Madsen M1896 Flaadens Rekylgevær: The First Military Semiauto
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ต.ค. 2024
- After losing out in the 1888 trials, Madsen and Rasmussen continued to refine their rifle. They reduced the overall length and weight, and replaced the feeding clip with a more modern enclosed magazine (although it was still gravity fed, without a spring or follower). The mechanism was refined for more reliable functioning, including changing it to more positively control the position of cartridges as they were fed. The Martini-like rear charging lever was replaced with a more modern rotary handle on the right side of the receiver. Still, the basic mechanism remained the same.
This 1896 Madsen-Rasmussen rifle was again considered by the Danish Military, and deemed reliable enough to limited use. A total of 60 rifles were purchased and issued by the Danish Navy for use in defending coastal fortifications. They were never used in anger, but remained in the Danish inventory until 1932.
With the success of the 1896 model’s sale to the Danish Navy, it was time to expand sales internationally. A company was formed in 1898, which would soon become known as the Danish Recoil Rifle Syndicate, and Madsen and Rasmussen sold their patent rights to it in exchange for royalties on future production. By 1899 the company manager was Lieutenant Jens Schouboe, and it is his name found on the subsequent Madsen LMG patents. For this reason, the Madsen is sometimes referred to as the Schouboe rifle.
In 1903, the US military tested one of the 1896 model rifles (which they identified as a Schouboe) chambered for the new US .30-03 cartridge. This appears to have proved too powerful for the rifle as it was built at the time, although further tests were conducted on the gun in 1905, 1906, 1909, and 1911. The final 1911 report on the rifle listed a number of faults. The arm lacked strenght and durability the report concluded: “It is inferior to our service rifle in accuracy, serviceability, and in rapidity, the competition had become very much keener and each invention showed the results of accumulated experience."
I am looking for the full text of any of the testing reports, but have not yet found them. It appears that the US testing board saw better things being developed (they were quite fond of the Bang design, which was in its first tests in 1911) and lost interest in trying to perfect the Madsen rifle.
Many thanks to the Tøjhusmuseet (Royal Danish Armory Museum) for letting me have access to these very rare rifles! Check them out at: en.natmus.dk/mu...
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So Madsen made the first military semiauto and the last military bolt-action rifle....50 years apart
i know this is a crazy old comment, but not technically true the mondragon semi auto was designed in 1884 it just wasnt produced till after the madsen
The first? No. The first produced? Yes.
@@gam8lingnant734Yep! Another Mexican classic
This Madsen is indeed one of the most steampunk/dieselpunk weapons of its kind, second only only to the Modèle 1907 Saint Étienne french heavy machinegun
The toggle lock rifles give it a run for its money.
@@ostiariusalpha That and the gas piston Lee Enfield.
It's so cool that this existed 22 years before the BAR or 21 years before the RSC.
@@greenglassrecycling Your name Nobody?
I get to see this exquisite Danish firearm twice! I'm not complaining.
The Hat is on for reason!
You call that a rifle?
Hearing GJ pronounce "Flådens Rekylgevær" might just be the best thing ever. Love the content, love these obscure rifles I never knew existed.
haha yeah, I was impressed
as a dane im happy to see a firearm from my country on the show
no only the early ones
The guns developed from these Madsen-Rasmussen rifles all have top-mounted magazines, but other Danish arms do not.
I met ian there while he was filming this =)
You lucky bastard!
That's awesome
Did you teach him how to pronounce "Tøjhusmuseet"?
The acoustic's in that place is to die for.
@Beth Schroeder Yeah, it is hard, coming from a native English speaker. English is one of the most convoluted confusing languages out there, mostly because we borrowed words from so many other languages. You also understood them, didn’t you? If you didn’t, that proves my point further.
Never knew my country was so far ahead regarding gun development. I love these documentaries.
Cycling this rifle makes such a satisfying sound!!
Thanks, Ian!! Well done, sir!
That mono-pod brings to mind a question,
Did anyone ever make a firearm where the mono-pod/bi-pod double as the bayonet?
Never heard of that happening, but the US did have a combination cleaning rod bayonet on the springfield. It was a pointed stick.
bit of a late reply, but yes the soviet avs-36 bayonet can be set up as a monopod.
I've seen monopod/entrenching tools but never monopod/bayonets
Spiker SKSs come to mind, but in reverse. The bayonet can be stuck into the ground as a monopod. Intentional? Probably not. Functional? Sure.
Hang it off the front barrel band and go off, even has a handy depth guide
As a dane, the way you pernounced "madsen" somewhat perfectly scares and amazes me, good on you
I love top loading small arms, love really early self loaders, and love anything that stays in service a long time: a perfect video for me!
Very interesting! The information in the description was just what I was looking for as well. I wondered why such a rifle that was ahead of it's time didn't get more traction world wide and it was answered there! Great
I have very fond, early childhood memories of Tøjhusmuseet. My dad used to take my brother and I there on Saturdays when we were kids. I vividly remember this particular gun. I thought it looked super cool! It still does! 😁 It is many years ago I last visited the museum, but I was a bit disappointed to find that a large part of it wasn't open to the public anymore. They have such wide variety øf weapons there and the history of the place itself is fascinating too. Thanks😊
Just a small thing I noticed.the heel of the pistol grip of the prototype model is just so elegantly carved. Such a small detail but it really looks amazing.
What a fascinating piece of machinery. Great follow up to your Q&A yesterday. As someone with a engineering/mechanical background I never miss a video.
What calibre please
Incredible for 1896 for sure Ian. Brilliant design.
Either there is a fantastic acoustic in the room this was filmed in, or this gun has one of the best sounding click-clacks I have ever heard.
This is probably the one semi-auto rifle for which a muzzle cap is perfectly safe to install. When the gun is charged for the first round, the barrel's retreat into the sleeve would automatically remove the muzzle cap, so there's almost no risk of the cap obstructing the muzzle unless the user is a total idiot.
I asked this question on the earlier upload of this video, Ian said that it doesn't come off on charging, unfortunately.
i think the bullet exits the barell before the mecanism is fully recoilled, so a muzlle cap will be blown by the bullet and not by the barell sleeve. just sain'... no harm intended.
I've shot several plastic muzzle covers off my ARs without any issues, they make them soft so there is no damage when you forget or you're in a big hurry. Unless you made it from steel and had a strong attachment I wouldn't worry much.
+Chris Jones yes, there is no danger. i dont think anyone ever blown a barrel by having a overpressure caused by a muzlle cover (or a finger stuck in the muzlle ;-). i just noted the opperating principle of the gun has no relevance in regards to muzlle cover safety norms.
* * I agree, my comment was directed more at the original post here. Muzzle covers are perfectly safe, if a bit unnecessary, on pretty much any firearm. It takes a lot more than a little plastic or rubber to cause any problems like Elmer Fudd used to have, lol.
Hi Ian. I really like this rifle. It makes me think of steampunk for some reason. The dust flap and muzzle cap are so quaint. I can imagine soldiers with huge epaulets and tall gold braided caps standing to attention to the admiral while flutes are sounding the welcome salute. Thanks for sharing! Stay healthy!
12:16 Absolute steampunkness confirmed.
Should have come with a monocle instead of a monopod.
Meh...Close enough.
I don't think it was mentioned, but the charging handle appears to be non-reciprocating. Is that correct?
Courtney Goff He did say it is a reciprocating charging handle.
It doesn't reciprocate on the LMG and this looks the same. Unless the handle is pulled back the reciprocating action will ride over the top without engaging the charging handle.
Its actually a frozen half pretzel
They keep refining on there original model. As they say if it aint broke ah but it worked so they make each one better. Really nice to see each model and its differences with still the original idea. You very lucky to get to see and handle these and other rare guns. Wish i was able to like many others do too.
Wow... that's one of the coolest interesting guns i've ever seen 😲👍
Thanks for showing it to us Ian 🤗
Because the ammunition containing device doesn't use a spring, does it technically fall under the category of a clip or is it just an exemption to the magazine category without being a clip?
I AM Danish and I didnt know about THIS gun, i knew about the Madsen LMG and Anti air gun.. but not this one.. thanks alot for the video and informations. Sadly no video of shooting the Gun.
I can nearly imagine how it feels to cycle it by sound and action.
Amazing how these rifles will be 125 years old this year
The range demarcation lines on the prototype looks like a standard metric ruler.
These rifles remind me that there are still good ideas to implement- even in a field as crowded and traditional as firearms. There is still room for the inventive mind in engineering.
-first military semiauto
-magazine-y thingy on the top
*something's cool I can feel it*
Gorgeous piece of machinery, some really interesting ideas here. Definitely a weapon that inspires a bit of a thought experiment about how things in the early 20th century may have been different had one of the major powers been more experimental/forward thinking with their weapon adoptions.
Madsen had amazing insight!
That's bizzare enough to be French.
You must be american ;-)
XD
Well, before the last two world wars, Denmark was aimed more towards France then England, so that makes sence. France was a mechanical powerhouse in its own, interesting but less well known way and still is till this day :).
You whats bizare?
Les cries que ta fais quand jla fist!
Randy Allen It's not bizzare, only a complicated.
Never heard an American pronounce the soft Danish d right, props for doing it right when you say "or as it is properly called 'Madsen'". Not so much luck on å, but still Better than 95% of English speakers. Well done. We can conclude that you are a linguist as well as a gun lover.
Hi Ian about the Steyr ACR, does the gap between the chamber and the barrel cause pressure decrease? Same goes for G11 since it has a moving chamber too.
That is such a cool-looking firearm.
Clean gun. Whoever did that loves his job
Great work Sir thank you
Is it just me or does this rifle look totally badass...
The first successful design for a semi-automatic rifle is attributed to Austria-born gunsmith Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher, who unveiled the design in 1885. The Model 85 was followed by the equally innovative Mannlicher Models 91, 93 and 95 semi-automatic rifles.
im Danish born but US raised. i always love how odd Danish design is and yet always seems well thought out
The Madsen system is one of those things that's very early and attempts to do something forward looking, but shouldn't have been very popular. Yet the machinegun incarnation is quite the exception.
The magazine on the top is so cool :D
This was a really cool video! Love this channel
as a Dane I am impressed with your pronunciation.
The term you were looking for for the ammunition feeding device is a hopper.
Tøjhusmuseet (Danish Armor(y) Museum) has now joined forces the Danish Naval Museum and is now called 'Krigsmuseet' :The War Museum.
And by the way: 'd' in Madsen i silent, thus pronounsed 'Massen' and Rasmussen has the stress on the first syllable and 'u' is NOT 'YOU', thus rather 'RAS-moussen.
You mentioned that the lone eagle has a very efficient action for long barrel length in a pistol, do you reckon that a falling block action like this would be useful in a bullpup rifle for decreasing length of pull or increasing the barrel length as well?
Beautiful rifles. Thank you for sharing Sir.
So I have noticed that you've visited Tøjhusmuseet quite a few times. So I take it, that you have a keen interest in Danish armaments. And if so, how come? (other then the obvious interesting, and innovative design for the time period) Or is it due to another relation to The Kingdom of Denmark?
lol Ian was in denmark to shoot all thies videos on a day or two, a while back. it would be stupid to travke from the us to shoot one video and than fly back. come back 3 days later and make the next video. of cause he has a lot of videos that he eigther havent uploaded yet. or have uploaded but haven't made public yet.
Torben Johansen ...Yes... But I am not talking about, in relation to the videos. Obviously that is all recorded in the expanse of one visit. So how about we let him answer the question, instead of you guessing at random. Yeah?
There is a bit of an obsession with cam controlled stuff in Denmark xD Almost the entirety of this rifle functions with the use of cam slots
amazing how much mechanical movement they managed to stuff in so little space
your pronunciation of danish words is very good
It is a tricky language for sure. Like the silent e in Schouboe which is actually from a 16th century nobel family so the spelling is weird even for a dane
This is standard firearm for space steampunk pirates.
Maybe he answered this in the video and I just missed it, but does the charging handle reciprocate on firing?
6:40 gotta be the nicest action sound on a gun ever
What a novel firearm. It's very intresting mechanically.
my god, as soon as you cycled the action I fell in love! any chance you could upload a full hour of top down view cycling? pretty please? lol
(edit) and the ejection chute! aw man such a stunning mechanical treat.
if I remember correctly, the last recorded use of a Madsen by the brazilians was in the summer of 2015
this is a pretty nifty gun, I like it.
So this is the last video from your trip to Denmark, right?
At the meet up, I think you said that there would be videos of three guns.
... And I seem to recall, that there was something about the staff at the museum, testing your Danish language skill.
Are we going to see that here some day?
Cheers
Do you have a video with a good view of the cam plate in maddens?
Beautiful! Creative action.
Human ingenuity amazes me. So many different ways of designing guns to do, essentially, the same thing. Do you suppose all these inventors actually thought their designs were superior, or were they just trying to come up with workable designs that avoided existing patents?
A mix of both, sometimes it is just a gun maker tinkering around with concepts but there often can be patent issues in play. It is like car design to a degree, in most cases you have the same basic set of systems that need to do the same thing when you get done with them.
As already mentioned, a lot of weirder developments were caused by the patent issues. If you can't make something due to a patent, you are trying to develop something similar or operating using the same principles without causing patent infringement. Then there are genuinely "quirky" designs. And then there are experiments and tests. And then there are people who weren't gun designers, but went into "gun business" with their expertise in different industrial processes and tooling. Oh, and don't forget about political and/or military pressure to get "our" gun - doesn't matter if it's inferior, it's "our".
Martini Henry springs to mind.
So does the charging handle cycle as the gun is fired?
De bedste hilsener fra Danmark.
I just love the "klicky klack"!
Makes me think of a Krag. the box on the left side and how it horizontally pushes a cartridge in.
If Ian can't figure out how to open something on a gun then no one can
Rusty Shackleford hold my petrol can whilst I fire up my chainsaw.
We'll get it open!
Not only that, Ian has on a previous occasion accidentally repaired a non-functioning gun.
I feel like I know what you're talking about, but which video was that?
I've been trying to remember it. All I can remember is it was another museum video where he thought he broke the rifle, but deeper inspection showed that he fixed what was broken, by pure accident.
Amperzand I feel like it was a 1919 Browning but I wouldn't swear to it
Hey ian you and carl should do a mudtest on ww1 or ww2 era shotgun of your choice how good was the trench gun ?
The short receiver, offset magazine and bottom ejection make it suitable for bullpup configuration. Just put a spring in the magazine and turn it upside down. Maybe this system still has potential.
Ejection of the spent cae would be problematic if you just inverted the system.
Not a gun genius but is this bolt action or “real” semiautomatic like in “press trigger for each shot until magazine is empty?
I'd love to see a modern one made in 30-06
That is Tøjhus museet, was there recently, cool! Wish I saw you.
Ian this site say that danish navy bought 50 and for their marines. and at a later date 50 more to be used in danis sea fortresses. The late models where replaced by Madsen mashine guns in 1908. the first 50 guns where first replaced in 1932 as you said. that could explain why there is a 54 of the gun you show. modernfirearms.net/en/military-rifles/self-loading-rifles/denmark-self-loading-rifles/madsen-m1896-eng/
I could speculate and guesstimate the answer to this, but I am still curious and wishing to know the details for sure... why in some videos are you wearing gloves and in others you aren't, even if holding guns that are equally as old and/or rare?
Just depends on what the curators want. Some want him wearing gloves and some don't mind otherwise.
I found of these in the armory in the Lebanese army .
They have tones of guns nobody's heard or seen if .
I knew someone with an M14 back there it's still the ceremonial rifle now it's the more modern guns of today .
Could the "missing" 4 rifles been a gift to King George I of Denmark and his Royal sons and son-in-laws?
It is a wonder that the Brit's or Germans didn't embrace this in 303 Brit or 8X57mm and use it in WW1 the way the Americans planned to use the BAR 1919.
William Prince There was an attempt to set up production in the UK during WWI, but by the time they'd managed to produce enough guns for a trial the Lewis Gun was getting close to adoption.
Manufacturing them in Denmark wasn't an option due to our Neutrality
William Prince There was an attempt to set up production in the UK during WWI, but by the time they'd managed to produce enough guns for a trial the Lewis Gun was getting close to adoption.
Manufacturing them in Denmark wasn't an option due to our Neutrality
The Brit’s had a domestic produced madsen called the Rexer in 1906 but only a few were made
Nice video😀 to bad you wasnt able to open these further like the madsen light machine gun.
A naval rifle being used in coastal fortifications would not have issues with mud and dirt? I would assume that if your fortress is being assaulted and you are forced to break one of these out that you have already been shelled so heavily that there is dirt mud being churned up as well as lots of dust and rubble from the actual fortifications. So if you do need one of these chances are you are going to be getting it into the dirt and mud while using it.
Can't help it, but I could envision seeing this little puppy using a lever-action system like a Winchester for cocking the weapon. Just make it a brass lever and not too slick for even more steampunk vibe.
I enjoyed the video as always but for some reason I was confused by the function of this rifle. I'm sure you explained it well and it's something I'm just not grasping. If I could see it cycle a dummy round that might help, who knows. Could be that it's almost 5am and I'm getting tired, lol.
Wondering why coastal fortress defence were considered to be needing that kind of firepower in 1896? 🤔
Btw Toijhuismyset is well worth a visit! 😁😄🙂
Too bad these did not become popular as these could have made an impact
Since Denmark did not go metric until 1907, it's more likely Danish feet on the rear sight scale.
The only problem with that rifle is, when u fired it upside down, no more bullet enter into d reciever for there's no spring inside d magazine
Great video!
dude i think i saw you in that museum
also recently watched your video on the mg11 caseless rifle where you mention caseless ammo is fragile seems like that lateral falling block what lend its self to that type of ammo as well maybe well see this type of action return. lol
I am from Denmark and I find this video very interesting! You should work on your danish pronounciation though, as I had a hard time understanding it - but points for trying ;)!
But keep up the good work of documenting these interesting, mechanical mechanisms from around the world. I find it very fascinating and absolutely top class!
Årh hold op...
Han gør det bedre end så mange andre..
Syntes det forkert at banke folk i hovedet med deres udtalelser, når de klart gør deres bedste..
There a actually was one order for the Madsen light machine gun to (in terms of manpower) the largest military in Europe and possibly the world: Imperial Russia.
However, it was a not a large order and though the Madsen did see service as early as the Russo-Japanese War, Russian emphasis would be on the their heavier Maxim guns.
My guess is that the Madsen’s role as a sort of “marginal machine gun” was mainly due to it being a fairly complex (and hence expensive) system produced by a small, neutral country with a small industrial base (contrast with Belgium/FN) and never put into mass licensed production in the two large power that did use them to a limited extent (the German and especially the Russian Empire).
What a Neat Gun Great Video
It looks like a long recoil action. Not a short recoil system.
Did you ever get around to shooting this? I want to see that
That monopod is set at a strange height. Seems too high for prone and too low for seated. Perhaps the foot is adjustable?
Is the charging handle reciprocating?