Whitworth Muzzleloader

[RicInOR]

I had never heard of this rifle until today.

Sure Shot: Confederate Sharpshooters Left No Doubt the Whitworth Was Their Weapon of Choice—When Available

Lincoln actually came under fire on July 12, 1864, when Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early's Raid of Maryland reached Fort Stevens on the outskirts of the Union capital. Spent Whitworth bullets have been discovered in the vicinity, and we know sharpshooter rounds killed an officer a few feet away from the president. Had Lincoln been brought down, the Civil War may well have come to an entirely different conclusion, and an imported muzzle-loading rifle pressed into service by the Confederacy was the deadly tool that could have accomplished the job.

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[JRuby]

As I understand it the whiteorth used whitworth rifling which was a musket ball with a ridge around its circumference that would be placed in the slot in the barrel. Kind of the reverse of how rifling is done today. One of the first use of bullet spin to cause bullet stabilization. It was not very practical.

 

[Joe Link]

Very cool, we better tell @AndyinEverson

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Whitworth Rifling:
Hexagonal bore ( .450 caliber )
1-20 twist ( increasing or "gain" twist )
The bullet was in the shape of the bore.

The rifles themselves were of outstanding craftsmanship... All in all not bad for a guy with no previous experience in gunmaking.
Andy

 

[Gaucho Gringo]

As I understand it the whiteorth used whitworth rifling which was a musket ball with a ridge around its circumference that would be placed in the slot in the barrel. Kind of the reverse of how rifling is done today. One of the first use of bullet spin to cause bullet stabilization. It was not very practical.

That was the Brunswick Rifle that replaced the Baker Rifle. The Whitworth used a hexagonal bullet.

 

[Dungannon]

Okay, @tac should be along anytime now to give us the scoop on this Brit rifle. I've heard of it before; used by southern sharpshooters.

 

[Ketoujin]

I shall be teaching a class: "More than 'a Flash in the Pan:' A History of Firearms" at Clark College this upcoming Fall quarter and, as an excuse for preparing for the class, recently checked out "Sir Joseph Whitworth: World's Best 'Mechanician,'" by Norman Atkinson published in 1997 and "Mechanical Notes on Various Subjects: Guns and Steel" by Sir Joseph Whitworth himself published in 1873. Whitworth grew up poverty-stricken in a satellite town of Manchester but would later invent various types of milling machines, lathes, as well as the unique hexagonal bore rifled-barrels of his rifle. Few of the latter ever made it into the Confederacy via blockade-runner but those examples that did were hugely effective. Union General Sedgewick (he of the famous last words, "Don't get your heads down men, they couldn't hit an elephant at this range") was, quite possibly, mute testimony to the accurate range-work of the Whitworth.

Whitworth's thread measurement was later used on Tsarist Russian and Soviet small arms like the Mosin-Nagant M91 and M91/30. Just an interesting factoid.

Best,

Gunnar

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Wish you were closer Ketoujin ... I have more than a few originals that would be fun to show off in your class...
Andy

 

[Ketoujin]

Wish you were closer Ketoujin ... I have more than a few originals that would be fun to show off in your class...
Andy

Andy,

Wish you were as well. Love to have you in it as I would for every NW Firearms member here. Bear in mind though the class is going to be only one day a week for two hours for five weeks (half a quarter in length) and will likely be pretty much on the basic side for most afficianado's here.

Best,

Gunnar

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Well I'd have the early guns covered...
Andy

 

[Kristina]

I shall be teaching a class: "More than 'a Flash in the Pan:' A History of Firearms" at Clark College this upcoming Fall quarter and, as an excuse for preparing for the class, recently checked out "Sir Joseph Whitworth: World's Best 'Mechanician,'" by Norman Atkinson published in 1997 and Whitworth's own "Mechanical Notes on Various Subjects: Guns and Steel" by Sir Joseph Whitworth himself published in 1873. Whitworth grew up poverty-stricken in a satellite town of Manchester but would later invent various times of milling machines, lathes, as well as the unique hexagonal bore rifled-barrels of his rifle. Few of the latter ever made it into the Confederacy via blockade-runner but those examples that did were hugely effective. Union General Sedgewick (he of the famous last words, "Don't get your heads down men, they couldn't hit an elephant at this range") was, quite possibly, mute testimony to the accurate range-work of the Whitworth.

Whitworth's thread measurement was later used on Tsarist Russian and Soviet small arms like the Mosin-Nagant M91 and M91/30. Just an interesting factoid.

Best,

Gunnar

Hmmm, that sounds like a class I'd take.

 

[Ketoujin]

In the cause of shameless self-promotion I'm posting my class info here: Class - More Than a "Flash in the Pan:" A History of Firearms if anyone would be interested in taking it.

Thanks,

Best,

Gunnar

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Sounds like a great class!
Andy

 

[Ketoujin]

Back to the subject at hand - apparently the Davide Pedersoli firm in Italy now makes a nicely-built Whitworth reproduction. Would simply love to have one alongside a "Montana Sharps"- made Model 1859 .54-caliber linen cartridge reproduction of the rifle used by the United States Sharpshooters of Colonel Hiram Berdan. Would be great to have - even if "only" reproductions - a Civil War sniper rifle display.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

I had a Pedersoli Whitworth replica ... It shot nice ... but just not the same as an original Whitworth I fired.
Neat rifle through ... well worth the money that bring , Pedersoli's that is...
Andy

 

[tac]

Afternoon, Gunnar, I thought I recognised you! [Gunnar is one of the very few folks on this forum that I have met face-to-face].

There is so much written about the Whitworth rifle that I hardly know where to start, but since it is apposite, perhaps it needs saying that less than 150, perhaps as few as 120, B Grade Whitworth rifles ever landed on US soil. They cost, back then, an even $1000 each, compared with the ca.$12 for a Springfield rifle, and although they came with a short section of barrel made into a bullet mould, as well as a reasonable supply of Whitworth's Patent 535gr paper-patched swaged bullets, they were mostly used thereafter with a cylindro-conoidal bullet of the same weight, also paper-patched.

I've just taken this pic for you to use, if you want. Left is a 600gr .451"cal cast bullet, paper-patched, and right is a 500gr hexagonal bullet made by my good pals, the Polisar Brothers, of Albuquerque NM.


This is what happens to a cylindro-conoidal multi-groove Lyman style bullet of 535gr when fired from my Whitworth rifle into a trap bag -



And here, left to right - a 600gr swaged Polisar bullet before and after from 1000 yards [one thousand yards]. A bullet made from the Peter Dyson replica mould - more of that later - before and after from 500 yards, a 600gr paper-patched Rigby-style bullet and the Lyman 535gr bullet, unpatched, recovered from that trap bag -



This is the Peter Dyson replica Whitworth bullet mould - in real life, the main body of the bullet is cast in a shot section of actual Whitworth barrel, with a screwed-on nose cap former -




And the beast itself -





Mine is shot in the original military match format, without benefit of the extra tang sights, and up to 900 yards. Load is 90gr of 3Fg, two greased card wads and the bullet, plus 40 pounds downward loading pressure.

After twenty shot it starts to get a mite, uh, perky. The nipple is platinum-lined, again from Peter Dyson, and has so far lasted about three hundred shots.

What else do you want to know?

tac

 

[tac]

Just a couple of points about the new Pedersoli Whitworth repro.

1. It does NOT represent any kind of Whitworth rifle used in the WoNA. It has three bands - the real deal was technically a 'short rifle', and had only two bands. It does, in fact, replicate the military match rifle used by civilians or members of the various 'Volunteer' units that provided the rationale and raison d'etre of the original National Rifle Association, based at Wimbledon Common ranges.

2. The term 'sniper' was NOT used during the WoNA, nor for many years afterwards. The correct nomenclature is 'sharpshooter'.

I have yet to see one of Pedersoli's new guns, but I HAVE written extensively on the subject over on <broken link removed> under the heading of Whitworth rifle. I'm unlikely to ever see one, either, since IMO they are very overpriced here in UK, almost $1800, in fact. Anybody who wants the real deal will, of course, have to part with many times that amount, but the genuine and original Parker-Hale rifles [NOT the EuroArms version] may still be found for around a $1000 or so, and are far better, IMO, than Pedersoli's version. But then, I would say that, right?

 

[tac]

Gunnar - if you wanted to have a gun that more realistically replicated the appearance of the Whitworth rifles that went to the USA, you'd be better of getting hold of the .451cal two-band Volunteer, and cutting the protruding part of the barrel at the muzzle down to about 3/4" from the nose cap, like the real thing.

See - Artifacts For Sale

You'll need at least $20K to get a real one, perhaps five times as much with the ultra-rare Col. Davidson scope, although one such rifle, with documented history, sold for a tad over $300,000 last year.

On the other talon, both Kerr and Beasley made hexagonal-bore rifles of this kind, and for the same purpose. They are a lot less hard on the pocket at anything - here in yUK - from $2500 - $7/8000.

tac

 

[Ketoujin]

Just a couple of points about the new Pedersoli Whitworth repro.

1. It does NOT represent any kind of Whitworth rifle used in the WoNA. It has three bands - the real deal was technically a 'short rifle', and had only two bands. It does, in fact, replicate the military match rifle used by civilians or members of the various 'Volunteer' units that provided the rationale and raison d'etre of the original National Rifle Association, based at Wimbledon Common ranges.

2. The term 'sniper' was NOT used during the WoNA, nor for many years afterwards. The correct nomenclature is 'sharpshooter'.

I have yet to see one of Pedersoli's new guns, but I HAVE written extensively on the subject over on <broken link removed> under the heading of Whitworth rifle. I'm unlikely to ever see one, either, since IMO they are very overpriced here in UK, almost $1800, in fact. Anybody who wants the real deal will, of course, have to part with many times that amount, but the genuine and original Parker-Hale rifles [NOT the EuroArms version] may still be found for around a $1000 or so, and are far better, IMO, than Pedersoli's version. But then, I would say that, right?

Hi Tac,

Well, I've never really looked heavily into the nut-for-nut, bolt-for-bolt authenticity of the Pedersoli Whitworth compared to the genuine article apart from some review videos on "Cap and Ball"'s channel on YouTube. Yes, I know the correct nomenclature is "sharpshooter" and I've also written extensively on Japanese and Russian/Soviet sharpshooters for SAM Wapenmagazine and Ian so understand the tactical and doctrinal differences behind the terms. I was just being conversational. I guess I'm more meticulous - in terms of lexicography - on Gunboards.com.

I will attach some line drawings from Sir Joseph's "Mechanical Notes: Guns and Steel" next week if you or anyone else might be interested as the big OAC show is on here this coming weekend and I've got my itinerary and head both filled to the brim with trivia on the Mk 1 Vickers of my Dad's that I'll be displaying in his honor. Unfortunately he never was able to do the display himself.

Love to read your article.

Best,

Gunnar

 

[tac]

Whitworth Rifling:
Hexagonal bore ( .450 caliber )
1-20 twist ( increasing or "gain" twist )
The bullet was in the shape of the bore.

The rifles themselves were of outstanding craftsmanship... All in all not bad for a guy with no previous experience in gunmaking.
Andy

I think that you are putting Mr Whitworth, later Sir Joseph Whitworth, down. He was, even before he developed the Whitworth form of rifling, a world-class mechanical engineer with many patents to his name. To him, it was simply another mechanical problem that needed solving. His invention in 1841 that 'held the world together' was the British Standard Whitworth system, which created an accepted standard for screw threads.

He figured out that -

1. If a bullet was going too fast for the rifling of the day, then make it so that it had no option but to follow the rifling by making it the same shape.

2. if the bullet had to weigh the same amount as the in-service Minié bullet because the machinery was already in pace for making/cutting lead slugs to fit the swaging machines that made the Minié bullets, then making a smaller diameter bullet weigh the same as a larger one of the same weight simply resulted in the production of a much elongated shape - something that he, and anybody else with more than double figure brain cells could figure out. However, Whitworth did it first.

3. No ultra-new manufacturing technology was necessary, apart from the making of the barrel, to produce the whole rifle - it was, to all intents and purposes, simply a P53 with a posh barrel.

Since it had already been established that a much harder lead projectile could be fired at greater velocity, the Whitworth bullet was actually made a lot harder, thus enabling a two-fold benefit of higher velocity and therefore a much increased accurate range - something I prove every time I shoot a Minié versus as Whitworth bullet.

The UK's Muzzleloading Association of Great Britain has many members who shoot original Whitworth, Kerr or Beasley rifles, or even the Westley-Richards Monkey-tail rifle I showed on another thread. I have only even seen one genuine WoNA Whitworth rifle in my life, and that was owned and shot by a fellow shooter in the Berlin R&GC. It had actually belonged to his GGGfather, who had used it with a deal of success during the last couple of years of the war, according to his shooting log, which, with every single piece of paper documentation, was still in the family possession, including the bill of lading from Liverpool to Galveston and the quartermaster's docket. Needless to say, such an item is not only a priceless family possession, but is an irreplaceable part of your nation's history.

I got to shoot this amazing rifle down at Rose Ranges in SW Berlin sometime in 1983.... Bill, if you are reading this, I raise a glass to you.

tac