From the American Revolution: Short Land Pattern Brown Bess
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- Опубликовано: 31 июл 2024
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The standard weapon of the British Army in the American War of Independence was the “Brown Bess”, and today we are looking at a 1769 Short Land Pattern example of the Brown Bess. This was a smoothbore .75 caliber, 10.2 pound flintlock with a whopping 42 inch barrel (the Long Land Pattern it superseded had a 46” barrel). Adopted in 1769, it would serve as the British standard infantry arm until 1797.
This particular example was issued to the 53rd Infantry Regiment, otherwise known as the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry. This regiment arrived in Quebec City in May 1776 and participated in the fighting at Ticonderoga and Saratoga, where several of its companies were captured and interned until the end of the war.
Jonathan Ferguson's explanation of "Brown Bess":
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The long land pattern had superior accuracy because when you lined up across the field from your enemy, your muzzle could almost touch his chest
"Short" Land Pattern Brown Bess
@@bogdankl2000 to be fair, with the long land pattern you would be prodding him in the sternum
You could shoot the moon with the Long pattern
Tickle tickle tickle!
According to an article in Schweizer Waffenmagazin of 1980s, there had been mostly french made overlong flintlock muskets , mostly similar to 16 gauge of modern shotguns. This rather long guns had been simply made and mostly used either as ship equipment gun or as trade gun for african trade. In the noted article was written, that there had been in addition to the usually 1,7 /1,8 m long versions also such ones, which had been 2/2,5 m long. This extra long versions had been sold to chiefs or kings, as a symbol for their Power.
I love that you can still get 5-packs of the original flints for these from UK surplus stores :) just sitting in storage for 200+ years...
That is actually really cool
Unlimited shelf life.
That's wild, man. Now I want one.
Well, they are rock, after all. ^-^
Ingredients: flint
It's still just absolutely mind blowing that something from the late 1700s is sitting in your hands and being broadcast to us through a digital platform. Wild.
When I was at the Naval Academy and then served as a USMC artillery officer, I and some good friends studied and read the diaries of 18th and 19th century combatants (almost entirely officers) in some fine old original books in Nimitz Library or from other sources. Some of us bought replica flintlocks and spent hours on weekends playing around with smoothbore muskets and learning the ins-and-outs of actually firing live rounds under timed circumstances. What we learned from those "war games" was the experienced flintlock period combat veterans were a lot smarter than we originally understood. As a rough rule of thumb, we could all aim and hit targets reasonably out to 100 yards. But we had time to aim and weren't rushing. The reality of flintlock period warfare was that the military effectiveness of the smoothbore musket when fired by ranks of men in formation against other ranks of men in formations was A LOT more than 75-80 yards because picking off individuals wasn't the goal. Line infantry in European armies were generally not taught to aim and fire at single targets nor was individual marksmanship (outside of dedicated skirmishers) taught or encouraged (I should add that the use of skirmishers varied by period and army throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries). Line infantry in almost all European armies of the flintlock period were taught to fire as groups, either the entire formation in one volley, or by platoons, ranks, etc. The thinking at the time reflected what many had observed as a battlefield reality: massed volumes of fire delivered in rapid succession were much likelier to kill or maim enough men in the opposing formations to break down or at least shake morale. Pushing the attack home with the bayonet was the final straw for a formation that had lost enough men (and particularly officers and NCOs) and usually resulted in men fleeing long before the attacking formation go close enough to use their bayonets. That is why when you read the accounts of officers in these battles, you frequently read how a formation broke ranks and retreated and the officers had to retreat with it and then get their men back under control when they could. In addition, period physicians who treated wounded troops in the wars of this period consistently commented that wounds from bayonets and swords were far less common than from firearms. I vaguely recall one eyewitness account from a mid-18th century battle where the witness wrote the defending formation opened fire at a range of 200 paces, or about 150 yards. That fire dropped more than a few of the opposing men though the great majority were unscathed. It didn't break the enemy formation, as I recall these 30 years later, but it inflicted multiple casualties on the attacking formation. Subsequent volleys inflicted even more casualties, especially as the range closed and a higher percentage of balls hit their mark. People forget that attacking formations had a big tactical challenge/dilemma. It's one thing to stand in one position and reload your musket. If you are stationary, then reloading and discharging your weapon every 15 seconds or so can be done FOR A LIMITED TIME (if you have every fired a flintlock musket rapidly, you quickly learn the barrel gets very, very hot and you almost cannot touch the gun for reloading purposes except under the strain of the adrenaline rush of combat). In contrast, if you're the attacking formation you don't want to (more accurately, you can't) stop the momentum of your attack to reload. The human element of combat being what it is, once you get your men moving forward you don't want to stop that momentum unless you absolutely have to. So, it was a commonly accepted notion of the time (based on combat experience) that attacking formations would often hold their fire until they were within 50-70 yards, then unload on the defenders and push the attack home with cold steel. Being that close meant a higher percentage of bullets hit their mark and that resulted in greater disruption of the defending formation. If all went as planned (more like, hoped), it would be enough to break the defenders' will. But to get to that point, the attacking formation had to cross the battlefield under not only small arms fire but possible artillery fire that could reach out and touch your formation literally 1,000 yards out.
I want to know if bayonet wounds were as rare amongst fatalities as amongst those who lived long enough to get medical care.
"...blow a golf ball sized hole in the first man, he's dead on the spot..."
"...just as the founding fathers intended."
And yep, that quote does seem to ring true when you see the .75 caliber bore on the thing!
This weapon was used in two invasions that took place in the Río de la Plata (current Argentina and Uruguay) in 1806 and 1807. Both were defeated and the captured Brown Bess were among the first weapons used in the war of independence against Spain. In the 70s, Fabricaciones Militares (state arms factory) made a fairly good quality replica that was used both by shooters and in period films. It came with a mold for .69 caliber bullets. Around here it was said that Brown was because they used to have a brown bluing. A true Forgotten Weapon. Greetings from Argentine Patagonia.
It might be worth explaining that the war concerned was against Spain and France so the invasions were in terms of invading Spanish territory.
@@johnfisk811 Indeed, your explanation is correct. I assumed that it would be understood since those events (1806 and 1807) were prior to the war of independence, which began in 1810. Greetings from Patagonia Argentina.
I have read that the Brown Bess was used by Mexican troops at the battle of the Alamo in 1836.
@@bulukacarlos4751 Dydh da Carlos. Sadly not so many on this forum are up on South American history.
Thats cool, as a collector and shooter of reproduction flintlocks, now i need to find one of those reproductions to add to my collection...
It's common practice at UK steelworks to have nicknames for blast furnaces, with Bess being one of them. For example, at Scunthorpe steelworks in the UK the four furnaces are known as Bess, Victoria, Anne and Mary (after four Queens of England/Britain). In the US we have the same custom; "Jenny" is the name of the furnace sung about in the Bruce Springfield's song "Youngstown".
americans like to copy the us is much more hispanic/irish than it is anglo
At 75 yards, firing at 4 x per minute, I can consistently achieve 6" groups with my Brown Bess. The laid paper cartrages are very important for accuracy and to not have trouble with fouling. Ramming a bare ball will become problematic very quickly, the paper of the cartrages seem to clear most of the fouling. It's important to use laid paper which is closer to the paper used for money today. It's that cloth like propery that is important. Modern paper doesn't work nearly as well.
With modern powder... properly spherical ball.. Eye protection! ....and of course no great line of similarly equipped folks shooting back AT you! LOL
@@trooperdgb9722 On parade, most men could 4 rounds a minute, and some could even do 5. Of course, in battle, most regiments were likely doing no more than 2
I get about the same accuracy from mine. I’ve found a good use for those telephone books as the pages seem to work well for cartridges
Have you ever experimented with using lower quality powder to simulate a historical grade?
@@filmandfirearms I doubt 5 could be done. 4 just about
I’ve fired a replica Brown Bess and it was probably the most fun gun I ever shot.
I work as the range master at a local shooting range. I'm also a pistol instructor, but historical blackpowder firearms are my passion! I tend to bring a couple of them to the range with me on any given day, and happily let our shooters try them out. Virtually everyone, man, woman, and kid, have all had an absolute *blast* shooting my various short land patterns, Enfields, Springfields, and my prized possession an actual Martini-Henry in 577-450.
I'm really happy you got to try one out! Beyond just being fun to shoot, it's really a form of experiential archeology/history, working through the same motions (albeit way slower) of our ancestors. =-)
Years ago I remember a news article from my hometown (Hamilton Canada) when one of these was turned into a police run gun amnesty program (along with a functioning MG-34), both wound up being donated to a museum after some public outcry over their initial fate of destruction. I still find it hilarious that someone turned in a flintlock to a program meant for like semi-illegal handguns.
TBH what one with intelligence would do is make single shot pipeguns to turn in for such programs
Why, well they're so proud of destroying history. Might as well bleed them dry while they're at it
Same thing happens here in Australia - we have a continuous firearms amnesty (in NSW at least) so if you want to hand something in then you can with no penalty. A lot of Police stations have a good working relationship with their local gun stores for this reason.
Some people are idiots. The Government say’s “gun bad”, and they wet themselves.
@@boingkster Yeah they do it here once every few years, the intended target are things like grandpa's .38 revolver that got passed down at some point for which the inheritor doesn't have the licence to actually own, transport or operate and got forgotten in a closet somewhere. Inevitably weird things get turned in, and I wish there was a procedure in place to just immediately send off anything of historical note to the War Museum. There were quite a lot of letters to the editor and petitions to save those two guns because the police didn't budge on destroying them for quite a while.
Why? It is the quintessential assault weapon!
I own (and shoot) a modern reproduction of the long land pattern. It was manufactured using modern equipment but it is otherwise identical to an original that they copied, all the way down to the markings on the lock plate (and it doesn't have unit markings on the barrel), and the barrel has a serial number hidden underneath that wasn't on the original. Smooth bore muskets always fire curve balls. The round ball is going to randomly contact one side or the other as it goes down the barrel, which will make the ball spin. It will go straight for about 50 to 75 yards, after which you don't know which direction it is going to curve. It doesn't have sights, but as Ian said you can use the bayonet lug as a front sight of sorts. For a rear sight you can use the tang screw that holds the barrel to the stock. Back then they were used mostly in mass volleys, so you weren't so much aiming at an individual soldier, and instead were basically just pointing the barrel roughly at the entire group of enemy soldiers. A huge line of soldiers all firing simultaneously has this huge shotgun type of effect, so individual aiming wasn't all that important. It's a fun gun to shoot, but as Ian said, compared to a modern rifle it's definitely not all that accurate. It's also very finicky. You have to keep your flint sharp and your frizzen clean or it just goes click when you pull the trigger (see 3:05 if you don't know what the frizzen is). And if it is raining out, forget it. You aren't getting any kind of spark off of a wet frizzen. You also have to clean the entire musket meticulously after using it. Black powder contains sulfur and will combine with water in the air to create sulfuric acid, so if you don't carefully clean out your musket the sulfuric acid will eat away at your barrel, and at some point the barrel will fail and you are going to have a very bad day.
You might want to re-harden your frizzen to improve performance. I do this every few year and it does make a difference. I run a "have a go" musket stand at a game show each year and go through about 200 rounds over the two days. I make up the ammunition in paper cartridges which speeds the loading and keeps things tidy. The Bess is surprisingly reliable provided you keep it lubricated. I either use bore butter or dip my carts in beeswax/tallow and I find that it will keep firing as long as the gun is warm. You need to stop and clean as soon as you get a sticky load.. just a couple of wipes with a water based cleaner such as Muzzle Magic is all you need.
The flints are the main unknown.. you can get a flint shattering on the first firing or keep going for 30 shots.. you need to knap occasionally, but this does shorten the life of the flint. A diamond file is much better to touch up the edge and will generally make the flint last longer. Black English flint is the best if you can find it.. Yellow French are not nearly as good!
Corrosion with Black Powder is not nearly as much of an issue as the residue you get from Pyrodex. Pyrodex has Perchlorate in it and the chlorate ions are far more corrosive than sulphur. I find that if you give black powder residue a good soaking with a water dispersant such as WD40 it is good for a few days until you can clean it properly. Moisture + residue is the problem with Black.
The front sight was consistently referred to as sight in period documents and it is somewhat of a modern myth that it was primarily a bayonet lug. Muskets of that era pretty normally had a front sight, various types existed. the british sight just happened to do double duty as lug.
I'm not so sure how much it would have been used AS a sight. I have shot a Flintlock in competition (45 cal rifle) BUT of course with proper EYE protection. I suspect most troops of the day had their eyes shut when firing these. It would only take one time getting something in your eye from the flint strike/flash to make that a habit. Just a thought... (And wasn't the command "Ready, LEVEL, Fire"? Not "Ready Aim Fire"? )
@@trooperdgb9722 I imagine each nation would have had their own variation. If memory serves, the British one in this period was "Make ready, present, fire".
RE eye protection, there was no need because all squaddies are outfitted with a standard issue pair of British Army eyeballs, which are much more hard-wearing than normal ones. Unfortunately the drawback is that like most equipment procured on the cheap, they don't do their job very well and don't always fit in their sockets properly ;)
@@trooperdgb9722 The period paperwork calls it consistently sight, so if we deduce intention from the way they called things, it is a sight.
In the manual exercise of the time of the AWI, the british had "Make ready" "Present" and "Fire", but it is worth noting the wording of the commands is archaic even in the 1770s, since the exercise itself has been around for more than a hundred years and slowly evolved, but military traditions helped stick with old nomanclature and laguage.
Also, directly after introducing the 1764 manual, it got some minor changes to words and word orders, in order to reduce possible confusion, so the actual words of command were not neccessarily fully descrptive but rather carryover old language tweaked and optimised for clear communication.
The explanations of the motions tend to describe the process of aiming, period depictions and drill exercise illustrations also usually show what one would describe as 'aiming' today.
Though firing at individuals was not the primary way of fighting wars, and an emphasis on overall firepower, it is somewhat of a myth that aiming and accuracy were ignored in that era, and at least for the British, period sources describe ample 'firing at marks' (i.e. target practice) competitions and small prizes given out for best performance and a general recognition of marksmanship.
Not as intense as modern day training let alone how recreational shooters today hone their skills (usually more than the military guys) but enough to comfortably claim that aiming was done and encouraged.
As per eye protection... flintlocks tend to spew sideways, and protective gear and rules were nowhere near on modern levels. We find period references to soldiers turning their heads or closing their eyes, but usually only in the context of "these troops were so inexperienced, they even XYZ!"
I believe, some slow motion footage taken today has conclusively proven that everyone involuntarily blinks when shooting a flintlock or similar old gun.
It is in general, but particularly the AWI context, interesting to see how skewed our idea of linear warfare really is, and how it is shaped by grand battle paintings and formal parade ground excercises.
To a certain degree, the manual aexercises and maneuvres, trodding along at slow paces marching in step and loading step by step following words of command, were the trainign methods to get the soldiers so comfortable and proficient with every aspect of it, that in the actual battles or even mock battles during grand exercises, would be able to reliable do wheelings, firing and maneuvers at the trot or running, on broken ground, without music.
@@lutzderlurch7877 it makes more sense when you realize that even the first handgunners aimed at individual targets, a tradition that would live on with the harquebusiers and later musketeers.
Gotta love a flintlock, especially the British Brown Bess. Big thanks from downunda! As always, all the best for everything you do Ian.
It's amazing how paper thin the barrel of an original Brown Bess is compared to a reproduction.
Reproductions are probably built from modern barrel blanks, which have to be thick enough to take rifling. Originals never had rifling in mind, a simple tube was enough
Also thinner metal is cheaper
Bear in mind you're looking at the muzzle. The muzzles of military flintlocks would be worn down by ramming action and also corrosion if the soldier didn't have the means to clean it. Add corrosion from indifferent storage once the weapons were obsolete.
@@kirkstinson7316 True, but that would depend on the contractor making the barrels, and they did sub-contract components just as we do today. Anyway, as long as the barrels passed the proof test, a double load of gunpowder and two bullets, it was accepted for service.
As a young man, my family and I would go to a range just outside Savanah Ga to practice for North - South Skirmish Associated matches. My father had not only a short pattern Brown best replica, but also a replica of a Springfield 1842. He had bought the brown best to go squirrel hunting and the 1842 for the, then new, smooth bore matches in the N-SSA. I to the 1842 and using a patched round ball kept ringing a 12in metal gong hung at the 300 yard line, I was only ever able to ring the 12in gong at 200 yards with the bess consistently but was able to hit it twice out of 5 rounds. Since my father passed, I have inherited both of the guns and use the bess for deer hunting in the fall during Georgia's muzzle loader season using a rather stout load of buck and ball with 1 .69 round ball beneath 4 .32 buck shot all sent down range with 100 grains of FFg goex and can attest to its effectiveness.
We fired these when I worked at Old Fort Erie, Canada. We were a bunch of former army and air cadets, and we got good at drill. We could manage about 6 rounds per minute. (we didn't load lead, so that saved time. Shooting tourists would have been bad...) When we went to reinactments for a lark, we blew everyone away. But then again, we were literally doing it for a living. The job got a number of us into firearms for life.
At Blenheim and Ramillies fops would confess
They were pierced to the heart by the charms of Brown Bess.
R. Kipling
Brownells WWKGD (What Would King George Do) Carbine when?
One of the iconic weapons of the entire 18th century!
My reading says that rate of fire in battle was 3 rounds per minute. And _realistic_ battle range was 50 yards. Frederick the Great famously drilled his men to fire 6 rounds per minute but this was unsustainable during actual fighting. As for range, a German general quipped a man would have to be "exceedingly unlucky" to get hit at 80 yards.
This was the dominant military small arms technology from roughly 1675 to 1850. An astonishingly long time for a firearm.
Your last point is actually a pretty interesting one. Weapons tech moved pretty rapidly until the flintlock, then again pretty quickly afterward. We seem to be hanging on to small bore, intermediate cartridge select fire rifles for the foreseeable future.
It’s range was farther than that…. Just not accurately…..one person shooting into a long line several rows deep at 100 yds …. Someone in that group was going to have a bad day….
I enjoyed your comment btw….
Have a good day..!!!!
@@thomasmyers9128 "A soldier's musket, if not exceeding badly bored, and [or] very crooked, as many are, will strike the figure of a man at 80 yards, it may even at 100 yards ; but a soldier must be very unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded by a common musket at 150 yards, PROVIDED HIS ANTAGONIST AIMS AT HIM; and as to firing at a man at 200 yards with a common musket, you may just as well fire at the moon, and have the same hopes of hitting your object. I do maintain, and I will prove, whenever called on, that NO MAN WAS EVER KILLED AT TWO HUNDRED YARDS by a common soldier's musket, -BY THE PERSON WHO AIMED AT HIM."
- Col. George Hanger, anno DOM. 1808
Perfect timing on this, my son and I are building a Brown Bess kit from Davide Pedersoli, and we were amazed at how accurate the Brown Bess kit is compared to the original Brown Bess. Finishing the stock with just pure tong oil, think it gives the best natural look without looking like a modern finish.
I was allowed to handle a 1742 in a museum once. Quite cool 😎👍!
I actually own a Long Land Pattern Bess that I helped build with a friend. The Continental Army still had a good surplus of Long Lands when the war broke out, so I use it for reenacting. She shoots like a dream!
It's important to remember that while their effective range for point target shooting was under 100 yards, military engineers of the time considered the maximum effective range for area targets to be closer to 300 yards. Outside of 300 yards you were probably safe to stand in formation without taking casualties, inside of 300 yards you were going to start taking casualties from skirmishers and sharpshooters. The French Charleville muskets (and copies like the American Springfield and various Prussian, Austrian, and Russian designs) had tighter tolerances were generally more accurate than British muskets and both were superior to earlier Prussian and Austrian models although those were faster to load. A well-trained soldier with those German patterns could get off 5 shots a minute. Rifled muskets had about twice the effective ranges, but you'd only get one or two shots off a minute because you had to engage the rifling. Once expanding balls like the Minie were developed rifling could replace the smoothbore. Basically, accurate or not you wouldn't want to be down range of a musket because it's still a .69 caliber lead ball and it will scoop off your head.
In Swedish, "bössa" (pronounced "bess-ah") is an older colloquial term for rifle, originally from the old German "büsse" which in more modern German became "büchse". Perhaps the "Bess" has a related origin?
Ian addresses this in the video but the short answer is "no" :)
Sounds plausible. Has Ian ever done a video on a blunderbuss?
Reminds me of the USSR/Russia where they refer to all vintage rifles as "berdansky" which is based on the old Berdan II rifles from the Russian empire days
@@jonathanferguson1211 I heard it in the clip, Mr. Ferguson - and thanks for your efforts (and videos!) - it just felt like more than a coincidence as the words were so similar. 🙂
It's just a common thing for Englishmen to call any machine that's big and loud "Bess". There have been numerous tanks given names like "Black Bess", "Big Bess", and many similar variations
This was a great video, I'd love to see more flintlocks now and then like those Dutch muskets and others imported during the colonial period in America. They seem to be truly forgotten, everyone has heard of the Brown Bess and 1766 Charleville but what about the others?
The book "Of Sorts For Provincials" by James Mullins has a good overview but it would be nice to see some of the various other muskets in reviews like this. They deserve the attention IMHO.
Agreed, another interesting look would be more of the variety of muskets and rifles imported/smuggled into the US and CSA during the US Civil War. I have an odd one that came in in limited numbers from Piedmont-Sardinia.
Most of the Dutch or Germanic muskets imported to the US during the Rev War weren't too popular with the troops. Although well -made they were awkwardly stocked and the soldiers couldn't draw a good sight picture with them. The Charlevilles were the same but had the advantage of being lighter and being .69 caliber you could carry more ammunition.
But for being well-stocked you can't beat the Brown Bess, it's stocked just like a modern trap or skeet gun, comes up quickly to the shoulder and your cheek falls quickly to the right spot.
There are really good stories about these being issued to British troops. Most regiments were still using their long lands when these were introduced, and since they wanted to save money, new ones wouldn't be issued until the long lands were worn out. When light companies were added to the establishment in 1771-2, they were often issued the short lands, regardless of what the parent regiments carried (e.g. the 4th or King's Own Regt battalion and grenadier companies carried long lands and the lights carried short lands when they landed in Boston in 1774). In 1776, when the light and grenadier battalions were established in Halifax, for the sake of consistency all grenadier companies with short lands had to turn them in for long lands, and the short lands were then issued to any light companies that still had long lands. Another change was the switch to metal ramrods, and again all regiments in Halifax still using wooden ramrods, regardless of short or long land pattern muskets, had to turn them in and be issued new ramrods (presumably to be made by local blacksmiths and military armorers).
A contemporary writer said of the Brown Bess something on the order of “Even if the musket is not exceedingly ill bored, a soldier might as well fire at the moon as the figure of a man at 100 paces.”
I have seen Brown Bess muskets in museums that had oval bores at the muzzle from ramrod wear. The ramrods themselves were supposed to have a half inch diameter button on the end, but those were worn to a nub.
So, in practice, a lead thrower, not a sniper rifle.
Also, the ramrod guides are known as “thimbles.”
I have fired ball out of a modern repro and it is a thumper. The stock has little relief or drop, so it can smack your cheek. The trigger pull is measured in imperial tons. The lock time is measured with a calendar. Tough to get accuracy from it, but somewhat possible with a lot of trickery.
In the Naploeonic Wars my Yeomanry regiment had to plead for more than two years to get any carbine and were finally fobbed off with 26” barrel cut down Besses made up from reclaimed parts, and even then there were only enough for half of each Troop to be armed with a carbine. Home Service so right at the bottom of the priority list.
You'll get it as soon as it's obsolete 🙃
You forgot to mention they arrived in 1914!
@@Red-jl7jj With Short Magazine Lee Enfields by then.
Awesome Ian! Having been a history major in college I really enjoy the history in your videos, and this one had a particularly good story. Thanks!
I’ve got a heirloom Pennsylvania rifle my ancestor used during the American revolution. never shot it and it rarely leaves the safe. It looks well worn.
Edit: I had to cut a hole in one of my shelf’s just so it would fit in the safe.
So basically this thing can also be called a "Plain Jane"?
Addition: I would also love to see reviews on musket patterns used by the British East India Company especially in the leadup to the Sepoy Mutiny.
The Brown Bess was our starting point for the Flintlock weapons system in Nations & Cannons! Truly an iconic weapon, really glad to see it finally get its own video.
Thank you Ian for all your deep dives into these weapon systems, they've been an incredibly valuable resource for making game mechanics with firearms. Written sources can only go so far; seeing the mechanisms in action is really useful when getting into specific details.
When in Ontario Canada I visited a fort and had an opportunity to handle a brown bess that was used in the war of 1812 and an elaborately engraved 28 gauge double barrel made by Hawkin in Britain. The bess handled like a piece of lumber and the double was amazingly well balanced.
Nice! And not bad condition considering that it is 250 years old like you said.
And this is the colour that was/is/will be used on the M41A pulse rifle, Humbrol Brown Bess...
Ian, I also had never had an in-depth look at the Brown Bess. You continue to deliver after all this time. Cheers.
Part of the reason the barrel was reduced in size was they had gone away from triple ranks firing, and were using only two ranks, so the back rank didn't need the extra length to reach past more than the remaining front rank.... and the "select marksmen" had to load ammo specific to their issued musket to get good accuracy at 90+ yards. MV was actually much lower. NOT a tight fitting ball, so lots of gas blows around the ball. Not supersonic even. Hence the heavy projectile. 😉
I once owned a Brown Bess that was made around the Revolution, then shipped to India and converted to a caplock at some point in its life, then made its way all the way back to the US somehow. It was so cool but I didn't dare fire it. Even had the bayonet. Eventually sold it and IIRC at a loss, hope whoever bought it is able to preserve it properly. It was so cool to hold something that was around when the founding fathers were.
Interesting note: unlike a rifled gun, where a tightly patched round ball would give you the best accuracy, a smoothbore is more accurate when the slightly undersized ball was placed directly on the powder and a wad of tow or paper was compacted atop the ball to retain it in place.
But then, wouldn't the ball just shred the paper and rattle down the barrel because it's undersized, killing accuracy? 🤔 Just asking, i legitimately have no idea how it works
Smooth bore or rifled, a correctly sized projectile gives the best accuracy. The muzzleloading military arms (arquebus, matchlock, musket) of the time used a paper-cartridge with an undersized projectile for easier and rapid reloading, even with a fouled barrel.
@@mattthekiller9129 The paper stays more or less together until it exits the barrel, but it doesn't usually turn into just confetti. Often times you'll get a handful of large, burnt pieces.
@@mattthekiller9129 The theory is that the gasses escaping around the ball center it in the bore. I know it sounds illogical but Duelist1954 did some testing and having the ball on the powder, not patched, proved to be the most accurate.
@@mattthekiller9129 The only reason for the paper is to keep the ball tight against the powder. The gasses escaping around the ball blow it out the muzzle.
Nicely done! Not forgotten, but I'm glad that it was covered anyways.
Man I thought this was like an old video when I saw it so happy you're getting back to the old school firearms love it
Thank you for doing this, I've loved this weapon since I was a kid...
so glad you did the short land pattern one. I've got an original that's been handed down in my family since the revolution, and I've got a pair of replicas that I often shoot. it's great fun on the 4th of july, just load powder and wad and show the neighbors how they fought back then. I've got another neighbor down the way who's got an old 1840s brass mountain howitzer, he would fire that thing off every new years and every fourth of july. I'll be honest, I get a kick out of people's reactions when I tell them the size of the projectile the brown bess fires.
Never has a more beautiful weapon been made.
A true weapon of beauty.
Pennsylvania long rifle
Another interpretation of Brown Bess could be “Basic B….”
Yup, exactly
@@ForgottenWeapons And just like that, the romance is gone :D
@@jonathanferguson1211 You guys are so professional thanks for leaving us the low hanging fruit
A little bit of Local history from across the pond . as a proud Salopian (man of Shropshire) 250 years ago one of my ancestors could have been using this very gun .
The KSLI Regimental museum in Shrewsbury Castle is worth a visit if in town .
the length had way more to do with firing in several ranks and to use as a spear against cavalry oppose to accuracy, which is the reason that the baker rifle and other millitary flintlock rifles were short compared to the infantry muskets, because they were used by exclusive skirmishers whod benifit from the aglity
although hunting rifles would retain longer lengths for accuracy
The Baker was also issued with a correspondingly longer bayonet to give it at least some utility when confronted with some deranged lout on a horse swinging an oversized cleaver. Or a snooty French Voltigeur with a stabby thing (technical term there) on the end of his musket.
Problem with that theory is that they're the same length as muskets that predate any bayonet usage.
@@Red-jl7jj mabye for rank fire, I'm thinking pike and shot era, and shooting while amoung a pike square, they could shoot over the shoulders of pikemen. only a theory though
Thank you for showing an original 'Brown Bess' .still looks like it could do the job.
Excellent work as always. Interesting being able to trace out there life.
So great to see a nice example! Thanks for the great video. 🍻
I have a repro of this gun which has fired hundreds of (blank) cartridges in my reenactments of Rev War battles. It is a fun gun to shoot. Firing live ammo is stimulating, The recoil is significant with full loads of powder. I found that at 50 yards hitting a 12" target was about a 50-50 proposition. For kicks I made Pyrodex sausages out of propellant, white glue and water, dipping the end in ffff powder to aid ignition. It made for an amusing bottle rocket effect.
Great video Ian !
"This is my rifle and this is my gun."
"This is for shooting and this is for fun."
As you said Ian, things don't change that much :P
As someone who lives in between Fort Ticonderoga (40 minutes to my north) and Saratoga (about 40 minutes to my south), this gun is very cool to see that saw action in the area where I am and has so much history.
3-4 rounds a minute! Now that’s soldiering!
Laugh as much as you want, but if you stood in the one spot for more than an hour and you might only need to buy shoes for one foot only.
Great video once again, thanks Ian. Also, full marks for pronouncing 'Shropshire' correctly.
Lovely video - a nice piece of history. Off to read Jonathan's take on it, thank you for providing a link Ian. NB - a worthy precursor to the Stupidly Long Rifle L1A1!
I've been waiting for this for years!
Very, very interesting, I learned so much. I was originally under the impression that Brown Bess was the specific term for a blunderbuss!
Thanks for the definition
"I used to have a beauty queen, now I have an M16!"
But now Jody's got your girl and gone!
@@benb.3078 Right😀
Always wondered where the 'Brown Bess' name came from. Thanks for adding that tidbit at the end!
Interesting vid, well presented.
Thanks Ian.
Thank you for the explanation of the name.. I always wondered about its origin.
As always, great content.
Last time I was this early Washington still had his teeth.
Keep up the good work Ian
Brown Bess is the paint color from Humbrol that the pulse rifles from Aliens were painted.
Forgotten weapons forgot a weapon! I’ve got to say I love this channel.
The Brown Bess was like the Remington Rolling Block, the Mausers and the AKs/ARs. Used and/or recognized by half the world.
Interesting Ian. Thanks for sharing this.
thanks Ian, I have original india pattern myself and we have black powder range near helsinki
you are welcome to visit there next time in finland
As usual great video.
We shoot smoothbores in muzzleloading competitions and, for me, good accuracy can be had by loading a very tightly patched round ball (all shots inside of six inches at 50 yards). In the period, the ball was undersized and held in place by the cartridge paper used as wadding. Accuracy was not a concern. Volume of fire was.
Note also that those 'guides' are ramrod pipes.
Many years ago, I worked for a firearms dealer who had one of these in his office as part of his personal collection.
It had markings on the stock that indicated that it was at one point in the hands of one of the infantry formation of the British East India Company.
I had the priviledge to hand the gun once, and it felt incredible be able to hold a piece of history in my hands.
I like how they made the stock pretty. they even went as far as making it less sturdy. I believe this was alao the time when the british troops still wore the red uniforms, right? it seems like the decoration on military weapons was later dropped along with the form over function principle for uniforms.
British army continued wearing red for around another 100 years -at the time of the Zulu wars (the film Zulu shows this) they were still donning red in 1879 and for a while longer.
Colour in black powder era is necessary
@@wierdalien1 oh, because of the smoke? interesting point. but the british would still have been crazy for choosing bright red, that would just make them easier to aim at even through smoke.
@@Ass_of_Amalek it makes the unit easier, maybe, but historical reenactment suggests that it makes individuals harder to see
@@Ass_of_Amalek Started in the 1600s due to the red dye being cheep to buy.
Another awesome video.
It would be so cool to see you bring this musket to the range!
It's strange to think that this gun and it's variants were in service with the British Armed Forces for a century (from the 1740s up until 1838 when the first percussion cap muskets were adopted)
I wonder if the M-16 or a variant of it will still be in service in 40 years...
SMLE had a similar service life
AR pattern rifles chambered in 5.56 will probably be in US military service until someone invents laser guns or handheld rail guns.
The “M-16” will probably be the longest service life weapon ever created.
Yes, I also think that M16 will stay for long time but only because there are no valid alternatives.
Projects to make a new individual weapon proved to be only expensive failures.
I don't know about the longevity of M-16 or it's variants but I'll bet the AK series of weapons will still be around in 100 years. The steel bolt in an M-16 will wear out the aluminum reciever eventually, the AK's steel-on-steel so has a theoretical much longer life if it's cared for.
@@vksasdgaming9472 You’re correct, there will probably also be AK’s on Mars.
4 rounds a minute seems high as an average firing rate. I will have to watch Britishmuzzleloader to verify that! I never reached more than 2 rounds a minute myself but of course, having a line of charging Red Coats in front of you might motivate a guy to reload faster!
The Brits were known for drill, drill, drill until proficiency was excellent. It was a huge part of the success of their Navy.
Three a minute seems more applicable. Four can be done but not by ordinary soldiers in the field.
Sharpe, 4 rounds a minute! Thats soldiering
ruclips.net/video/SJMbxZ1k9NQ/видео.html
4 rounds a minute are possible but you see it's prone to miss fire, not enough time to aim and extremely hard to do while being actively shot at
@@ronal8824 Volume is important, especially at distance. Yes, it reduces accuracy, but reliability is a matter of training and drilling with your musket.
Now that's soldiering.
Thanks Ian, I have the Pedersoli replica, it is so much fun to shoot. Black powder is fun folks.
Maybe Ian you borrow a Pedersoli and show smooth bore accuracy. 50Y groups nice, 100Y, you will hit a target, likely somebody else’s however, lol.
I think it would be interesting if you could come up with some information on how these weapons were manufactured. Such as how was a barrel "machined". There were so many of these rifles manufactured, they were obviously rather good at doing so.
nice job my friend thank you
"This is my rifle, this is my gun! This is for fighting, this is for fun!" - Yeah, the Brown-Bess :D (Damned, got to rewatch Full Metal Jacket again it seems!)
I prefer the Naval version of the Bess. Its length is similar to a modern rifle length. Much handier, and considerably shorter then the short land Bess.
I'm not going to lie, I was really expecting the day for this video to come out. It's a happy day, guys.
The etymology of the name Brown Bess immediately brings to mind the German MG 08/15, ie. their most prevalent medium machine gun in WW1. I think it's best to directly quote Wikipedia here:
"The designation 08/15 lives on as an idiom in colloquial German, nullachtfünfzehn (zero-eight-fifteen [de], pronounced Null-acht-fünfzehn), being used even today as a term to denote something totally ordinary and lacking in originality or specialness."
It is very interesting and educational to see these original firearms. I know that you often work with the auction houses and show what they have, but this might be something you could do with Othias from C&Rsenal or another collector. Could you consider doing a segment doing a side by side comparison of the different models of the "Brown Bess"? I know the "Roger's Rangers" version was basically a long land pattern customized to make them shorter and easier to handle in wooded environments.
My Dads Uncle Jack served with the Shropshire light infantry in WW2, he's still in Normandy.
Very informative thank you
~71 caliber and 500gr? Damn that really puts it into perspective. They were essentially slinging super-heavy 12 gauge slugs at each other before they attempted to close and ram each other with bayonets. Good gravy. I mean, I already knew all that, but hearing it told again on occasion and *seeing* the implement always hits hard.
I often ask myself why muskets, etc. back then were so long when they clearly didn't need to be, and have to remind myself that combined with the attached bayonet, gave a necessary counter to cavalry. Were the arm much shorter it wouldn't be nearly as useful in that respect.
Great video as always, and had to watch when I noticed you were doing a vid on Brown Bess. Thanks!
They did need to be long. Engagements at 200 meters WERE common, much to dismay of officers. Closing in with the bayonet was only rammed into the skulls of British officers and NCOs AFTER Bunker Hill. Older (16th and 17th century) muskets likewise had to be long because they had to be capable of shooting at 300-400 meters.
Likewise, bayonets did not counter cavalry, but it was certainly a consideration to give a good defense.
That's my county regiment!!! Wow. Thank you❤
I've had the pleasure of shooting a 3rd pattern Brown Bess (reproduction) and it was a lot of fun!
Thanks Ian.
in germany we say 08 15 to common not special things, derived from MG 08-15. In addition, the DIN1 (German Industrial Norm) can be found in MG 08-15. It's amazing how a weapon can shape a language.
I have known Brown Bess when i first watched Lock n Load by R Lee Ermey. Sure he doesn't usually presented factually accurate info, but it does spark my interest in firearms, and still an entertaining show
Wow! Very. very interesting! Thank you.
Ian, it actually is primarily a sight that was also used as a bayonet lug. RUclips channel Chris the Redcoat discusses this point with referenced documentation in his video “A Few more ‘Points’ on Bayonets - ‘Blood Groves’ and ‘Lugs.’” He explains it at 5:37 in the video.
It was sometimes referred to as a sight in the 16th and 17th centuries, though perhaps more commonly referred to as a "bead", with the sight being the rear sight.
The Brown bess is Hella fun to shoot I have a carbine and a type 2 clone !
The story about the name reminds me of the nickname of some bayonets being Rosalie. If I recall correctly, this was supposedly the French nickname for their bayonets. That would make an interesting video.
Great piece. Thank you. To think 4 of my 6-7 great grandfather's on the American side may have looked down the barrel of this musket. If it could only talk
My Brown Bess is a Japanese made repro that I bought from the production company of Last of the Mohicans (my summer job that year) when principal photography ended in 1991. I've never measured it, I'll have to see if it's a Long Land Pattern as it should be.
Sounds like the Miroku-made Bess. I've hadled them in the past and they're quite good, in fact slightly more authentic than the Pedersoli-made ones, the Miroku is a bit more massive than the Pedersoli.
A great very interesting video and rifle GJ.