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Well actually there were quite a number of "machinegun" designs from the 1700-1780s era. Sure some where multi-barreled, but others had cylinders that revolved to fire though a fixed barrel (the Pickle machinegun even had two cylinders, one with square cylinders and bore for use on non-Christians and one with round cylinders and a round bored barrel for use on "civilized" persons. Best not kill civilized people too dead you know!) so our Founding Fathers sure DID know about machineguns and rapid fire weapons!

What is pictured above is a volley gun and not a machine gun. Remember in the movie "The Alamo" with John Wayne? They had a British volley gun that was used on ships to clear the rigging of enemy ships. They were used, but were not popular as the standard load was a full measure of powder as used in a single shot rifle, and setting of a dozen charges all at once was not fun! Finally the load was reduced to half loads of powder, but recoil was still vicious when hanging on rigging or in the crow's nest. There is absolutely no proof there ever was a volley gun at the Alamo as they were rare when in use by the Brits and no one has ever found anything to make them believe there was one in the US at at time, much less Texas.
 
Yeah one of those would be nice in my collection...Christmas is coming...
Well nevermind...I ain't been that good....:eek: :D
Andy

Haha, my friend, the mental image of you cutting loose with one of these was most assuredly delightful. Then I thought, interesting business idea: make a muzzleloading machine-gun, which would circumvent the unbelievably stupid laws, people would have fun, and the organization would profit. Or who knows.

(It isn't helping that I am doing very much "leg work" to be finding parts for an in-bound mid-80s machine-pistol today. Oh, the craziness, but with possible joy. We'll see. :p)
 
I love forgottenweapons he always is bringing forward interesting guns and is very good at presenting the information in an interesting and palpable way. He's also apolitical on his channel, and just presents the historical information which I appreciate, especially nowadays with todays political climate. He also has videos on Full30 and Inrange that are very interesting as well, they put alot of gun myths about reliability and usability to the test in actual real world scenarios. Definitely worth checking out and giving a follow.
 
Actually if you watch the video I'd argue that this is a machine gun type weapon and not a volley gun due to the fact that it isn't firing a single "volley" all at once like the british volley guns. Instead it is more like a bullet hose that you simply set off and let it go. Kinda like a roman candle as Ian mentioned. The definition of a machine gun is " an automatic gun that fires bullets in rapid succession for as long as the trigger is pressed." or something along those lines. The key to me being the "automatic". An early gattling gun doesn't qualify for me since you have to manually crank the action. And a volley gun doesn't either as it is a single barrage of bullets and not in rapid succession.

Also I believe Ian has another video on the Puckle gun which was definitely worth watching as well.


Well actually there were quite a number of "machinegun" designs from the 1700-1780s era. Sure some where multi-barreled, but others had cylinders that revolved to fire though a fixed barrel (the Pickle machinegun even had two cylinders, one with square cylinders and bore for use on non-Christians and one with round cylinders and a round bored barrel for use on "civilized" persons. Best not kill civilized people too dead you know!) so our Founding Fathers sure DID know about machineguns and rapid fire weapons!

What is pictured above is a volley gun and not a machine gun. Remember in the movie "The Alamo" with John Wayne? They had a British volley gun that was used on ships to clear the rigging of enemy ships. They were used, but were not popular as the standard load was a full measure of powder as used in a single shot rifle, and setting of a dozen charges all at once was not fun! Finally the load was reduced to half loads of powder, but recoil was still vicious when hanging on rigging or in the crow's nest. There is absolutely no proof there ever was a volley gun at the Alamo as they were rare when in use by the Brits and no one has ever found anything to make them believe there was one in the US at at time, much less Texas.
 
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When I was watching this the only thing that kept going through my head was of it would be possible to safely load one repeatedly should one have one of these.

I also kept thinking about the Washington laws on machine guns....which I guess (think) technically this wouldn't be as it is BP and therefore not considered a gun by this state.

It makes the mind wander in dangerous and expensive directions
 
I recall seeing a 7-bbl volley gun in .22 Hornet at a gun show in the DPRK back in the Early Pleistocene.
It was for shooting swans and such at longer range than a shotgun.
No, I was not hallucinating.
 
I've seen .22 (not sure what exact length, .22 Short, Long or Long Rifle) volley guns for market hunting ducks/geese/etc. Still have to aim and lead if you were shooting on the wing! Have never seen a C.F. volley gun, but am sure they are out there.
 

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