Prince Atom
Explorer
You've got a good website out there.
A couple of things:
I'm fairly sure that certain early revolvers used powder ammunition. The drum would come out and the chambers would all be charged at once. I haven't seen anything historical, mind, but I have read of such weapons in Cormack McCarthy's Blood Meridian. I recommend it, but it's trying to make a point about senseless violence. You have been warned.
I have read of revolving rifles; the only problem is, you need one hand on the forearm in front of the drum, and if you had chainfire that's a bad position to be in.
Oh, yes -- a problem of the powder-using repeating firearms is chainfire. This occurs when the various chambers are not sufficiently insulated from one another; a spark in the chamber for firing can ignite every charge in the gun, and it explodes. Not very pleasant.
Also, just FYI, bolt-actions like the Mauser 98 and Springfield 03 rifles had fast-loading devices. These were basically just strips of metal machined in such a way that they could hold cartridges by the rims. The device was set in the open breach (maybe they had a specialized socket; I don't know) and the five or so bullets could be loaded with one press of a thumb. Course, you'd have to load such devices before you could use them... a chore for when it's quiet in the trenches
IIRC, the Parabellum 1908 pistol (drool....) had a similar device.
There's a big book out there called "Guns of the Reich" which describes in salacious detail the care and feeding of various weapons. Thus proving that if the Nazis hadn't existed we'd have invented them
TWK
A couple of things:
I'm fairly sure that certain early revolvers used powder ammunition. The drum would come out and the chambers would all be charged at once. I haven't seen anything historical, mind, but I have read of such weapons in Cormack McCarthy's Blood Meridian. I recommend it, but it's trying to make a point about senseless violence. You have been warned.
I have read of revolving rifles; the only problem is, you need one hand on the forearm in front of the drum, and if you had chainfire that's a bad position to be in.
Oh, yes -- a problem of the powder-using repeating firearms is chainfire. This occurs when the various chambers are not sufficiently insulated from one another; a spark in the chamber for firing can ignite every charge in the gun, and it explodes. Not very pleasant.
Also, just FYI, bolt-actions like the Mauser 98 and Springfield 03 rifles had fast-loading devices. These were basically just strips of metal machined in such a way that they could hold cartridges by the rims. The device was set in the open breach (maybe they had a specialized socket; I don't know) and the five or so bullets could be loaded with one press of a thumb. Course, you'd have to load such devices before you could use them... a chore for when it's quiet in the trenches
IIRC, the Parabellum 1908 pistol (drool....) had a similar device.
There's a big book out there called "Guns of the Reich" which describes in salacious detail the care and feeding of various weapons. Thus proving that if the Nazis hadn't existed we'd have invented them
TWK
