英國皇家軍械博物館 英國皇家軍械庫 18世紀貝爾頓遂發覆射火槍 中文字幕

大家好,歡迎回到《這是什麼武器?》的節目 非常刺激的一集,至少對我來說,也希望對你們來說 因為我們在這桌子上有兩個 我會稱之為 Flintlock Repeaters 這個詞語的意思是蠻有意思的 它可以意味著各種不同的東西 大多數人都會想到 Winchester的武器 你使用柺杖拔出柺杖 一個動作來發射 或者是 比如說Spencer 需要多於一個動作來發射 然後還有各種Flintlock的舊東西 對於什麼是Repeater,什麼不是 而Repeater是一個19世紀的詞語 所以很難去反駁 它是否意味著相同的東西 在相似的範圍之下 這種技術 曾經被稱為 Flintlock Assault Weapon 我知道這對很多人來說是一個巨大的威脅 我明白為什麼 在不同的層次 尤其是在技術層次 我們需要處理的 這並不意味著任何東西 稱為Assault Weapon 可以意味著任何東西 除了一些具體的軍事例子外 這完全不有用 所以我總是會說 不要用Assault Weapon By the way, Assault Rifle 是一個不同的詞語 它確實有些合理性 人們有時會混淆兩者 一個是一個非常政治性的詞語 這與我們所說的有關 另一個是一個技術性的詞語 一枚自動手榴彈射向一枚中途彈匣 所以除了一些政治性的詞語以外 除了一些政治性的詞語以外 我稍後會再說 這些我認為很多人都能同意 是Repeaters Are they Assault Weapons? Well, only in the sense that some on the pro-Second Amendment side of that argument have said that they are But also it's not entirely incorrect in terms of one of the definitions of what that might be What am I rambling on about? Well, this is Joseph Belton's invention in two different flavors We're very fortunate to have two different versions here The version that was shown to several founding fathers of the United States in the 1770s which is partly why this becomes a thing for historical arguments about the Second Amendment That was something else again And it's actually useful to talk about because it's where these both come from Not only Belton's concepts but the base technology Which is, if I grab this example and pop out What is actually a replacement chamber or magazine Whatever you want to call it I'll explain this properly in a moment So we pop this out Well, this is clearly right away a very important feature of these two guns A reloadable magazine chamber Traditionally it was called a chamber because it is the chamber of the firearm making it sort of a breechloader Well, it is a breechloader But you're still loading this chamber magazine from the front So by certain legal arguments it's not a breechloader But it functionally is This one is a replacement made at the Tower of London for our then incomplete earlier Belton But what I'm getting at here is the very earliest of the Beltons that I don't think exists anywhere was a simple Roman candle style superimposed load design And the version he demonstrated for people like Benedict Arnold was a 16-shot repeater of some sort He was able to fire each shot in sequence by moving the lock backward We're pretty happy that that's what he had And he invented that I believe as early as mid-1750 something like that But actually it's a really old concept This idea of powder and bullet powder and bullet, powder and bullet all the way down as long as you can stand it goes right back to the 15th century with stacking shots in a cannon barrel and then lighting them with multiple got to get the sequence right otherwise it's a bad day for all concerned And every now and again someone returns to that basic idea There are two-shot wheel locks for example where it's one barrel, two stacked charges one lock in the front, one lock in the back So you'll get it It's a lighter gun than if you had two barrels but it's still heavier because it has two locks So different people are trying different things Belton is getting closer than most by making it a reloadable effectively magazine So you could have a bandolier of these rather heavy breech chamber things and reload seven shots in the case of these two guns So when people are kind of scratching their heads over Is it really a repeater? Is it semi-automatic? Is it automatic? Is it an assault weapon? We have to be clear on the technology that was actually on offer back then And the U.S. government of the day the brand new U.S. government ordered 100 of Belton's repeaters exactly of what type I don't know but capable of 16 shots in sequence pretty impressive to begin with Now that was deemed to be well, he demanded too much money from Congress and they decided actually to know what this newfangled repeater technology is great and all but times are tight and we have wars to fight and actually we can just make do with lots more muskets for the same amount of money and so they didn't adopt the Belton However, he went on to develop the two versions that you see in front of me So the 1784 version and this is the very one that was trialed by the Board of Ordnance here in the U.K. So it wasn't just the U.S. government that he was trying to offer this stuff to He's come back and offered it to the Brits this time So this is the sample arm that was in the Tower of London from those trials So this on its own is a fantastic piece to have It's a brass frame This was clearly restored sorry, conserved well, effectively restored as well as having a new chamber piece made It had a new cock made for it It was cleaned The stock has been repaired in a couple of places And this very weak point here There are two big repairs So this was in a sorry state when it was found in store at the Tower But it's in a good order now So how the heck does this work? Well, we've talked about the breech system So you literally swap out This is your magazine catch here And that's just holding in the tang or the breech plug, effectively So you rotate that up Pop out the magazine I'm going to call it a magazine from now on Out from the left side Slot in another one It's got a semi-obtruating ring at the front that fits into the back of the actual breech as it were That bit's relatively straightforward and easy to understand What becomes harder to understand is the retreating lock and the double triggers So I'll do my best to make sense of that So if we slide this lock up to the starting position So we've loaded our seven shots We've inserted our magazine We're ready to go What we have here is a trigger A primary trigger This big L-shaped piece here That lifts a bar up that impinges upon the sear that will drop the cock at any point on this run So that's your trigger That's your trigger That's your only actual trigger All of the other little baby triggers that are pivoted off this bar are for bringing the lock back one step at a time So you'd go Well, obviously Half cock, prime, close pan, full cock Whatever drill you want to do for that And then it's Press the trigger which unlatches the bar So this is locked in place for each shot until you press this auxiliary trigger And then it moves back to the next position So you fired one shot with the main trigger You pull back on the next trigger Sorry, on the auxiliary trigger To the next position Fire the next shot Now the obvious problem there Is you have to re-prime and re-cock There's no way to keep this thing Cocked and primed That's just not how reality works, I'm afraid So you've got the labor saving Of multiple shots on the gun You've then got multiple steps To actually make each shot ready to fire So this is what I mean About the word repeater You can stretch that Into different meanings This requires several motions So for example Let's say we go straight to full cock And break the safety rule You go full cock, prime, close That's three actions Then you'd go fire Then you'd click the lock To the next position Re-cock, prime, shut So it's not quite Winchester But it's a leap ahead Of what there was at the time When you fired all your shots So pull back, fire Now this is not clicking into place Each time I pull those second triggers So if you're thinking It's not really lining up Each time he pulls the auxiliary trigger It's because this is not There's not enough wood and metal left To hold this into place Originally it would have positively clicked To align the pan with each touch hole Now obviously with wear With heavy use That does become an actual problem So for what it's worth So when you have brought this back To its final position You fired the final shot of your seven You can either pop out the magazine And reload like a modern firearm But you then have to bring the lock Back to the front Re-prime, re-cock And go through that whole rigmarole again Or if you're in a pinch Which you probably are If you fired off all seven shots On something like this What you can do Is revert to muzzle loading And keep the lock at the back And just fire one shot at a time Powder and ball, cartridge Re-cock, re-prime, fire And just do it that way So this is increasing rate of fire Significantly Limited by basically how fast You can practice to do all those actions But it's not quite the Sort of wild west Old west style repeater That you might be thinking of When people say Ah, they had repeaters In the 17th or 18th century Take your pick Well, there are other repeaters From that period That we'll come back to at some point Now the drawback to that Sort of reversionary mode Of single shot muzzle loader Is a bit difficult to pull off with this one Because it has no ramrod So this was not designed With that second mode in mind Now jump forward just a couple of years And we hit what is And I apologize to this one Because it's incredibly historic But the real star of the show Which is the 1786 pattern Belton And this does have a ramrod Or did have a ramrod It doesn't now You can see the loops for it And the pipe in the stock there So you can use this as So one firing mode is Just load and fire it like a musket With the magazine in place, empty You can actually carry Maybe three realistically of these Based on the number of shots Claimed to have been fired In trials and things We believe that they were Carrying three of these spare So that's the plan with this one Definitely is that you Insert your fresh magazine as it were This one is marked Number two the gun 124 Which is the number of the actual gun I'll show you in a sec Before interchangeable parts You know that you've got to make sure Your chamber fits your gun Otherwise it's going to be in for a bad day It's not going to fit It's not going to work But that was also true Of the PPSG in the Second World War So it's not a problem Limited to the Enlightenment period While we're at the numbers We have the actual gun number of 124 On the top strap here as well You'll notice this is now iron And there's no evidence of damage So I think a definite upgrade Going from brass or I think it is brass rather than gunmetal To an iron frame for the gun Was a good idea So we have a ramrod And a reinforced receiver We should actually point out So the year 1786 That's how we know that this was At least around in that year He might have been working on this Improved variant a bit earlier At least 1785 And we have there Spoiler alert The heart logo Emblem of the Venerable East India Company As it was then known So this was in fact Possessed at least If not issued by The East India Company's army Which is pretty astonishing For its capabilities Which I haven't told you yet So let's finish that off Importantly So this is a major upgrade Depending on your point of view Over the manual reprime Clever trigger advance But having to Recock and reprime every time This thing has a third firing mode Which is pretty astonishing So let me walk you through it So having loaded our magazine into place And starting at the front again You've got to start at the front Start at the back It's kaboom time This becomes a pipe bomb With a handy shoulder stock attached Cock and prime Just the once And then what you're able to do Our auxiliary trigger bar With all the little triggers on it Now has a different purpose And it's attached to this So instead of dragging the lock back Into its position It is dragging this dookie This brass tube thing Back one step each time Again this is very very loose When it was new and tightly fitted Pulling the trigger unlatches that And brings it back positively To each touch hole in turn So bear that in mind It's not as sloppy as it appears What the heck is that And for a long time There's an old video on our channel Of me scratching my head over What the heck this is Just looking at a couple of things That you might find interesting And embarrassingly The answer was already published In a wonderful series of books That I even knew about But I just hadn't read the right chapter By David Harding Who's a contact and friend of the Armouries And a superb researcher It's one of the best books That I have ever read on small arms And it's the Small Arms of the East India Company Four volumes Absolutely comprehensive Coming at it from all angles And it reveals everything That I'm about to tell you So this Now we have no direct evidence for this But I'm absolutely convinced That David is correct This is a spring loaded holder This is like a This is an iron or steel tongue That holds You can hear that going twang You insert a tube into that And that tube is something called a port fire And it's an artillery ignition system Of the period Slow burning It's like a fuse essentially So you stick that into there You don't light it You stick that into there Prime, cock, close pan Seven shots on the gun And you are ready to go You are packing seven A seven round And I'm going to use this phrase And I use it advisedly Semi-automatic musket Why do I say semi-automatic Well it isn't semi-automatic In the modern sense of A mechanism that chambers Fires, extracts, ejects All of that sequence It's not that But the effect of this system Is to allow for one shot Every time you pull the trigger Which is It's either semi-automatic Or it's equivalent to a revolver With double action Put it that way How is it doing this Well when you pull that main trigger there That, the cock falls Sparks go into the pan Flash, fires your first shot It also ignites the port fire Sitting in this holder And that's now burning merrily away For about a minute And you've got about a minute To then pull through On that auxiliary trigger bar Six more times So if you're not quite following What this absolute black magic Of a piece of firearms technology Let me just run through that again Prime, cock, port fire in there Presumably be carrying Multiples of these, I would And then it's fire The first shot with this trigger And then immediately Two, three, four, five, six, seven Seven shot repeater Works like a semi-automatic firearm Absolutely astonishing for 1786 Now you're probably thinking OK, but what if you have a misfire Or a hang fire Where it burns away And doesn't fire right away Well, by 1786 Belton has thought of this And it's not ideal I will grant you There is another discovery Or confirmation from David Harding These screw plugs in the stock See those They are mirrored in the magazine Pop that one out Show you So one, two, three, four, five of them And they are designed to blow out If, let's say, you pull it to the next It doesn't catch You pull it to the next And that fires Well, you're shooting Your day of shooting is over But the plug will blow out Destroy the gun, but keep you safe You'll see this kind of gas relief hole On the actions of bolt-action rifles Even today Big .50 cal rifles Absolutely have a big blow-out plug In some of them So, not great In fact, David has shown me a picture From a museum in India Of one of the carbine versions of this Because the East India Company Bought 500 of these things But they were a mixture 200 muskets, if I remember correctly And then a mixture of carbines Actual short cavalry carbines And pistols And they were all working on this system Of semi-automatic fire And the example that's in the museum Of two, I think One of them has a destroyed chamber Slash magazine So, a gun has exploded And then they put that blown-up chamber In a non-exploded But it does sort of hint At the potential catastrophic failure Of this kind of thing So, well, I think it's safe to say Well ahead of its time And the sort of thing You would normally look at and say Well, yes, very interesting But either purely experimental Or just an expensive toy For sportsmen or gentlemen To have and show off Which is true of most of the other repeaters By the way With the exception of the Kaltov But no, this was actually purchased In not insignificant quantities 500 pieces By one of the world's foremost militaries It's just unfortunate That we don't have any record Of actual issue to soldiers Actual use I speculated in the earlier video That what's this actually used for For centuries probably Guarding storehouses Guarding military facilities That kind of thing It would make a certain amount of sense It's a force multiplier Literally in terms of You have one or two guys on sentry duty And they've got the firepower In terms of rate of fire Of several guys That's to me what might be Sadly the documentary evidence Is really sparse We don't have any series of letters Or procurement orders That tell us why they wanted these Quite crazy modern firearms But they did Someone senior in the company Procurement chain Was very keen on these And you can sort of see why Really impressive One drawback of this Fully developed Belton Is because your trigger bar Now has to be used for the Sliding port fire fuse thing holder You can no longer do The pulling the lock back From the back of the gun Using those triggers That function is now This latch here So your second firing mode If you like has to just be Press latch move lock back But considering you have to Manually prime and recock anyway I don't see that as a huge drawback For the ability to fire Seven shots as fast as you can