POV: When your gunmaker has never seen a dolphin, with firearms and weapon expert Jonathan Ferguson
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- Can you make a gun without a lock? Mr Riviere certainly thought so. Mr Ferguson isn't quite so sure. Join Jonathan as he looks at an exquisite pair of pistols featuring a beautifully crafted sea monster hammer.
Sources
Lederer, Paul S. Isaac Riviere's “Guns Without Locks.” Canadian Journal of Arms Collecting Vol. 38, No. 1 (February 2000), pp. 8-12.
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I actually really seeing the boxes these came in. This was an era where that sort of presentation really mattered.
Like?
Enjoy?
You seem to have eaten a word there..
@@automaticninjaassaultcat3703 "I actually really nut seeing the boxes these came in"?😀
Still tends to matter now if you buy something of equivalent value.
Dolphins are not uncommon off Scottish shores but i think people like stylised creatures. Explains why Jonathon is popular.
😂
Jonathan, I'm glad you got more of your books for sale. I was finally in a place I could afford one. It left the UK last Friday, so should be here in Finland soon. Can't wait (but have to) to get my mitts and eyes on it! Thank you for all that you do to enlighten and entertain us all!
This was probably one of the most informative videos I've ever seen on this channel, and that's no small claim, given the sheer amount of knowledge I've gained from watching countless hours of this channel. My wife is going to dread the inevitable "geeking out information overload" I'm going to have to drop on her later.
Still maried?
@@Calligraphybooster yep! It was touch-and-go for an hour following the information dump, but we're still together.
@@FyremaelGlittersparkle 👍
looks just like the dolphin I made in wood shop in 5th grade lol. sad thing is I actually had a picture to go off and was trying for a real dolphin. of course my mother still has it.
I believe the 'lockless' construction was done by Riviere to clearly set his work apart from other "common" pistols of the time. The craftsmanship necessary to slot the control group into a narrow mortise takes an extra bit of care and skill. Something a gentleman of high station would certainly appreciate.
So when will Jonathan Ferguson finally talk about the Ferguson Rifle?
Hi Jonathon, I'm a Yank, so I've been at least firearms adjacent since the 50's and I trained as a gunsmith in the early to late 70's. I've loved muzzleloaders since, and I have always wondered why pistols such as these came in pairs. In the 70's it was "obvious" that they were for duelling, although I don't think that was then backed up by any research. My take was always that it gave you two shots, repeating arms being rare in the days before revolvers, but looking at these gave me a possible alternative explanation. These guns were owned by the gentry and proper gentlemen had.....servants. As you said, target shooting and plinking had, at some point, become popular, so as you...and your gentleman pals...shot your target, your servant could reload. After all, why get carbon black all over your expensive gloves when your servant was paid, well, sorta paid, to do those filthy dirty tasks that no real gentleman would tolerate.
It's only a guess and being American, there is _a lot_ I don't know about the rules of aristocracy, but I think it's at least somewhat sound as guesses go, but you are the expert, what with you being a museum curator and an English person and all.
So wadda ya think? Do I have a point, or am I way off? I'm curious.
Thanks!
There's a bit of nuance to this first line of thinking, though, as military pistols of the time came in pairs or braces too. Horse saddles were typically holstered on both sides in front, and while by the 1840's detachable stocks for pistols became a thing, I'm not sure whether the former were carried in lieu of a pistol in one of the saddle holsters.
Now, a gentleman of the time was still expected to project an image of martial prowess and knightly (and chivalric) heritage, even more so with the rise of Romantic literary movement with its interest in Medieval period just before the pistols in the video came about. Officer corps in the military was still mostly comprised of gentry throughout the world, and various militia and yeomanry services were also an option. So having your pistols in a pair, a potentially martial option, was a statement of not being vane and cowardly, even if you'd never need to have a spare shot at any enemy, or even to shoot anyone at all - more so as pistol dueling was becoming less common around the world by the latter half of the century.
Besides, there was also travel. Way back in 1577 one English author recommended travelling gentlement to carry braces of pistols, for roads were full of people with 13- or 14-feet pikes. Now, while the circumstances had changed, banditry was still prevalent at the time, so having a viable self-defence option was still wise.
@@F1ghteR41 👍👌
Another great video, thanks. A gentleman who produced his guns in the drawing-room would be no gentleman! He would take the chaps off to his gun room after dinner for a smoke and a bit of firearm chat, while the ladies relaxed in the drawing room
"Gentlemen! You can't draw your guns in here! This is the Drawing Room!!!" 😂
"Dolphin" because it really looks like a lamprey and who'd buy that?
The dolphin more resembles a freshwater leech. It would not be much of a selling point though.
Let the bloodletting begin!
Paraloid B-72 ? Oh yeah, nail polish ,👍 gotcha
An interesting piece, and at a reasonable volume. I could actually hear Jonathan without straining. Please maintain the standard. A lovely pieceof furniture; what sort of volume of production did he achieve?
One of the disadvantages of a bullpup is that it puts the action, and consequently the noise, closer to the shooter's ear. That must have been particularly noticeable with a muzzle-loader.
You have the job i want. You need any help keeping the place clean.
These dolphins may have been inspired by the handles (dolphins) of 18th century (artillery) guns.
"That's usually the case"
That pun hurt.
As for "guns with locks", don't the earliest, pre-matchlock, guns where the user had to manually touch slowmatch to the primer powder qualify? Makes the claim seem more outdated than advanced.
If I add 9,999 copies of that book to my cart and check out, I fully expect them to be shipped and delivered all at once via horse-drawn carriage driven straight down the gangplank of a fully-crewed ship of the Royal Navy.
Nice one, thanks Jonathan and team. Those hammers look more "Loch Ness Monster" than "dolphin" to me. But then, I suppose Nessie was not so much of thing in the 1820s and 1830s.
U.S. Navy Submarine "Dolphins" are also pretty silly looking.
Well, they were also trying to avoid locks on this pistol...
Dualing pistols
What would have been the cost of such a piece back in the day, and how much would that be in today's money? I imagine a small fortune...
4:08 Thank you for bringing to my attention the new Jonathan Ferguson badges; I've bought you're entire stock
Much slimmer than a lock plate and more structural sound and robust wood section in the action area ,the lock plate takes a significative chunk of wood and some guns dont stand the time and efort , remember tha wood structure in earlier pistols is all heald by the wood arround pins ,wood screws and bands .
Fascinating as always ,have a Osbourne double rifle / shotgun with the same case,and a calisher and terry double rifle too ,with the same case,perhaps they were a contract manufactured item…? Regards from New Zealand.
17:00 all it needs is a hand and cylinder stop, then it wouldn't look out of place in a revolver carbine.
I think this 'lockless' design is more attractive in a Gentleman's sporting piece.
Jonathan anecdotally plugs his book on bullpups whilst backed by a rack stuffed full of EM-2s & SA80s 😊
Dammit woman how many times I tell you not to give dat monsta Tree-fiddy!
Very interesting video as always. If you put "dolphin fish" in your favourite search engine, you may find some examples that look very similar to the hammer. Something I was intrigued by in my youth.
Thank you for your excellent content.
Speaking of bullpups I see all those EM2s behind you....I never knew that many had ever been made!
What are called dolphins in the West Indies, mostly at the time, British possessions, are in fact a fish not the mammal of the Cetacea family. They do have scales, so the representation on the hammer, is not that inaccurate.
The choice of "lock" mechanism, or lack thereof, seems to be rooted in similar fashion to manufacturing philosophies of some fine handmade furniture. It's an exhibition of craftsmanship.
Let's say you make a table, or a wardrobe. There are a thousand ways to join two pieces of wood together, and all will achieve the same result. However, the way in which you choose to do so will affect the appearance of the finished product. Think nails or screws vs. a hand-cut dovetail or mortise and tenon.
By taking the time and effort to make something using advanced methods and techniques, the final product will showcase the skill of the craftsman, enhance the appearance or quality of the product, and justify a higher price tag.
More cool = more better.
4:19 10/10 scene
Could have been done to save money potentially. Not sure how much that wood cost back in the day, but if the metal for the plate cost more cutting down on how much you needed might save you a bit of money on the production.
It might also provide a weight saving.
waiting for weapons of matrix. especially that weird weapon in "deya vu" scene
Brilliant peace of history 👏
Fantastic as always
Gun jousting would be a little anticlimactic. Sort of the horseback equivalent of the scene in _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ where Indy shoots the swordsman.
Does the smooth sides make them easier to draw without catching on things?
I always love the pre 1900s stuff, its so beautiful!
You are probably aware of the Douglas Arms collection at RMC in Kingston Ontario. A collection of arms of a Mexican president Diaz.
@Royal Armouries Jonathan, I am looking for the George Door Revolver that inspired Destiny 2's Trust hand cannon. How is the name properly spelled?
A bullpup musket? That looks frustrating. Having to reach behind your gripping hand to set the hammer would make it a bit easier to accidentally set off, especially with an unshrouded hammer.
The idea that paired pistols must be for duelling is pernicious. Our forebears would have called it a brace of pistols. It's axiomatic that anything worth shooting once is worth shooting again. Before repeaters that meant carrying more than one pistol.
Yup. Dedicated duelling pistols had some features that general-use pistols don't. But a brace of pistols is always useful as duelling weapons because you know they are a matched pair. So a brace /can/ be called 'duelling pistols', just not as accurately as some would like--unless you can prove the brace was never used for duelling.
Before relyable percussion revolvers became common, both in pepperbox or in nowadays common style, the user of pistols for selfdefence had two possiibilities. Either using a pair of singleshot pistols, of a size, usefull for the owner, or using a pistol with two to four barrels, Hightech, but not allways relyable. And, in those days a backup with a dagger, swordcane, brass knuckles, black jack, a vest of chainmail, or at least thick leather, and a large dog was no mistake.
That moment when you cheer for ad.
Genius.
❤
A jacklope-style (chimera if you will) bullpup creature would make a great mascot for the Royal Armouries.
An observation; in the extract shown from the Canadian Journal of Arms Collecting (17:15), at the bottom of the page it mentions a pistol "reported to be marked Riviere Patent, 219 it is not clear whether the other one has the same number" and here you are showing us "Riviere Patent 220" on the top strap (9:35)
Are the pistols under the patent sequentially numbered, as seems to be the habit of some other makers of the period? and is the other pistol of the pair 219 or 221?
So a Dolphin with a Beavers tail, nice.
Although it doesn't really look like a dolphin, it does look a dolphin in the style of European coats of arms, which do seem to have been made by people that never saw a dolphin, and probably didn't understand the difference between mammals and cartilaginous or bony fishes.
Love laugh at locksmiths... Appetrantly so does some guns
‘Dolphins’ of the era were often pretty stylised, have a look at the examples on the lamp standards along Embankment in London.
Cheers for doing the Marauders videos, I can now look forward to your knowledge bombs or ballistics
Gentlemen in a drawing room having a .....pistol measuring contest
14:30 watch with subtitles on (CC): "the tumbler the (_) or the hammer. The author is going to have big trouble with YT!
It was good to meet you at Church Fenton a couple of weeks back.
Another great video here. Keep up the good work.
"could use them for dueling, could use them for a lot of things" sounds exactly like what somebody would say to the police when caught just about to duel with said pistols aftter it was outlawed
B72 works well to stabilize worm holed sword grips 😊and dry rot
Really beautiful set
'without locks', like we called radios 'a wireless' despite having lots of wires inside.
Need that clip whenever he mentions his book 😂 that was hilarious
I do quite like all the museum-specific background details
Not a dolphin, but a Lockless Monster.
Not just any lockless pistols but The Lockless Pistols.
When Englishmen were free and could defend themselves.
much better audio!! it might have been done to address a snagging issue of the day?
if I'd be fortunate enough to be in the area, i'd be there with my son every odd weekend
Dolphins are apparently sea monsters
Real life accuracy. Dolphins are racist, narcisistic assholes of the sea. Unlike, you know, sharks are depicted in movies
They get rapey with humans and each other. Scary if you ask me.
What a beautiful set of pistols. The box is also a piece of art.f
Because he could🙂, is another good reason!
The guns without locks, indeed.
I think ee all know the punny title is the real reason these got a segment.
Maybe this is the prototype of the new sig modular pistol design and was intended to come with different wood furniture to mix and match? Just pop out the "firing mechanism" and slap it in a different configuration?... Or probably your guess is better than mine.
Switching furniture would actually be an interesting idea to consider with such a system. If this pistol had a rifled barrel, it would be quite expensive at that time, and one would probably consider having fancy furniture for target shooting and bragging to their friends , and a more rugged one for travel and war.
What an elegant thing.
I came because the community post.
10:30 "No we have dolphin at home."
"Fire control group"... 🙂
clicked like on the shop meme scene :)
1:16 Oh, so my guess was a quarter of a century off, and it's a new make, not a conversion, and certainly not a breechloader. Damn, I thought this would be full of interesting history and nineteenth-century penny-pinching! Congratulations to those who guessed target/dueling pistols, though!
2:35 It looks to me like it's influenced by the French syntax.
17:10 This would seem to be a very desirable mechanism for compact pistols of the day (with ease of carry in mind), just like box-locks, but I do wonder whether this system might be lighter due to less metal being used.
My take is that it's a money making thing, not only are they gunmakers to the King, but they have these new lockless pistols! fancy people like fancy things to show off and make people wonder how it's done
@@MrTrilbe While that might be the case, I'm not certain that the design itself is without its practical benefits.
Removing the lock plate perhaps increased the strength of the wooden stock, reducing the chance of cracking.
Wouldn't stock crack longitudinally along the tang much more often than around the side-plate? I've seen the former style of damage a bit (and heard still more), but the latter - never.
@@F1ghteR41 I saw it on a Japanese tanegashima but that was a matchlock long gun.
@@KingOfChaos213 I suppose that the Japanese stocks were made of different wood to the European ones, where walnut was preferred.
Lovely looking brace of pistols. As you stated very British in their understated elegance. Though termed "Dolphin" shaped I've always thought "Dragon" in my head. Dragons have scales, breath fire & a further link is the Chinese invention of gunpowder. Also there are quite a few old guns with obvious dragon shaped locks/hammers.
You were making me nervous having that case sitting open through the video. I know it had the lovely label, but old wood & hinges with no strut or chain to restrain it! Seen a few old boxes get damaged that way. (Though I know you're an excellent curator, it just makes me nervous).
4:04 Cheeky. I love it.
I chuckled as you derided the representation of a dolphin by Mr Riviere, The coat of arms for my home town of Poole, Dorset has a "dolphin" on it's coat of arms which traditionally not only bears little or no resemblance to the sea mammal, it is difficult to imagine it being aquatic. Can I make an uneducated guess with regards to the Riviere bullpup rifle, would the shortened length allow reloading be conducted from a seated position, allowing a infirmed person, as they would have said in period, to continue shooting.
The mahi-mahi is also called the dolphinfish. Dolphinfish have scales and a profile very similar to that pistol's hammerhead. Dolphinfish were often simply called dolphins. Commercially, the Hawaiian name "mahi-mahi" replaced "Dolphin" and "Dolphinfish" so people would not confuse the piscine with the cetacean, when found in the seafood section of the supermarket.
The gunsmith probably had seen dolphins, just not the dolphins that come to our minds when we hear 'dolphin'.
Quite elegant
I think you're right about the reason for the "lockless" look. It's pretty, yet restrained...a simple, clean look that emphasizes the lines of the weapon without needing ornamentation.
Beautiful weapons and case. Never thought of collecting labels, oh no another thing I will have to collect
Exactly how many EM-2s do you have, and may I barrow one?
Johnathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearma and Artillery has to be the coolest title.
If that was my job title, I'd demand an official uniform of an embossed iron breastplate and helmet, just so I could march around the place feeling grand. 😂
@@peterclarke7006 I'd love to see that :D
Really enjoyed the bit about how you look after these artifacts
this might not be for everybody, but i would love to see a behind the scenes video of being a firearms curator. things like how you acquire guns, how you sort them and how much you're willing to clean/repair the guns you do get.
Curators in the UK aren't going to be keen filming those behind-the-scenes processes, plenty of private collectors and weapons collections don't want cameras in their faces and all over their premises.
That's before addressing how some curators are slathered in elitism: they know more than you, they think. They won't show you the guts of the system, only they earned that right because they have such-and-such education (that you don't) and this-and-that job experience (which you don't) - especially in the UK.
Wish you would have discussed the hook trigger guard.
Jonathan has discussed this style of trigger guard before. The hook provides a rest for the index finger so that it does not have to be curled up around the butt in a cramped position.
In target pistol shooting, the index finger does much of the work. The goal is to get a firm and repeatable hold, so that shot dispersion due to recoil effects is minimised and so that the pistol shoots consistently to where the sights are zeroed.
These hooked trigger guards are commonly seen on Victorian "duelling" pistols and later appear on some revolvers too.
More modern revolvers tend not to come with this feature but custom target grips can be used for the same purpose.
For example, the custom grips made for my S&W Model 14 are shaped to rest my index finger about 1 cm further forward than the steel of the grip frame.
They're not duelling pistols,they're highway man's pistols.Stand and deliver and all that kind of thing........................................................
:)
Dolphin
I have a bull pup bayonet from the same era. Most of the blade fits behind the handle.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraloid_B-72
Box Wonderfully made😊
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraloid_B-72