
Lombard of the 1st Massachusetts Volunteer Cavalry in the Antietam campaign
in October 1862. Te frst of the government guns was issued in time for the
The Burnside was one of the most popular
breechloading carbines to see service in
the US Civil War. This patent sought to drop
the breech-block clear of the frame to ease
the task of inserting a cartridge into the
chamber. US Patent Ofce, Washington DC.
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Despite sufering teething troubles, the metallic cartridge guns had much to ofer.
Te certainty of ignition was infnitely better than the cap-lock, a short-barrelled
Burnside carbine tested at the Washington Navy Yard in 1859, for example,
fring 500 shots without a single misfre. Te accuracy of the best guns was also
impressive, a Spencer carbine returning a mean horizontal deviation of 13in
at 300yd and 16.8in at 500ydroughly half the size of groups achieved with an
Enfeld rife-musket at comparable distances. Unfortunately, the early cartridges
were heavy enough to restrict how many a man could carry. As the Spencer rife,
with a Blakeslee Quickloader system, could easily fre twenty aimed shots a minute,
six or seven times the rate of a rife musket, it was soon reduced to the status of a
sophisticated club once ammunition ran out. In desperation, or away from lines of
communication and supply (where skirmishers and snipers were often to be found),
ammunition could always be made for a muzzle-loading cap-lock rife. Ironically,
though many breechloading guns had been purchased ofcially, the US Board of
Ordnance and Fortifcation subsequently chose a slow-fring trapdoor conversion
system for their rife-muskets, condemning their troops to poor extraction.
Te Civil War also saw widespread use of snipers, chosen from the ranks of
professional hunters and skilled target-shooters. Tese men were truly elitist,
eschewing military discipline and selecting any weapon they liked. Favourites
were the heavy Wesson bench rifes, some of which weighed more than twenty
pounds, and the British-made Whitworth rife musket. Many were even ftted with
primitive telescope sights in the quest for extra accuracy. Tough the Whitworth
was beset by fouling problems, and supplies of its distinctive mechanically-ftting
hexagonal projectile were few and far between, British ofcial tests indicated that
mean radii as small as 12in could be obtained at 800 yards; even at 1100 yards, 30in
could be bettered.
Te Civil War also saw unprecedented use not only of handguns in general, but
also of revolvers in particular. Te 1860 or army model Colt was the most popular
revolver purchased by the Federal government, 129,730 being acquired together
with 17,010 additional .36-calibre Navy Models. Tough Colts accounted for 39
per cent of the total government acquisition in 18616, this was only fractionally
greater than purchases of Remingtons (35 per cent).
Te .44-calibre single-action six shot Remington Beals Army Revolvermade
by E. Remington & Sons of Ilion, New York, to Fordyce Beals US Patent 21478
of September 1858was a sturdy solid-frame design with Beals Patent Rammer,
a brass trigger guard, an octagonal barrel and a small web beneath the rammer
shaft. Unlike the later Remington army revolvers, the attaching threads are not
visible where the barrel abouts the cylinder face. Te six-shot single-action .44
guns measure 13.8 inches overall, with an 8-inch fve-groove barrel, and weigh 46
campaigns of June/July 1863, as many as 3500 helping to stem the Confederate
advance at the frst Battle of Gettysburg on 1st July; by the end of the war, 106,667
had been ordered by the Federal government, though it has been estimated that
only 12,000 rifes and about 50,000 handy 39-inch long 8-pound carbines had
been issued. Te guns were made by the Spencer Repeating Arms Company and
also by the Burnside Rife Company, to whom Spencer sub-contracted 35,000 guns
in June 1864 (30,496 of which were delivered by the end of 1865).
Te Spencer featured a dropping or radial block action, actuated by a trigger-
guard lever. When the lever was opened, the block dropped, the extractor pulled
the spent case out of the chamber and the elector threw it out of the gun; as the
lever closed, the tip of the breechblock picked up the rim of the frst cartridge in the
tubular magazine running up through the butt and fed it into the chamber. Tough
the external sidehammer still had to be cocked manually, the Spencer could be fred
very rapidly. And its utility was greatly increased by the introduction of Blakeslees
Cartridge Box (patented in November 1864), which held ten seven-round loading
tubes in a wooden block. Reloading was then simply a matter of opening the butt-
trap, withdrawing the magazine spring and cartridge elevator, and simply dropping
the cartridges straight out of the tinned sheet-metal Blakeslee loader into the butt.
Replacing the magazine spring returned the carbine to working order: the whole
cycle took a matter of seconds.
No wonder that Confederate cavalrymen, who faced Spencer-armed Federals
with little but a muzzle-loading cap-lock, referred to the repeater as that damn
Yankee invention you could load on Sunday and shoot all week. Its fre-rate was
generally reckoned at fourteen rounds per minute, without the beneft of the
Blakeslee quickloader, compared with 1012 for the single-shot Sharps Carbine,
eight for the Colt Revolver Rife (which was uniquely time consuming to load), and
only three for the rife-musket. Loading the Spencer took about ffteen seconds; this
could be cut to merely fve seconds with the assistance of the quickloader, allowing
25 unaimed rounds to be fred per minute. Te only problems with the Spencer
were that the cartridges could be loaded backwards, a potentially dangerous state
of afairs that could lead to premature explosions, and that the rapid fre-rate could
expend ammunition quickly than quartermasters could supply it!
Interestingly, there is not one authenticated incident where Confederates
managed to overcome Spencer-armed Federals, despite occasions when the latter
were outnumbered by as many as ten-to-one. However, even as late as 1865 the
repeaters were still regarded scornfully by high-ranking regular ofcers accustomed
to single-shot muskets. Breechloaders were generally purchased by privately-
raised elite irregulars, militia and cavalry such as Berdans Sharp Shooters and the
Butler Brigade.
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ounces unladen. Only a couple of thousand were made (together with about 15,000
of the smaller .36-calibre navy revolvers) before being superseded by the Model
1861 Army Revolver.
Te comparative lack of success of the Beals-pattern army revolver prompted
Remington to substitute a rammer patented by William Elliot in December 1861
(US Patent 33932). Tis supposedly permitted the cylinder axis pin to be withdrawn
without releasing the rammer catch, but the cylinder catch sometimes slid forward
on fring and jammed the mechanism. Excepting the rammer, the 1861-model was
practically indistinguishable from the Beals type. Virtually all the 19,000 .44 M1861
Army Revolvers were purchased by the Federal Government, survivors displaying
inspectors initials in a cartouche on the outer surface of the left grip. About 7500
smaller .36-calibre navy revolvers were made in the same number sequence.
Te inefciency of the Elliott Rammer forced the substitution of a new design
patented by Samuel Remington in March 1863. Te most obvious features of
the New Models were the safety notches between the nipples and the exposed
attachment threads visible where the barrel abutted the cylinder face. Te army
revolvers had brass trigger guards, were about 13.75 inches overall, had fve-groove
8-inch barrels, and weighed about 46 ounces. In addition to the regular marks,
NEW MODEL will be found on the octagonal barrel. Te walnut grips usually bear
cartouched army inspectors marks such as BH, GP or OWA. From 1863 until 30th
June 1866, Remington supplied the Federal government with 125,314 .44-calibre
guns, practically the entire production run. Generally comparable to the 1860
army Colt, even if somewhat poorer-made, the Remington cost only $13.02 against
$17.70 for its rival. Tere were also about 23,000 .36-calibre but otherwise similar
Remington Navy Revolvers.
Te rather odd-looking Starr revolvers accounted for only some 13 per cent
of ofcial purchases during the American Civil War. Based on patents granted to
Ebenezer Starr in 1858, the original double-action revolver had elicited impressive
testimonials from its original government trials. Te Federal government bought
small quantities of the .36-calibre version and then a larger number of the .44
pattern; however, as the Civil War dragged on, a simplifed .44-calibre single-action
appeared to accelerate production. Total procurement in the period between New
Years Day 1861 and 30th June 1866 amounted to 47,952.
Te revolver patented by Henry North on 17th June 1856 (revolving frearm,
US no. 15144) was made by Edward Savage and then Savage & North of Middletown,
Connecticut, until an improved version was patented jointly on 18th January 1859
(no. 22566) and 15th May 1860 (no. 28331). Both patents were assigned to the
Savage Revolving Fire-Arms Company. Te frst guns had an extraordinary ring-
tipped actuating lever, which protruded from the frame below the trigger; a spur-
Made in large quantities during the US Civil War, the Spencer
breechloader (a carbine or a rife) had a tube magazine in the butt.
Though the action was unsuited to long-case cartridges and had a
short period in vogue, Spencers enabled Federal soldiers to repel
attacks by Confederate units outnumbering them manyfold.
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towards the end of which the trigger guard was enlarged and the rifing changed
from seven to fve-groove. Made in the Whitney factory in New Haven, Connecticut,
the standard single action six-shot Whitney Navy revolver measured 13.1 inches
overall, had a 7.6-inch barrel and weighed about 41 ounces. Federal purchases
amounted to 11,214 for the army, 5726 for the navy and 792 for the New Jersey
State Militia during the Civil War, though others were purchased privately from a
total production approaching 33,000. According to the Statement of ordnance and
ordnance stores purchased by the Ordnance Department from January 1, 1861, to June
30, 1866, the Whitneys cost the Federal treasury $136,690.39.
Only about 2,500 .44-calibre army revolvers were made by C.B. Hoards Armory
of Watertown, New York, to the design of Austin Freeman of Binghampton, New
York State. Freemans US Patent 37,091 was granted in December 1862 to protect
a unique cylinder axis pin/locking catch assembly, which could be pulled forward
to disengage the frame and permit the entire cylinder to be taken out of the left
side of the frame. Te earliest guns have a removable sideplate; later examples have
solid frames with fxed pivot-screws for the hammer and trigger. On 8th May 1864,
Hoard received a Federal government contract for fve thousand revolvers, but
none were ever accepted and the contract was re-issued to Rogers & Spencer (q.v.).
Six-shot .44-calibre single action Freeman revolvers have a very distinctive angular
frame and an equally characteristic hump back wooden grip. Tey were 12.5 inches
overall, weighed 45 ounces and had 7.1/2-inch barrels with six-groove rifing.
Charles S. Pettengill of New Haven, Connecticut, received his frst revolver
patent in July 1856. As the trigger was pulled, a top-mounted cam revolved the
cylinder through the combination lever and placed the mainspring under tension.
When the cylinder had been indexed, the trigger-cam disengaged the sear from the
hammer and the gun fred. Made by Rogers & Spencer of Willowvale, New York
State, the Pettengills also embodied the combined mainspring and combination
lever patented by Tomas Austin in October 1858 (US no. 21730) and were fnally
simplifed through a patent granted to Edward Raymond and Charles Robitaille in
July 1858. Rogers & Spencer obtained a Federal contract for 5,000 Army Caliber
(.44) Pettengills on 6th December 1861. Tese guns were simply enlargements of the
.34-calibre navy model, but such great problems ensued that the US Army refused
to accept any of the frst batch. After modifcations had been made to prevent
fouling jamming the cylinder axis pin and the trigger patented by Henry Rogers in
November 1862 substituted for the original cam type, the Ordnance Department
fnally accepted 2,001 modifed revolvers delivered between 20th October 1862
and 17th January 1863 at a cost of $40,287.10. Te odd-looking Pettengill cannot
be mistaken for a Colt, Remington, Starr or Whitney, as its cylinder is an axial
extension of the grip/frame unit. It measures about 14 inches overall, has a 7-
like protector ahead of the operating lever gave the appearance of the number 8, a
term by which these cap locks are now generally classifed.
Made in several patterns, the clumsy .36-calibre six-shot revolvers were about
14in long, had seven-inch barrels and weighed 56oz. Te US Navy ordered three
hundred revolvers in July 1858, and a 500-gun army order soon followed. Deliveries
were painfully slow; the navy contract was not fulflled until the end of 1860. A
very few fourth-model guns, with a fat iron frame and an improved 1860-patent
cylinder adjustor, were made in 1860-1, but total production of fgure 8 Savages
scarcely exceeded two thousand.
North & Savage guns were clumsy, but incorporated some advanced features.
Pulling back on the operating lever revolved the hammer and cocked the hammer;
releasing it allowed a wedge to press the cylinder forward until the chamfered
chamber mouth rode over the end of the barrelsealing the mechanism far more
efectually against the escape of gas than in rival designs.
Te improved 1859-patent revolver, made by the Savage Revolving Fire-Arms
Company, shared the general lines of its predecessor. However, the butt-spur was
greatly reduced and the trigger guard extended back to the base of the butt. Te
frst sales of the new .36-calibre navy gun were made to the Federal government in
August 1861, seven hundred for the navy and two hundred for the army. However,
these had been acquired through retailers and Savage had had little success
negotiating with the Ordnance Department. A 5000-gun contract was signed in
September 1861, but cancelled early in October owing to wrangling over payment
of monies to an intermediary. However, a second contract was negotiated in mid-
October, the last of fve thousand guns being delivered by March 1862. Te Federal
government ultimately purchased more than 11,000 Savage Navy Revolvers from 1
January 1861 until 30 June 1866, apparently on behalf of the US Navy.
Te six-shot .36 heart guard Savage & North-system revolvers were no less
clumsy than their predecessors, but shared the efectual gas-seal system and
indexed their cylinders much more precisely than their contemporaries. Tey were
sturdy and durable, though many inexperienced frers attempted to pull the ring-
lever and the trigger together; the lever had to be pulled to rotate the cylinder and
cock the hammer before the trigger was pressed.
Te original Whitney revolvers were inspired by the success of the Walker-
pattern Colt; they were, however, were inferior designs. Te perfected .36 Whitney
appeared after copies of the Colt Navy had been made and was to prove one of
the more popular revolvers to see service during the war. Safety notches appeared
between each pair of nipples shortly after production got underway, while a
modifed cylinder-periphery maritime scene and a rammer-locking wedge were
substituted for the previous spring-loaded ball midway through the production run
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inch six-groove barrel, and weighed about 48 ounces unladen. Te double-action-
only trigger often exhibits a fearsome pull that discouraged accurate shooting.
A total of 1100 of the revolver patented by Benjamin Joslyn of Worcester,
Massachusetts, in May 1858, were acquired by the Federal government during the
Civil War at a cost of $24,793. Te principal claim to novelty was a spring clutch
and ratchet cylinder-rotating mechanism. Te .44-calibre fve-shot solid frame
single-action Joslyn has an externally-mounted sidehammer, the nose of which
is cranked to clear the cylinder axis pin entering from the rear of the frame. Te
guns have a conventional three-piece rammer, measure 14.4 inches overall, have
fve-groove 8-inch octagonal barrels and weigh about 49 ounces unladen. Teir
frst manufacturerW.C. Freeman of Worcester, Massachusettscontracted with
the Chief of Ordnance on 28th August 1861 to provide fve hundred revolvers at
the high cost of $25 apiece. Tese had plate-type butt caps retained by two screws.
Freeman claimed he subsequently refused to deliver an unserviceable design to
the US Army, but the frst contract was terminated by the Federal government
owing to non-delivery. Freemans subsequent ofer of revolvers was declined partly
because the asking price was too high and partly because 225 Joslyns had been
purchased from Bruf, Brother & Seaver of New York in the winter of 1861.
Many of the unsold guns subsequently passed to the Ohio state militia at the
end of 1861. Te Freeman-made Joslyns usually display B.F. JOSLYN WORCESTER
MASS. together with the patent date. However, Joslyn subsequently made about
2500 additional Stonington-marked guns. Te frst of these had iron rather than
brass trigger guards and lacked the butt-caps. After about 1400 had been made,
the Freeman-type butt cap reappeared. Of the Stonington Joslyns, about 875 were
delivered to the Federal government in 18612, approximately fve hundred were
acquired by the Federal navy in 1862 (these have an anchor on the butt-strap or
under the barrel) and 675 more went tobut were rejected bythe 5th Ohio
Militia Cavalry in 1862.
Te archaic appearance of the Butterfeld revolver, another Civil War oddity,
belies the date of manufacture. Te principal novelty is that a tube of disc primers
can be inserted ahead of the trigger guard; patented by Jesse Butterfeld in 1855
(US no. 12124), this feeds primers one-by-one above the nipple each time the
external hammer was cocked. Butterfeld believed that he had accepted a contract
for 2280 .41-calibre Army Model revolvers placed on behalf of the Ira Harris
Guard of the 5th New York Cavalry, but the Ordnance authorities cancelled the
contract on 24th June 1862. Probably no more than seven hundred guns had been
completed by Krider & Co. of Philadelphia, many subsequently fnding their way to
the Confederacy. Te fve-shot single action Butterfeld Army Model was about 13.8
inches overall, had a seven-grooved 7.1-inch barrel and weighed about 41 ounces.
A Dragoon Colt of the so-called
Third Model, highly ornate revolver no.
12389 dates from the early 1850s. Once
part of the George R. Repaire collection
(but with a provenance that included
an Indian maharajah), it was sold by
auctioneers Butterfeld & Butterfeld of
San Francisco in April 1997.
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By the middle of the nineteenth century, the advent of the rife-musket brought a
considerable increase in hitting power. But this was still achieved at the expense
of considerable numbers of men; gradually, inventors thoughts returned to
the possibilities of replacing these men in a single battery gun. Apart from
eccentricities such as the Perkins Steam Gun of 1843, in its way an awesome weapon
but a particularly unpractical one, the frst of the modern volley-guns was the
Mitrailleuse. Credit for the rediscovery of the ancient ribauldequin is generally
given to a Belgian artilleryman named Fafschamps, but his gun was refned for
production by Josef Montigny and Louis Chistophe; made in Montignys factory in
Fontaine lvque, near Lige, the 37-barrel Montigny Mitrailleuse was extensively
employed in Belgian strongpoints. However, these multi-shot weapons were
not regarded with much enthusiasm by contemporary army commanders, most
of whom had served much earlier in the century and regarded such devices as
unsporting.
When the American Civil War began, the attitudes of the feld commanders
difered greatly from their European colleagues. Tis was partly due to the
employment of large numbers of volunteers, whose commanders were often
politicians or leaders of commerce rather than career soldiers, and to the unique
capacity of even the USA of the 1860s to produce millions of machine-made arms.
Precisely who invented the Union Repeating Gun is no longer clear. Tough
it was patented in Britain in 1866 by Wilson Ager, an inventor of agricultural
machinery, no comparable protection was sought in the USA and a lawsuit
contesting the rights to the gun was fought in New York in 1861 between Edward
Nugent and William Palmer. Advertised as An Army in Six Feet Square, the Union
Repeating Gun was successfully demonstrated before President Lincoln on 16th
October 1861; Lincoln promptly sanctioned the purchase of all ten of the available
guns, the frst recorded purchase of a battery gun by the Federal army. Fifty were
purchased in 1861, plus two by each of Generals Fremont and Butler in 18612. Te
Union Repeating Gun may also have been the frst rapid-fring gun to be used in the
war. Te dispute hangs on a contested attribution of the use of Union Repeaters
at Middleburg, Virginia, by the 28th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry along the
Potomac on 29th March 1862. However, Colonel John Geary subsequently returned
the guns as inefectual and unsafe to the operators and the story relies heavily on
unsupportable hearsay; the claim for the large-calibre Confederate Williams Gun,
which was incontrovertibly used in the early Summer of 1862, seems the stronger.
Te frst demonstrable use of Agers gun took place at the Battle of Gaines Mills in
June 1862, some fve weeks after the frst authenticated use of the Williams Gun.
Te Union Repeating Gun fred standard .58-calibre combustible paper
cartridges from special capped cylinders fed into the distinctive hopper on top of
Te success of the cap-lock revolvers persuaded many companies to copy many
of the best-known, particularly the Colts. A selection of Whitney-like guns is also
known, generally marked as the products of W.W. Marston, Te Phoenix Armory,
or the Union or Western Arms Companies. It has been suggested that these were
made on machinery sold by Whitney once the latters revolvers had been perfected,
but the diferences in frame design make this unlikely; it has also been theorised
that Whitney supplied ready-engraved cylinders to Marston, which seems possible
even though the nipple recesses on the Union and Western guns are squared
rather than rounded, this could be explained by Whitney supplying unfnished.
Among the imports were nearly thirteen thousand Lefaucheux pinfres, plus a
few British Beaumont-Adams, French Raphaels, and Perrins with their distinctive
thick-rimmed rimfre cartridges.
Te Confederate States of America had a much poorer arms industry than
the Federals, most resources being concentrated north of the Mason-Dixon
Line. However, modifed Dragoon or Navy Colts were made by the Augusta
Machine Works, the Columbus Fire Arms Co.; Dance Bros. & Park; L. Tucker &
Co., its successor Tucker, Sherrard & Co., and then Clark Sherrard & Company.
None of these made more than a few hundred. However, Griswold & Gunnison of
Griswoldville, Georgia, made three thousand; and Leech & Rigdon, Leech & Co.,
and Rigdon, Ansley & Co. made about 1500 in Columbus, Greensboro and Augusta.
Spiller & Burr of Atlanta and, later, Macon, Georgia, made about 1500 Whitney
copies in 18634. At the other extreme, about twenty brass-framed Remington-
Beals type revolvers were made by farmer Alfred Kapp of Sisterdale, Texas. Te
revolver patented by Alexandre Le Mat of New Orleans in October 1856, wa salso
popular with Confederate ofcers. Te standard Civil War pattern made in
France and Britainsubstitute a .67-calibre shot barrel for the cylinder axis pin
and have a selector mounted on the hammer-nose, but a metallic-cartridge version
was patented in 1869 by Le Mats son, Franois Alexandre.
A desire to perfect a gun capable of defeating an entire attacking force was
by no means unique to recent frearms history; indeed, it had its roots in the
Orgelgeschutz or Ribaldequin of the ffteenth century. Tese primitive multi-barrel
guns were made in many sizesthe largest had three banks of barrels and was
some twenty feet high but the limitations of the gunpowder of the day reduced
their efcacy considerably unless range was very short. And if the ribaldequin got
close enough to the enemy to deliver its message efectively, the attackers often
simply outfanked the comparatively immobile feld-pieces, Te barrels, therefore,
were removed from the carriages, placed on separate wood stocks and issued to
individual marksmen who could make best use of the frepower. In this way began
the story of the modern rife.
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class to prove efectual. It achieved an impressive fre-rate by fring six times for
each turn of the barrel cluster, though only the uppermost barrel fred. Te earliest
Gatlings were, however, far from the success that is usually assumed. Tey leaked
gas severely and the method of wedging the cartridge-carriers into the breech made
the crank handle difcult to turn. By the middle of the war, the Gatling had been
re-designed for .58-calibre copper-case cartridges carried in separate cylindrical
inserts. As aligning the chambers and the barrel still proved problematical, the
breech throats were tapered to handle any slight misalignment. Unfortunately, the
accuracy of the pre-1865 guns was very poor.
In 1862, Gatling demonstrated one of his guns before Governor Oliver Morton
of Indiana, who was so impressed that he wrote to the Assistant Secretary of War
recommending the new gun for ofcial trials. Coupled with an efective Press
campaign, and headlines like Two Hundred Shots a Minute or A Substitute for
Troops, the Gatling Gun was soon in the public eye. Te frst six were made by
Miles H. Greenwood & Co. in the Eagle Iron Works, Cincinnati, Ohio, but were
destroyed by fre before they could be completedallegedly due to Confederate
saboteurs, lending spurious credence to unfounded allegations that Gatlings
sympathies lay with his native South.
With the backing of McWhinney & Rindge, thirteen more guns were
subsequently made by the Cincinnati Type Foundry Company and an optimistic
approach made to the Federal army. Unfortunately, Rindge and Gatling encountered
Brevet Brigadier-General James Ripley, Old Fogey Ripley, a near septuganerian
Chief of Ordnance who was apt to confde that his ideal weapon was a fintlock
musket. It seems that one of the guns was sold to the US Navy, where trials were
successfully undertaken in July 1863, while the remaining twelve were purchased
by Major-General Benjamin F. Butler (Beast Butler), a political appointee in
command of the Massachusetts Volunteer. Tere are, however, few reports of
these guns seeing action. Butler is known to have tested them in somewhat
bizarre circumstancesagainst Confederates during an unofcial truce!but
his purchases of ammunition were insufcient for sustained fring and it seems
probable that the Gatlings were relegated to point-defence. Tey rate no mention
in Butlers autobiography. Similarly, it has yet to be proved that the gun purchased
by Admiral David Porter ever saw action with his Mississippi squadron. Possibly
the most interesting purchase of Gatlings during the war was of the three that
defended the Times Building during the New York Draft Riots of July 1863. But
even these did not have to fre a shot...
Te frst Federal army trial occurred in January 1865, when a four-barrel
.58-calibre gun weighing 426 pounds on its wheeled carriage passed an impressive
test at Washington Arsenal. A barrel had burst during the trials, but the lockpiece
the breech, which gave it its popular sobriquet Cofee Mill Gun. As the breech-
handle was cranked, each cylinder was fed into the breech, fred, extracted and
dropped down through the action into a receiving tray from which it could be
retrieved and reloaded. When clean and in good order, the gun could attain a cyclic
rate of about 120 shots per minute; unfortunately, ignition of the cartridges was
suspect and some ignited only after they had been ejected. Te breech was also
difcult to close when the gun heated up or became foul.
Te battery gun patented by William Billingshurst and Joseph Requa of
Rochester, New York, in September 1861 (US no. 36488) was the frst to use self-
contained metallic cartridges, 25 of which could be loaded on a fexible metallic
strip. A train of priming powder was then laid in a trough behind the breech, to
be ignited by a conventional percussion lock on the side of the breech. Te fash
from this could reach the propellant in the cartridges through basal holes. Te
Billingshurt-Requa gun frst saw action at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1863;
however, it was susceptible to misfring owing to damp and was often relegated
to covered strongpoints - so many of which protected bridges and river crossings
that it became known as the Bridge Gun. Curiously, the US Navy, which could
have been expected to take damp-induced misfring very seriously, formed an
appreciably better opinion of the Billingshurst-Requa gun than the army!
Te work of Ezra Ripley of Troy, New York, and patented in October 1861 (US
no. 33544), the Ripley Battery Gun bore an external afnity with the laterand
more successfulGatling, though its barrels were fxed and it operated more in
the manner of the Montigny Mitrailleuse. Te detachable breechblock was loaded
with standard .58-calibre combustible cartridges, which could be fred singly or as
a volley by judiciously turning the crank-handle attached to the cascabel. Te Rifey
Gun was light and handy, but was poorly promoted and doomed from the outset.
Many other interesting machine-guns were tested by the Federal and
Confederate authorities, but few encountered success: the Mayall Revolver Cannon,
patented in October 1860, featured electric ignition of its combustible cartridges,
but its cyclic rate proved to be a mere twelve shots per minute and the army
regarded it as a positive danger to its crew; the .50-calibre Raphael Gun, a slide-fed
side-loader, was found to be too inaccurate when tested at Frankford Arsenal in
August 1862; and the Douglas and Corry volley guns were too late to see service.
Te frst Gatling Gun was patented by Richard Jordan Gatling in November
1862 (no.36,836). A .58-calibre mechanical repeater, this fred standard combustible
cartridges inserted in integrally-capped carriersnot unlike the Union Repeating
Gun, though Gatling always denied this source of inspiration. Te concept of a
multiple barrel cluster had been introduced by the DeBrame Revolver Cannon
(patented in the USA in December 1861), but Gatlings was the earliest gun of its
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as the Mitrailleuse; at 950 yards, the Gatling obtained 177 hits compared with only
nine for the Mitrailleuse, whose infexibility proved its Achilles heel.
It took little imagination to picture the efect Gatling Guns could have on
massed ranks, but the lesson was, curiously, applied only in Colonial Wars: very
successfully at the battle of Tel el-Kebir in the Sudan in 1882, against the Zulus, or
in some of the American Indian wars. Oddly, a myth arose that no European army
would sufer against the Gatling Gun in the way that undisciplined savages had
done, as European ofcers would surely not send serried ranks into action against
machine-guns. Te myth was to be so costly in the Somme or Passechendaele forty
years later.
The Seven Weeks War
During this brief confict in 1866, the Prussians had comprehensively outshot
the vaunted Austrian army armed with conventional Lorenz rife-muskets. Te
Prussians had armed with a crude bolt-action needle gun. Te breech leaked gas,
averred the experts, and the high, looping trajectory of the slow-moving bullet
undeniably contributed range-gauging problems. Te Prussian inventor, Dreyse,
had even buried the percussion igniter immediately behind the bullet, forcing the
fring needle to run through the charge before reaching the cap. When the cap fred
the main charge, the needle, amidst the combustion, speedily corroded. Prussian
soldiers even carried spare needles, noted the experts. But the experts failed to
appreciate that the bolt system facilitated loading, particularly when the frer was
prone or behind cover: factors that contributed greatly both to Prussian success
and a lower than expected casualty rate.

The FrancoPrussian and nineteenth-century colonial wars
Te resentment simmering between France and the steadily-uniting German
states boiled over when, after some cunning political manoeuvring by Bismarck,
hostilities began in the summer of 1870. Most uncommitted European observers
expected the French to crush Prussian alliance, and it was widely believed that the
southern German statessuch as Bavarian and Badenwould probably be won
over to the French side. But it was not to be: the war was a crushing victory for
the Germans and the fall of Napolon III. Admittedly, its course had been greatly
helped by the poor quality of many French troops and the inertia of their leaders.
Te principal weapons of the Franco-Prussian War were the Dreyse needle-rifes
had simply been removed and the gun continued as a three-barrel. Te success
of the Gatling in these trials persuaded General Dyer, the Chief of Ordnance in
succession to Ripley (who had been forcibly retired two years previously) to
request development of 1-inch calibre gun that could take the place of the standard
12-pounder feld gun for fank defence.
Tis gun was subsequently very successfully developed, the frst being made
by the Cooper Fire Arms Manufacturing Company in Philadelphia before work
eventually passed to Colt. Cooper also made the last of the early .58-calibre guns.
Te story of the 1-inch Gatlings is outside the scope of this book; sufce it to say that
the frst trials were spectacularly successful, persuading General Winfeld Hancock
to order twelve for his army corps on the spot, and production continued until the
mid 1870s. On 24th August 1866, General Dyer sanctioned a hundred-gun Gatling
Gun contract. Made by Colts Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company, with
whom the Gatling Gun Company had contracted following the failure of Cooper to
achieve durable enough products, the guns were delivered in 1867. Fifty were 1-inch
examples, the remainder chambering the .50 centre-fre service cartridge. By 1870,
successful trials had been undertaken in many countries and the negotiation of
contracts with Russia (1868) and Turkey (1870) assured Gatlings fortune. Guns
had been sold to France, Prussia and Japan by this time, and a production licence
granted to Sir W.G. Armstrong & Co. Ltd in Britain.
Some idea of the performance of these early guns is necessary to appreciate why
they were so successful in the decade after the end of the American Civil Warand
why, indeed, they were able to co-exist with the truly automatic machine-gun well
into this century. At a test in Karlsruhe, Baden, in 1869, one .50-calibre ten-barrel
Gatling was pitted against a hundred picked rifemen with needle rifes. Firing
for a minute at eight hundred paces, the Gatling fred 246 shots and obtained 216
hits. Te rifemen managed a mere 196 hits from 721 shots in circumstances that
favoured them. Hostile fre would undoubtedly have degraded their performance
appreciably, but would have made very little diference to the Gatling.
British trials undertaken at Shoeburyness in the summer of 1870, in which .42,
.65 and 1-inch Gatlings were pitted against breech- and muzzle-loading feld guns,
the Montigny Mitrailleuse and a selection of infantry rifes showed that while the
Gatling and Mitrailleuse performed similarly on static targets, the former obtained
more hits by virtue of its easier manipulation. At 300 yards, for example, the
Gatling had obtained 369 hits out of 616 shots in two minutes, compared with an
impressive 171 out of only 185 for the Mitrailleuse. At 1400 yards, the fgures had
been 104 from 545 and 68 from 296 respectively. Te most realistic trial, however,
saw each of the guns fring at individual man-size dummies placed to represent a
column retiring in loose order. At 300 yards the Gatling scored twice as many hits
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carried by the Prussians and the Wrttembergers, and the Werder and Lindner-
transformed rifed muskets of the Bavarians; against these, on 1st July 1870, the
French could feld 1,037,555 Mle. 1866 Chassepot needle-rifes, 342,115 Tabatire
conversions of earlier muskets, and 1,989,401 smooth-bores of various types. Tere
were also several hundred de Refye mitrailleuses in the French army: the vaunted
secret weapon which, the French believed, would drive the Prussian rifemen from
the feld.
Reporting to his government in 1869, Colonel Baron Stofel (according to his
Rapports Militaires Ecrits de Berlin, 186670, 1871) estimated that the troops of the
North German Confederation could muster 1.5 million rifes and 140,000 carbines.
On 15th July 1870, the Prussians had a total of 1,097,260 needle guns of all types
(including 448,510 M1841 and 434,567 M1862 infantry rifes, 101,886 M1860
fusilier rifes, and 29,896 M1865 Jger rifes). Tere were also 54,172 M1857 carbines
in the hands of the cavalry.
By the end of the war, however, the mitrailleuse had been crushed by the
efciency of the German feld artillery, which had also negated much of the
advantage the Chassepot held over the improved Dreyse rifes. Casualties had been
high: German losses amounted to 46,589 dead (killed, died of wounds, and missing
presumed dead) and 127,867 wounded, while the French casualties were assessed
as 119,805 dead and 143,066 wounded. In addition, at least nineteen thousand
Frenchmen had died in captivity. Illness had also incapacitated many of the fghting
men, the inclement winter of 187071 laying low no fewer than 84,000 men of the
invading German armies in December 1870fully ten per cent of their strength. It
has also been estimated that 328,000 Frenchmen fell ill during the war.
Analysing the casualties showed that 93 per cent of the German casualties
had been due to rife or mitrailleuse fre, while only fve per cent had been due
to artillery. On the French side the fgures showed a marked diference70 and
25 per cent respectively. Tough the French continued to make Chassepots at a
prodigious rate (about 122,000 new guns were made between 17th September 1870
and 22nd February 1871), the Germans had captured fantastic 665,327 of these
needle-guns during the fghting, together with a half-million assorted breech- and
muzzle-loaders. As a result of the deteriorating supply situation, therefore, the
French, desperate for weapons, had actually obtained something in the region of
1.5 million guns from Europe and the USA in 187071in no fewer than ninety
difering models. Admittedly, most of these were acquired on behalf of the Comite
de la Dfense Nationale, and issued to the Gardes Mobiles and irregulars, but some
nonetheless found their way to front-line troops. Guns such as Remington Rolling
Blocks and Peabody dropping-block rifes were infnitely superior to the Chassepot
and greatly valued by their recipients. Te same was true of the handful of Gatling
The infantry weapons of the
Franco-Prussian War were
simiilar: needle-guns by Dreyse
(Prussian) and Chassepot
(French). However, only the
latter could be converted to fre
metallic cartridges.
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experienced frer. Tere were reports of as many as 24 rounds per minute being
fred; and, even in the 1869 trials, groups of 36 shots were fred in a little over two
minutes (the best was 2 minutes 6 seconds) with such accuracy that they all hit a
94-foot target at 200 paces.
Te vertices of projectile trajectories are very important in a military context,
since the fatter the bullet path the lesser the efect of range-gauging errors.
Te Zundnadelgewehre, owing to their low muzzle velocity, were inferior to the
standard rife-muskets in this respect; they were also vastly inferior to the French
Chassepot, which compared favourably with the contemporary metallic-cartridge
rifesfor example, the Mauser, the Werder or the Martini-Henry. Most sources
quote difering ways of assessing the fatness of trajectory, though most were
based on calculations of the safe zones for infantry and cavalrymen in each bullet
path. Tese naturally varied according to distance, and whether the marksman was
standing, kneeling or prone.
Te French Chasspot was as efective at 900 metres as the Dreyse (with its
high looping trajectory) was at 600; and that the third generation, the small-bore
breechloaders represented by the Gewehr 88, were as efective at 1200 metres as the
Dreyse was at half that distance. Indeed, the original Dreyse, the Infanteriegewehr
M1841, compared very unfavourably with the French Mle.59 Carabinea typical
short-barrel muzzle-loader. Te maximum height of the Dreyse bullet above the
bore, when fring at 600 metres, was a staggering 9.95 metres (more than 30 feet)
compared with only about 7.8 metres for the French Mle. 59.
In addition, the maximum range of the standard M1862 Dreyse infantry rife,
only 1500 metres, compared badly with 2250 metres for the Bavarian Podewils-
Gewehr rife-musket, 2500 for the Mle. 66 Chassepot, and about 2900 metres for
the Mauser M1871. Even in the Seven Weeks War, this had allowed the Austrian
troops to open fre at much longer ranges than the Prussians; the diference was
simply that the latter, with their breechloaders, could make better use of cover.
In the FrancoPrussian War, with both sides using needle guns, this Prussian
advantage was negated.
By the time of the FrancoPrussian War, the single-shot breechloader was well
established and most armies had replaced their rife-musket conversions. Little
Switzerland had even adopted the 10.4mm Vetterli bolt-action repeating rife in
August 1869 and the way ahead was plainly signalled. Te Vetterli infantry rife had
a twelve-shot tube magazine under the barrel and could carry a thirteenth on the
cartridge elevator. Tough long and heavy, it conferred a considerable advantage
on the Swiss infantryman. No real attempt was made to provide an elite version
of the Vetterli, though the Repetierstutzer, introduced in 1871, had a special set-
trigger in the tradition of the AustroPrussian Jgerbchsen.
Guns acquired in 1870, which ofered far better performance than the cumbersome
de Refye mitrailleuse.
Te accuracy, general handiness and fre-rate of the Prussian needle guns
(Zndnadelgewehre) has been claimed as an important factor in the Seven Weeks
and Franco-Prussian Wars even by some of the most respected historians of the
twentieth century, who overlooked the value of the Prussian feld artillery in
187071. Tough the Dreyse rife played an important role in the Seven Weeks War,
when it had been pitted against conventional rife-muskets, its inefectiveness
was more remarkable in the FrancoPrussian War than its advantages. Te Dreyse
needle rife shot very erratically at ranges greater than about eight hundred paces,
which was roughly the maximum efective range of its curious oviform projectile.
Most sources suggest that the needle gun was more accurate than the Bavarian
rife-musket at all ranges below 800 paces, but that most second generation
breechloaders were considerably more accurate than the Dreyse. In the Austro
Prussian War, most Prussians carried needle guns while the Austrians were at a
disadvantage with their Lorenz rife-muskets.
In the FrancoPrussian War, however, the French had their own needle rife.
Te success of the Dreyse had persuaded the French to adopt a variant fring a
smaller bullet (11.43mm diameter) at a higher initial velocity to give a fatter
trajectory. Te Fusil dInfanterie Mle. 1866 (better known after its inventor,
Antoine Alphonse Chassepot) would have been an improvement on the Dreyse had
not the French, in their wisdom, used an indiarubber obturating washer to seal the
breech. After a few shots, the heat of combustion destroyed the elasticity of the
washer and the breech seal failed; at least the all-metal cone-seal Dreyse continued
to work, despite its occasional back-blast.
Te needle gun was doomed by the inefciency of its ammunition and had
no lasting efect on frearms history, apart from adding further testimony to the
potential of the bolt-action. Te fre-rate of even the earliest Dreyse breechloaders,
notwithstanding that the fring needle had to be retracted before the bolt could
be opened, was considerably greater than the contemporary muzzle-loading
rife-muskets. Compared with the guns that had preceded them, needle rifes
were acceptably accurate even if loaded rapidly (provided careful aim was taken);
the accuracy of rife-muskets usually deteriorated with speed, as speed meant
forgetting to tamp the cartridge down properly with the ramrod, spilling some of
the powder charge or fumbling the cap onto the nipple.
Howard Blackmore, writing in British Military Firearms, 16501850, records
that fring ten rounds of muzzle-loading ammunition in 3 minutes was regarded
as a reasonable performance. Te Bavarians regarded the average rate of fre for
the Werder rife to be ten rounds per minute from the pocket, or 1415 for an
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Te Battle of Plevna (Pleven) during the Russo-Turkish War of 18778 showed not
only that the single-shot breech-loader was doomed, but also that outnumbered
(but well-protected) rifemen could still defeat infantry and cavalry advancing
across open ground. During the frst skirmishes on 20th July 1877, the six-thousand
strong Russian vanguard attempted to storm well dug-in Turkish defenders in what
was then accepted as a routine (if usually costly) part of contemporary warfare.
Attackers, armed with single-shot 10.6mm-calibre Berdan bolt-action rifes would
be pitted against defenders fring block-action Peabody-Martini rifes of similar
efcacy. Tings went according to plan until the Russians were within 300 yards of
the Turkish positions; the defenders put down their Peabodies and picked up lever-
action Winchester lever-action repeaters. Within minutes the Russians had been
routed; and a second assault, mustering thirty thousand men, sufered similarly.
No fewer than 95,000 Russians tried again on 11/12th September, but were repulsed
at a cost of twenty thousand Russians and 6200 Turks. Plevna remains the classic
nineteenth-century enshrinement of the superiority of the breech-loader.
Te fghting for Plevna was contemporaneous with British colonial campaigns
in Africa and on the North-West Frontier, where the need for frearms suited to a
wide range of climatic conditions was emphasized. Colonial powers often discovered
that guns which worked perfectly on home service fell short of perfection abroad.
Te Martini-Henry was no exception, encountering such severe extraction troubles
in the heat, sand and dust of Suakin and Tel-el-Kebr that the problems could no
longer be suppressed. After an outcry in the Press, and a government inquiry, the
culprit was found to be the .450-inch coiled-case cartridge that unwound under the
African sun, leaving the separate case-head to be torn away by the extractor as the
breech was opened.
By the 1880s, with the adoption of an assortment of magazine breech-loaders,
some of which ofered the virtues of reduced calibre, the Eurpoean scene was in
disarray. In 1887, however, the French had introduced the frst serviceable small-
calibre military rife, fring an 8mm cartridge loaded with smokeless Poudre B. Te
Lebel rife had an archaic, potentially dangerous tube magazine in which premature
ignition could be caused even by slamming the butt hard on the groundallowing
the nose of the cartridges to smash into the primer of the round ahead of them.
But though the rife ofered no real advance on contemporary 11mm clip-loaded
Mannlichers, its cartridge represented a huge advance in efciency. No less lethal
than the big black-powder patterns it replaced, it performed far better at long
ranges and was so much lighter that many more cartridges to be carried for a given
weight. Where the French led, everyone followed.
Te SpanishAmerican War (1898) and the Second South African or Boer War
(18991901) both showed that the vaunted frearms of the major powers were
The armies of the colonising nations
principally Britain and France in the
second half of the nineteenth century
were often confronted by huge native
armies with very little fear of death.
Though breech-loading rifes and the
frst machine guns could cause terrible
slaughter, even technology would fail if
ammunition ran short.
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lacking in efciency. Te US Army found the Krag-Jrgensen to be very inaccurate,
a problem which was eventually traced to poorly-made barrels and inefcient
bedding, while the British were comprehensively outshot in South Africa by
Mauser-carrying Boers. Te Boers, it is true, were experienced feldsmen and had a
considerable advantage with their modern rifes against the obtrusively red-coated
British; and their commando tactics so infuenced the development of irregular
warfare that the British, in particular, were to make good use of the lessons forty
years later.
The First World War
By the time of the First World War (191418), revisions had been made to the bolt-
action rifes used by Britain and the United States of America. Te British had
created the Rife, Short, Magazine Lee-Enfeld or SMLE simply by chopping fve
inches of the barrel of the Long Lee-Enfeld, revised the sights and ftted guides
enabling the contents of two 5-round chargers (stripper clips in US parlance) to be
fed into the magazine, while the US Army had replaced the Krag with a modifed
Mauser known colloquially as the Springfeld.
Te SMLE was particularly vulnerable to criticism from the target-shooting
fraternity, particularly after the politically inspired adoption of the Ross rife in
Canada. Te Canadian Army had previously taken nothing but the standard British
rifes. Te Ross was everything the SMLE was not: long, very accurate and thus
revered by target shooters. Agitation was such that the British War Ofce even
promoted an experimental modifed Mauser, the 0.276in Rife Pattern 1913 (P/13),
to defect criticism from the National Rife Association, the gun trade and even its
own experts. By August 1914, the SMLE, it had been decided, would be replaced
with a gun based on the P13. However, war caused the plans to be changed; not only
was production of the SMLE accelerated, but the P/14the P/13 chambering the
rimmed .303in cartridgewas also ordered into production.
Te contrast between the short and handy SMLE and the long, cumbersome
Ross Mark III and P/14 highlights another recurrent theme in military weapon
design. In the pursuit of maximum efectivenessthe combination of reliability
and killing power - compromises must be made. Te target shooters ideal is
rarely suitable for mass distribution to untrained men, and new or revolutionary
weapons rarely reach service status without protracted development.
During the opening phases of the First World War, the time-proven SMLE
handled unusually well in the hands of troops trained in rapid-fre. Te British
Expeditionary Force held back the Germans at Mons. Each Tommy, the Germans
The earliest machine-guns were so heavy that they were often seen as a form of light artillery. They could be
accompanied by heavy mounts, including pedestals for static use, and by a range of accessories which could take several
mules to move. These engravings of a Maxim are taken from the British periodical Engineering of March 1891.
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believed, had a machine-gun. Rapid fre had not been taught to the partially
conscripted German armies, and they were caught very much by surprise by
disciplined regulars.
Quite apart from the potentially lethal chance of reassembling the bolt without
the lock-piece, the vaunted Ross ultimately proved a disaster in the mud of the
Western Frontjust as British trials has suggested it would be. Surviving Ross
rifes were withdrawn from the dispirited Canadian troops in 1916 and replaced by
the SMLE Mk III. Some remained in the hands of snipers, however, who appreciated
their shooting qualities and could clean them as and when necessary out of the line.
Before the war was over, though, most of the Rosses had been replaced by the P/14:
heavy and unwieldy but with a stronger bolt system than the SMLE. Consequently,
the P/14 proved especially popular with the British snipers.
Many senior British Army ofcers initially regarded sniping as Bad Form:
ungentlemanly, and therefore not to be considered by a civilised power. However,
once the First World War had stretched past 1915 with no immediate end in sight,
the British, having had a change of heart, found themselves impossibly short of
suitable rifes. Commandeered Mannlicher, Mauser and Ross sporting rifes, as well
as Long Lee-Enfelds, received a curious selection of commercial optical sights until
sufcient supplies of P/14 and the otherwise tempramental Canadian Ross Mark
III had been assured. Te P/14 usually received 4 Aldis optical sights; the Ross was
issued with American-made 6 Warner & Swazey Telescopic Musket Sight of 1908
or 1913. Tough the performance of the Warner & Swazey sights was surprisingly
poor, they nonetheless came as a revelation to shooters used only to open sights.
Te Germans were better equipped, ftting selected (but otherwise standard)
Gewehre 98 with excellent Zeiss, Goertz and Ajack optical sights. German snipers
were elitist, and lessons learned from their activities promoted the sniper to a
value that is appreciated today.
Te First World War brought the frst increase in elite forces in several decades.
Tis was partly due to the increasingly stagnated nature of the trench war, which
promoted sniping, and the success of the machine-gun. Te crews of the German
Maxim and British Vickers guns rightly judged themselves as elite units, though
the subsequent issue of lightened guns to infantry machine-gun companies
removed some of the gloss. By 1918, machine-guns had appeared on tripod mounts
to provide sustained fre, on light bipods for close-quarter infantry support, as
machine rifes and in the air. Te machine-gun had truly arrived.
Water-cooled Maxim and Vickers machine-guns exacted a dreadful toll on
the Western Front. However, these guns were very heavythe standard German
Maschinengewehr-Gert 08 (System Maxim) weighed 62kg, 132lband required a
crew of several men to manage them. Te emerging pattern of trench warfare soon
The First World War was
remarkable for the way in
which tradition and technology
attempted to co-exist. These
four German artillerymen have
a Mauser short rife and an
anachronistic sabre.
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indicated that while heavy machine-guns were excellent for static use, built into
strongpoints in the defence system, lighter guns were needed to support the troops
during advances across no mans land and into the ground commanded by the
opponents machine-guns. Te Germans simply lightened the MG.08, producing
the MG.08/15, but this was still water-cooled, clumsy, weighed 18kg (40lb) without
the coolant, and was usually serviced by four men.
Strangely, the Germans ignored the contemporary air-cooled Bergmann
machine-gun, weighing a little under 29lb without its small tripod, and restricted
the efcient Parabellum to aerial use. Te young Erwin Rommel, famous for
his role in a later war, commanded a Wrttemberg mountain unit on the Italian
Front during this period. Among the guns especially favoured by his unit was the
Madsen light machine-gun, purchased in Denmark, which provided an efective
combination of mobility and frepower some years ahead of its time. With their
top-mounted magazines, these Madsens proved to be far better machine-rifes
than the MG.08/15, and were greatly prized.
At the outset of war, the British had acquired small numbers of light machine-
guns designed by an American, Colonel Isaac Lewis, but made by BSA. Tough the
Lewis was very prone to jamming, owing to its spring-operated pan magazine and
rimmed cartridge, it weighed only 26lb and could be carried in the manner of a
large rife. Despite its weaknesses, six Lewis Guns could be made for each Vickers
Gun and were to provide indispensable infantry support.
In 1915, the French adopted a light machine-gun (a Fusil Mitrailleur, or
automatic rife) known as the CSRG or Chauchat. Despite its poor performance,
the Chauchat was well suited to the French technique of fring from the hip while
advancing. Converted for the powerful US .30-06 round, whereafter it performed
even worse than the original, the Chauchat was adopted to alleviate shortages of
machine weapons when the US Army entered the First World War.
Te failure of the Chauchat in US service inspired John Browning to develop
the Browning Automatic Rife (BAR), now often considered to be the true
prototype assault rife. Te BAR was large, weighing about 16lb in its original
form, but sufciently light to be used from the shoulder by the specially selected
men to whom the rifes were issued. A twenty-round detachable box magazine,
protruding beneath the receiver, provided more than adequate frepower in 1918.
Tough manufacturing problems occurred with the early BARhardly surprising,
considering the haste in which it had been readied for servicethe rife was well
liked. In the post-war period, however, its role was scrutinised, a bipod was added
(increasing weight by more than two pounds), and the BAR became more of a
light machine-gun than a true automatic rife. Lacking a quick-change barrel, the
modifed Browning Automatic Rife was tried and found wanting against guns such
The German Maxim, the MG. 08, was the scourge
of Allied attackers during the First World War. The
upper picture shows a posed trenchscape; the lower,
an MG. 08 retrieved from Turkey in the 1990s.
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machine-guns was dissected, to be analysed over and over again even though most
armies remained convinced by pre-1918 dogma: heavy support guns, generally
water-cooled, reinforced by box-fed light guns for close-quarter fre support when
mobility was pre-requisite. By 1939, Britain had the Vickers and the Bren Gun,
while Russia had the Maxim and the light, pan-fed Degtyarev. Te French, going a
stage farther, had adopted the box-fed Fusil Mitrailleur Mle. 24/29 (Chtellerault)
for widespread issue, and a curious drum-fed MAC 31 for static use in the Maginot
Line and aircraft. Once again, war was to provide conditions under which peacetime
developments were to be judged, and not all of them would be successful.
The Second World War
Considerable experimentation between the wars had improved the quality of
smallarms almost universally, but had had little efect on the design of the
weapons of the rank and fle. Tus, the initial Wehrmacht successes during the
early campaigns of the Second World War owed as much to mechanisationthe
Panzers, particularlyand the perfection of aerial dive-bombing against lightly
defended positions.
Apart from the adoption of the Garand by the US Army in 1936, which had
excited controversy, the Allies had achieved little; the British Army had the new,
highly efcient Bren Gun, but the infantry rife was still the bolt-action Rife, Short,
Magazine Lee-Enfeld in a form little changed from 1918. Only the Russians had
much to show for the experiments with automatic rifes that had obsessed most
European armies in the 1930s: the majority view was exemplifed by the British,
who still regarded them as wasteful of ammunition and lacking in durability.
Te Red Army had tried the Simonov-designed AVS in Manchuria, where
Japanese incursions were comprehensively rebufed, but such a lightweight
rifea little under 9lb emptywas too fimsy to sustain automatic fre with
the standard 7.62mm cartridge, quite apart from the maltreatment associated
with service conditions. Troughout frearms history, this has been a recurrent
theme: promising designs have often failed merely because they were insufciently
strong. Surviving Simonovs were expended in Finland during the Winter War, the
complicated, rather fragile guns being superseded in 1938 (after protracted trials)
by the Tokarev-designed SVT.
Adopted in February 1939, the pre-production SVT shared some of the
weaknesses of the Simonov. Procurement was soon suspended while an improved
AVS was tested, but Simonov was less acceptable politically than Tokarev and the
frst true SVT rife was assembled in July 1939. Experience in the Winter War against
as the Madsen, the Czech ZB vz/26 and the Bren, though derivations were made in
Belgium, Sweden, Poland and elsewhere during the 1930s.
During the First World War, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians evolved the
concept of Sturmtruppen (storm troops): heavily armed raiding parties which litle
more than their frearms and grenades. Close-quarter fghting promoted the use
of trench daggers, clubs and sharpened spades), but one of the solutions to the
problem of providing additional close-range frepower was found by the Germans
in the long Artillery Luger paired with a 32-round drum magazines. Tese semi-
automatic pistols were scarcely ideal, as the magazines jammed too easily and
projected clumsily below the gun-butt, but they encouraged unconevtional
developments. In 1918, therefore, the frst true submachine-gun appeared. Te
Bergmann MP.18,I retained the cumbersome drum magazine associated with
the artillery Lugers, but could fre fully automatically at 600 rounds per minute.
Tough perhaps less than ffty thousand had been made prior to the Armistice, the
MP.18.I was to have an impact disproportionate to its numbers.
The Great Peace
Te period after 1919 was intended to be one of peace, and very little frearms
development reached fruition. Most of the eforts were devoted to perfecting
machine-guns and large-calibre cannon, but the US Army took the opportunity
after trials lasting more than a decadeto introduce the Rife, Caliber 0.30, M1,
better known as the Garand after its inventor. Te Garand was the frst self-loading
rife to achieve universal issue, though this had not been completed by the time the
US Army entered the Second World War in December 1941 and many units went to
war armed with the bolt-action Springfeld.
Te Garand was another of the many designs that attracted considerable
criticism, failing the standard British dust and mud tests, but which war was to
prove to confer a considerable advantage on its frers. Te worst feature of the
rife was its idiosyncratic clip-loaded magazine, which prevented the action being
loaded with loose rounds; and the magazine capacity (a mere eight) was also
subsequently regarded as too small. In terms of rate of fre and, most importantly,
ease and comfort of fring, the Garand was a vast improvement on its bolt-action
predecessors: the considerable physical efort expended on manipulating the bolt-
action rifes was avoided, minimising fatigue, muscle tremors, increases in blood
pressure and consequent deterioration of accuracy.
In the early 1930s, the rise of Germany panicked many European countries into
developing new light machine-guns. During this period, the tactical employment of
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Finland revealed so many weaknesses that the SVT38 was withdrawn, to reappear
in April 1940 as the SVT40. Huge quantities of Tokarevs were made (more than a
million in 1941 alone), but production was bedevilled by constant problems.
Bitter frst-hand experience in the Winter War against the Finns, in 1939/40,
had taught the Russians the value of well-trained snipers. Among the thorns in
their fesh was Simo Hhy, a farmer who had won many pre-war marksmanship
trophies. Attached to a unit on the Karelia Front, Hyh, fring an open-sighted
Model 1928 rife (a Finnish Mosin-Nagant), killed more than fve hundred Russian
soldiers in ffteen weeks.
As a result of experiences in Finland, the Russians selected the most accurate
Tokarev rifes for snipers use, ftting them with telescope sights, but the SNT40
proved appreciably less reliable than the solid Mosin-Nagant bolt-action 1891/30
pattern. Te latter was ordered back into production in 1942 and remained the
standard Eastern Bloc sniping rife until 1963.Te best of the Russian snipers
preferred the 1891/30 to the semi-automatic for reasons that are as relevant today
as they had been in 1941: the manually-operated rife was more reliable, less prone
to structural failure and had no mechanical noise in the action. Tis was particularly
important when silence was essential, as the ejection/reloading cycle of the SNT
was accompanied by considerable clatter.
Despite the troubles originating from the disruption of manufacture after the
German invasion of Russia in June 1941, the Tokarev was by no means a failure.
Provided it was kept reasonably cleana stricture still applying to automatic
weaponsit functioned satisfactorily enough in the hands of good-quality troops
such as the Russian marines. Poor equipment would not have been tolerated by
the Soviet snipers, who were rightly respected by their opponents and extracted a
terrible price for the German invasion.
Snipers also made their presence felt in the Pacifc, where the Japanese not
only became past-masters in the art of concealment but also had a degree of
fanaticism sufcient to persist long after most Western marksmen would have
prudently withdrawn. Te lessons were not lost on the Americans, while, even at
Arnhem, the Germans feared British snipers largely because the latter were taught
to aim only at the head if the circumstances permitted.
At the commencement of the war, the Germans, despite their spectacular
successes, were lacking in advanced smallarms. Te standard infantry weapon
was the strong, acceptably accurate but somewhat cumbersome Mauser-type bolt-
action Kar.98k, 45.6in overall, weighing 8.85lb and taking fve 7.9mm rounds in
an internal magazine. Te rife was supplemented by a comparatively new air-
cooled medium machine-gun, the MG.34, developed clandestinely in Switzerland
in the early 1930s and adopted after experiments in Hungary and elsewhere. Te
Fighting a large-scale war made unprecedented demands on
weapons-manufacturing capacity. Production of these Mk III*
Lee-Enfeld (No. 1 Mk III*) rifes and their No. 4 successors ran
into millions during the world wars.
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into limited production, probably with a view to undertaking mass trials in the
manner popularised by the Germans. Simonovs SKS entered service in 1945;
Kalashnikovs more radical AK appeared two years later. Te frst trials showed
that the Kalashnikov required more development, and the appreciably more
conventional SKS was ordered into production. Tough discontinued in Russia
about 1952, it proved so popular elsewhere that work continued in the Peoples
Republic of China and other satellites for many years. Once the AK-47 had been
perfected, however, the Soviet Army retained the SKS only for ceremonial duties.
Te gas-operated AK, locked by a turning bolt, fres its M43 intermediate
cartridgewith a 122-grain bulletat about 2,460 ft/sec. It is acceptably accurate
and, particularly when ftted with the perfected compensator, surprisingly stable
in automatic fre. Since its inception nearly forty years ago, however, changes have
been made: the improved AKM, introduced in 1958, was much lighter, and recent
reductions in calibre (to 5.45mm) have fattened the looping trajectory of the
original 7.62mm cartridge.
Te Kalashnikov remains most peoples concept of an assault rife. In excess
of seventy million have been made in several countries, receiving so much media
exposure in the hands of guerrillas, urban terrorists and freedom fghters that its
silhouette is easily recognisable. Te original AK was a short and rather clumsy gun,
comparatively heavy at 10.5lb laden, but its efciency belied its crude construction.
Te Kalashnikov is simply the latest in a long line of smallarms embodying the
post-1917 Russian development philosophy that nuances of construction or fnish
are irrelevant, assuming that the guns work efciently and are sufciently robust
for service.
Tough the Russians were quick to follow the German lead, the remaining
Allies were much more sceptical. Once again, the old problem of maximum efective
range took precedence. Tough analysis of the German 7.9mm Kurz cartridge, the
MP. 43 and the other experimental Sturmgewehre showed their merits, the US
Army, particularly, refused to countenance cartridges whose maximum efective
engagement range was only 400500 metres. Immediately after the war, using a
mixture of German, Polish emigre and indigenous research, the British produced
the EM-1 (Torpe) and EM-2 (Janson) rifes around a special .280in cartridge.
Te roller-locked EM-1 was soon discontinued in favour of the EM-2, which
had a modifed Kjellman fap-lock. Te .280in bullet, which weighed 140 grains,
reached a muzzle velocity of 2535ft/sec: less powerful than the US 30-06, it was
true, but better than the lighter German 7.9mm Kurz. Te British government then
optimistically entered the EM-2 in the NATO trials of 19512. Te rife had several
obvious advantages: its bull-pup design, with the magazine behind the pistol grip,
permitted a standard-length barrel in an otherwise compact design. Minor, but
belt-fed MG.34 was appreciably lighter than most of its predecessors, very well
made and efcient under normal conditionsthough, when the Germans became
bogged down in Russia and the Western Desert, demonstrating a notable tendency
to jam, its excellent manufacturing standards and minimal tolerances proving an
unexpected Achilles Heel.
While the MG.34 jammed, the archaic-looking Russian Degtyarev light
machine-gun, so crude by German standards, proved extremely reliable under
adverse conditions. Tat impeccable quality did not guarantee efciency was not
lost on the Germans, however, and has had a lasting efect on frearms development.
Te German armies also had the MP.38 and MP.40 (Schmeisser), submachine-
guns providing a considerable volume of fre at the expense of fring a pistol
cartridge with limited efective range. Te Germans used their automatic weapons
to good efect in the early campaigns, including the daring capture of Fort Eben
Emael in Belgium in May 1940. However, the impetus for the development of
special forces was soon to swing to Britain, desperately facing up to the threat
posed by German troops in the Pas de Calais and haunted by the bitter memories
of the near-debacle at Dunkirk.
The post-war era
No sooner had Germany capitulated in 1945 than Allied weapons experts seized
their chance to interrogate their opponents. Secretly, many Anglo-American
specialists were prepared to admit that there was much to learn. In addition to the
FG. 42 and the MP. 43/StG. 44 series, not forgetting the incomplete StG. 45 project
and the highly-rated MG. 45V light machine-gun, there were countless interesting
projects to examine.
Te Russians were the frst to act. Tey have claimed that their experiments
with intermediate cartridges began before the Second World War, which is
undeniably true. However, these appear to have concerned pistol-type cartridges,
and the inference is that the Simonov and other carbines were directly comparable
with the US .30 Carbine M1 rather than the MP. 43. Too many modern writers have
swallowed Soviet propaganda that they had outguessed the Germans!
Te MP. 43 had shown the Russians that their policy of mass attack, based
around the crudely efective PPSh-41 submachine-gun, would be improved greatly
by an assault rife. Shortly before the war ended, the Russians had produced an
adaptation of the German 7.9mm Kurz cartridge known as the Model 43, but
had been unable to produce an efective gun. Te trials had, however, produced
promising gas-operated Simonov and Kalashnikov prototypes. Both were ordered
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by no means insoluble problems appeared during the trialsthe guns were not
particularly accurate, and had an assortment of teething troublesbut the US
Army was so opposed to the EM-2 that the project foundered amidst recriminations
and allegations of deliberate bias. Even though some later EM-2 rifes chambered
the 7.62mm T65 (the precursor of the 7.6251mm NATO) and even the bigger US
.30-06, the design disappeared into history.
Te US Army adopted the Rife M14, little more than an updated Garand, most
remaining NATO powers taking variants of the FN-designed Fusil Automatique Leger
(FAL). Te British accepted the Belgian gun in the interests of standardisation,
production of the slightly modifed Rife 7.62mm L1A1 beginning in the Royal
Small Arms Factory and at BSA Guns Ltd in 1956.
Te Korean War of 19503 was fought on comparatively conventional lines,
with the smallarms that had served since the Second World War. In addition, most
of the special forces that had performed so well prior to 1945 had been stood down
or disbanded. After Korea, however, a perceptible change in warfare occurred.
Gone was the classic large-scale confrontation between major powers; instead, the
fragmentation of the great colonial empires promoted the freedom fghtera
guerrilla, often but not inevitably communist-motivated, determined to overthrow
the existing order and then impose his ideology to bring order from the resultant
chaos. Nowhere was this more obvious than in poor countries where no attempt
had been made to educate the indigenous population, or where national borders
had been drawn with no regard for tribal demarcation.
Tough small-scale traditional wars arose in the Middle East and the
Indo-Pakistan sub-continent, the involvement of the Great Powers has been
comparatively limited; most of the conficts have been between opposing guerrillas,
guerrillas and local authorities, or guerrillas and supposedly powerful Western
nations. One outcome of the change in warfare has been the erosion of traditional
industrial supremacy, which is rarely capable of defeating guerrillas who can carry
the sympathy of the people with them. Confrontations between the French and
the Viet Minh in the First Indo-China War (194654), for example, showed that
Western strategists often underestimated their comparatively weakly armed
opponents, hastening in the ignominious French withdrawal from Indo-China.
Many of the lessons were lost on the Americans, whose embroilment in Vietnam
(196173) never wholly subdued the Viet Cong in fghting that could be brutal and
bloody in the extreme.
For all the millions of tons of bombs, defoliant chemicals, shells and smallarms
ammunition expended during the confict (and the loss of over ffty thousand
American lives), the communists eventually gained not only Vietnam, but also
neighbouring Cambodia. Nor could the Portuguese halt nationalism in Angola or
The rigours of combat often reveal faws in the design
of weaponry which may not be evident in trials or
peacetime service. Even the M1 Garand (shown here in a
modernised form), generally regarded as an outstanding
success, struggled to gain acceptance in the US Army of
the late 1930s. Courtesy of Springfeld Armory, Inc.
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Mozambique, and the Belgians were panicked into withdrawing from the Congo.
Experience in the Yemen, Central America and Afghanistan makes the point over
and over again: guerrillas are rarely conclusively defeated solely by the non-nuclear
military might of even the most powerful industrialised nations (whose politicians
are rightly wary of all-out war).
Among the few qualifed successes in a catalogue of misfortune are the British
exploits in Malaya (194860) and the rebuttal of Indonesian infltration in Borneo
(19636), where emphasis was put on fghting irregulars on their own termsbut
with all the sophisticated back-up available to a modern soldier. Yet the brutality
of parts of these campaigns would not be acceptable in todays liberalised society.
Te increase of fghting such as encountered in Malaya and Borneo gradually
changed attitudes to smallarms. During the 1950s, most NATO-aligned armies had
adopted the comparatively cumbersome FN rife, the FAL, which weighed about
11lb loaded and measured 44in overall. Despite its undoubted power, impeccable
reputation and suitability for long-range fre, the FAL was no more appropriate for
jungle warfare than the equally large and powerful US Rife M14.
During the early Vietnam campaigns, the US Armysuch a strong advocate of
power in the trials that had caused the demise of the British EM-2 rife in the early
1950ssuddenly decided to seek a smaller gun fring a lighter, handier cartridge.
As the wood of the M14 stocks rotted in the tropics, the new gun was also to
feature a synthetic butt and fore-end. After protracted testing, the Armalite rife,
designed by Eugene Stoner, became the Rife M16. Built around the commercial
.222in Remington sporting rife cartridge, which had proved itself against thin-
skinned game, the M16 represented a great reduction in rife weight and allowed
the soldier to carry more of the appreciably lighter cartridges (182 grains compared
with 396 for the standard Cartridge, .30, Ball M2). Te fnalised M16, together with
its loaded thirty-round magazine weighed a mere 8.7lb!
Te M16/M16A1 series has been purchased for Limited Teatre use by the
British Army, and was particularly popular in Borneo. Te worst problem has
concerned the American 5.56mm M193 bullet which, though undeniably very
destructive at short range, is not especially efective beyond 400 metres and is
readily defected by branches and obstructions. Te European compromise is
a heavier, slower moving bullet (the SS109) and a faster rifing twist to improve
stability. However, though this improves carrying properties appreciably, lethality
is reduced compared with the M193.
After an inauspicious beginning, experience in Vietnam ultimately showed that
the intermediate cartridge and (ultimately) the small-diameter bullet were suitable
for combat use, indirectly confrming the advocacy of the Germans during the
Second World War and the Russians thereafter. However, most of the traditional
Gunmaking techniques have advanced at a greater pace
since 1950 than at any other time in frearms history,
owing to the introduction of new fabricating techniques
and the advent of synthetic materials. However, the
makers of sixteenth-century wheellocksoften works
of art in their own rightwould recognise kindred
spirits among the craftsmen who created this Blaser
R-93 sporting rife. Courtesy of Blaser.
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wars contested by highly industrialized nations have nonetheless featured full-
power cartridges. Tese have included the on-going confict between Iraq and
Iran, and the brief confrontation between Britain and Argentina in the South
Atlantic in 1982. Ironically, both armies were armed similarly: both, for example,
used FN-designed infantry rifes, general-purpose machine-guns and pistols. Te
principal diference lay in the light machine-guns, where the British Bren proved
more serviceable than the Argentine heavy-barrelled FAL, and in support weapons.
Te open treeless expanse of the Falkland Islands proved to be more suited to the
traditional concepts of infantry confrontation thanfor examplethe tropical
jungles and sub-tropical rain forests of Malaya, Vietnam or Borneo. Te fghting
also refected a traditional role