I worked as an IT contractor at the RA for over 2yrs, (and I worked with Jonathan too, really nice chap). I was constantly telling the social media team to let the curators push out videos like this one. I said it until I was blue in the face. I'm so happy 6years later it's finally happening!
The podcast format doesn’t exactly lend itself to the sharing of objects that would need to be described in great detail. If historical weaponry is something you’re into, Jonathan’s books are worth picking up however. You can find a list of them on the Royal Armouries’ website.
Okay, but if you start thinking silly, you start supposing that you could carry pre-loaded belts like bandoliers and just quick-swap them. Which is just steampunk tacticool for a man-portable rifle. But that patent said "cannon" as well. Imagine this sort of system for a small breech-loading cannon. You'd be halfway to a pom-pom gun, and the automatic cycling wouldn't take that much to develop.
Well yes, but no longer than reloading a 5-shot revolver three times... From the look of it, if you just fired off, say, six, you could then reload most or all of those six straight away.
More than likely cartridge-loaded. With the bolt no need to press seal the ball. 14 seconds for the cartridges. 20 seconds for the caps. 1858 patent Remington would be clearly faster on reloading 18 rounds vs 14 given spare cylinders. The rifle would eventually catch up as fouling built up. It would be an interesting test if someone was willing to risk their priceless Treebee.
Well worth it mate. Best thing is it's completely free to visit. So much to see too. Been there several times ever since I was a kid and went there on a school trip.
Pretty sure I remember seeing that last time I visited but this was a while ago. I can concur with the post above though, if you have even the most fleeting or fringe interest in the history of weapons, you can't go wrong. Always worth checking if they have any guest exhibitions as well, the last time I went there was a 007 exhibition on there as well, a small charge to get into the 007 bit but the rest of the museum was totally free and you weren't under obligation to pay up for the bond room.
@@sshep86 Wait they took you to a gun museum as a school field trip? We don't even do that down here in the United States but fuck that sounds cool as hell.
@@chrisprizzle278 I went with the school twice back in the late 90s. To be fair, there's a lot more to the place than just guns. All sorts of weapons and armour there. Place is massive. They have an outside arena too, where they do things like jousting and falconry.
Keep in mind that it doesn't necessarily need to have *only* direct benefits to remain a worthwhile pursuit. The Royal Armories is funded by the government (ergo the Royal part of the name), and part of their mission is educating the public. While GameSpot has an international audience, it does obviously also have a domestic one, and thus, it is a useful vehicle for educating the public, which is a part of Jonathan's dayjob :)
@@neruneri ik i'm super late to this discussion, but i'm french, and before the Gamespot show i had never even heard of the Royal Armory Museums.. So when I visited england recently i brought my entire family with me to visit it and it was amazing. So on top of direct benefits like donations, morevistits, the gamespot show (and the show hosted by Johnatan himself on their officiel channel) is important bc it gives them a lot of publicity and a strong brand and image, whic his very important. You can see by how much the quality of the royal armory's video improved this year, so it shows the higher ups and the British governement also finds this important and benefitable so they gave him more funding to make better videos
@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries When we are allowed aim to visit Leeds and have a look at the garage gun or economy Bren amoung other things hope there is parking for motorcycles.
I love these old prototype firearms, they created crazy ideas that hardly worked sometimes and almost without fail they would apply some beautiful engravings
I love antique chain-rifles/pistols. I wouldn't call them belt-fed, but I certainly understand the tongue in cheek description. Lovely video, and very clear views of a scarce example. Thank you!
Hi Jonathan , No I didn't come from the game channel , I followed You from Ian's channel Forgotten Weapons . I'm really excited some time fairly soon My collectors edition of From Thorneycroft to SA 80 will be arriving , problem is I'll spend so much time reading it I'll hardly have time to watch any YT gun videos .Also I think it would be excellent if You could write a book about some of the more esoteric weapons such as this , I'd buy that one as well ! .
Thank you for these videos! Very interesting and very nice to watch! I've been watching the "firearms expert reacts..." videos for some time. I can watch even more of these videos now that I've discovered this channel.
Would have made more sense to the military as a naval light cannon I suppose, scaled up a bit and mounted to the deck of ships. Obviously too expensive and complex as an infantry weapon, but could have a use in combating smaller ships in a sort of Puckle gun kind of way, with a few of them on each side of a larger warship.
If rdr3 ends up being a prequel to rdr2/rdr1 I hope this could be added even if it wouldn't make much sense because it looks cool and would probably be fun to use
Considering our modern perspective of the development of machine guns and other automatic weapons, it seems absolutely insane that this weapon was passed over so easily.
I was able to peg this from the thumbnail because of Ian's video on one. Was it the same example that he covered, or is this another one? Regardless, I appreciated the additional details you were able to provide!
probably been turned into a belt feed gun. as having whats is a chain of self containing cartridges like that is just to cubersome and the fact there is a hard limit and the case system is way to big. the best would maybe be as a anti tank gun that can fire more then 1 shot or something but even that is questionable.
@@Zack_Wester this was the 1800's my dude. Nobody knew what a tank was, and this far predates even the gatling gun. Each one of those "cases" is its own pressure bearing chamber. It was not adopted for the same reasons as revolving rifles. Possibility of chainfires and gas blow-by.
I need to go dig out my copy of Goldsmith's "The Devil's Paintbrush", but IIRC he mentioned finding some notes about Maxim's father experimenting with a sort of rudimentary cap-and-ball belt-feed system like this, and Maxim using that as the basis for his own work after the advent of metallic cartridges.
A few days later, but it definitely inspired us to go with the Treeby first (even though the game gun was likely based on the Josselyn revolver and not the Treeby :) )
@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries Thanks for all your interesting vids and hard work. Theyve helped keep me sane in lockdown. Soon as we can ill be heading over to Leeds to check out the Armouries for the first time in far too long.
It looked to me that the "short barrel" sections of the 'chain', could have been made to slide forward into the main barrel, as it is cocked, so that the revolver blow-by could be largely eliminated? Thanks for sharing this really innovative weapon, quite a bit ahead of its time, it would seem...
That's essentially how the Nagant revolver that came around later that century worked. The cylinder would be moved forward during cocking to create a seal between the cylinder and chamber.
"Hello, I am Jonathan Ferguson, keeper of the world's coolest stuff, at a place you can't go to because of Covid and the Atlantic. Also, unlike most of you Americans (including myself), I'm thin." I would hate this guy, for being so much cooler than I ever dreamed of being, but I decided to live through him instead.
The separate chamber concept was used in the first gatling gun. It was in 58 caliber and used a precution cap for each cylinder. Imagine being the guy that had to take a case of paper rifle cartridges and load hundreds of iron cylinders. With possibly poor gas seals and black powder it must of been an awful job to clean and reload the gun
On the very eve of the American Civil War, the Treeby repeating rifle comes along and they ask, 'What's the use.....?' Can you imagine the increase of firepower this represented?
hmmm... if belt was actually hanging out and was easy to replace like modern belts... it would work and flexible magazine it would be lighter and less complex
Don't know if it's still out there, but I'd LOVE to know whats the way to "Keeper of Firearms at the Royal Armoury", in other words: How did Jonathan become Jonathan, Keeper of Firearms?
I have a question. Revolving rifles are known to hurt the shooter supporting arm due to gas leakage between cylinder and barred, but why don't they got fire shields?
In the black powder/muzzle loading era, a shield would reflect the hot gas and sparks back towards the cylinder, possibly causing them to all go off at once causing a chain fire. They work just fine in the modern era of brass cartridges.
Okay hear me out here, it has a drum magazine, but the chain can detach so the drums can be easily interchangeable, and those drums have a loading tool built into them. Drum feeding would look somewhat like this, with the 0s indicating where the loading tool would be (Obviously there would be small cogs in the drum to make sure the chain feeds reliably): /|\ ___ \|/ | / \ | | | | | \_0_/ \_0_/ Maybe this is just my subconscious wanting to see an LMG of sorts in use in the 1800s with a drum mag looking like the SAW's however, but a casing or magazine of sorts would probably help keep powder reliable in this period, and the inclusion of a loading tool into that magazine/drum would be a great addition in my opinion.
I worked as an IT contractor at the RA for over 2yrs, (and I worked with Jonathan too, really nice chap). I was constantly telling the social media team to let the curators push out videos like this one. I said it until I was blue in the face. I'm so happy 6years later it's finally happening!
Jonathan could do kind of what Ian does on FW, he's literally got an *entire museum's* worth of interesting stuff to show the world
Unfortunately Ian has a day job ... although, grow the beard, moustache and hair right and they could be twins ...
He cool for a them to do something together. Ian has been to royal armories before for videos
He also has a lot of the firearms that FW have featured
@@kriegguardsman9117 Here’s one of the videos they did together: th-cam.com/video/HcIG5OqQjlw/w-d-xo.html
He does his and ian does his. Both in their own way a blessing when it comes to inform about stuff and works.
You all should make a podcast talking about weapons and their history like this, I know I’d watch!
Ian McCullum does this on his Forgotten Weapons channel. Some great history and strip downs on how they work. Worth a look. 👍🏻
I could listen to him all day, his enthusiasm for fire arms is that of linus with computers. And that makes it so much more worth listening to!
Cnrsenal and forgotten weapons have similar content . ( fist one has a podcast too I think.)
The podcast format doesn’t exactly lend itself to the sharing of objects that would need to be described in great detail. If historical weaponry is something you’re into, Jonathan’s books are worth picking up however. You can find a list of them on the Royal Armouries’ website.
14 shots in quick succession and then the rest of the day to reload. Never seen this before, thanks Jonathan.
The rifle you shoot on Sunday and reload all week!
@@SomaticApparition plus cleaning time ;-)
Okay, but if you start thinking silly, you start supposing that you could carry pre-loaded belts like bandoliers and just quick-swap them. Which is just steampunk tacticool for a man-portable rifle. But that patent said "cannon" as well. Imagine this sort of system for a small breech-loading cannon. You'd be halfway to a pom-pom gun, and the automatic cycling wouldn't take that much to develop.
Well yes, but no longer than reloading a 5-shot revolver three times...
From the look of it, if you just fired off, say, six, you could then reload most or all of those six straight away.
More than likely cartridge-loaded. With the bolt no need to press seal the ball. 14 seconds for the cartridges. 20 seconds for the caps. 1858 patent Remington would be clearly faster on reloading 18 rounds vs 14 given spare cylinders. The rifle would eventually catch up as fouling built up. It would be an interesting test if someone was willing to risk their priceless Treebee.
When I first saw this in Hunt: Showdown, I was so sure it was fictional. Cool gun!
RISE UP DEADMAN!
Let the gunshots ring! *Hive scream in distance*
Always love to see more videos featuring you Jonathan, and more cool guns! I’m looking forward to receiving your book in the post.
I hope you enjoy it - your bookcase won't because it's massive!
@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries Oh lord, I’d better make some space then...
Will this ever be on display? When the lockdown is lifted I’m absolutely planning on travelling up to Leeds to visit the museum.
Well worth it mate. Best thing is it's completely free to visit. So much to see too. Been there several times ever since I was a kid and went there on a school trip.
Pretty sure I remember seeing that last time I visited but this was a while ago. I can concur with the post above though, if you have even the most fleeting or fringe interest in the history of weapons, you can't go wrong. Always worth checking if they have any guest exhibitions as well, the last time I went there was a 007 exhibition on there as well, a small charge to get into the 007 bit but the rest of the museum was totally free and you weren't under obligation to pay up for the bond room.
@@sshep86 Wait they took you to a gun museum as a school field trip? We don't even do that down here in the United States but fuck that sounds cool as hell.
@@chrisprizzle278 I went with the school twice back in the late 90s. To be fair, there's a lot more to the place than just guns. All sorts of weapons and armour there. Place is massive. They have an outside arena too, where they do things like jousting and falconry.
@@chrisprizzle278
Take a look at the Royal Armouries website, the collection is huge.
I wonder if gamespot is actually helping their museum
I hope they are
They’re giving them publicity which is getting them some more donations
Keep in mind that it doesn't necessarily need to have *only* direct benefits to remain a worthwhile pursuit. The Royal Armories is funded by the government (ergo the Royal part of the name), and part of their mission is educating the public. While GameSpot has an international audience, it does obviously also have a domestic one, and thus, it is a useful vehicle for educating the public, which is a part of Jonathan's dayjob :)
No shit its helping
@@neruneri ik i'm super late to this discussion, but i'm french, and before the Gamespot show i had never even heard of the Royal Armory Museums.. So when I visited england recently i brought my entire family with me to visit it and it was amazing. So on top of direct benefits like donations, morevistits, the gamespot show (and the show hosted by Johnatan himself on their officiel channel) is important bc it gives them a lot of publicity and a strong brand and image, whic his very important. You can see by how much the quality of the royal armory's video improved this year, so it shows the higher ups and the British governement also finds this important and benefitable so they gave him more funding to make better videos
I always like videos with mr. Ferguson, great stuff!
this man is a national treasure
Love your work Jonathan, good to see museums getting out in to the internet space! Bovington tank museum is another good one!
Here from the Gun Jesus channel congrats on the book.
Thanks Owen!
@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries When we are allowed aim to visit Leeds and have a look at the garage gun or economy Bren amoung other things hope there is parking for motorcycles.
I love these old prototype firearms, they created crazy ideas that hardly worked sometimes and almost without fail they would apply some beautiful engravings
I was hoping you'd start making videos like this I love this kind of content.
This guy is fantastic, we need more vids!
I love antique chain-rifles/pistols. I wouldn't call them belt-fed, but I certainly understand the tongue in cheek description.
Lovely video, and very clear views of a scarce example. Thank you!
I fucking love this thing.So beautifully made,seeing the action run was fantastic and so satisfying
Living in leeds, the Royal Armouries had to have been my favourite museum as a kid
Interesting gun, thanks for the more detailed look at it!
Hi Jonathan , No I didn't come from the game channel , I followed You from Ian's channel Forgotten Weapons . I'm really excited some time fairly soon My collectors edition of From Thorneycroft to SA 80 will be arriving , problem is I'll spend so much time reading it I'll hardly have time to watch any YT gun videos .Also I think it would be excellent if You could write a book about some of the more esoteric weapons such as this , I'd buy that one as well ! .
This is very interesting to learn about, I enjoyed it.
Oh this channel and the museum is going to grow! Let's all go the Roal Armouries Museum
I would love to see more videos on the guns at Royal Armouries and the history. You do a great job.
A beautiful piece of history
That is a beautiful weapon. Astounding to think of this being a contemporary of the muzzle loading infantry rifles.
Really happy you started this series keep it up
Very interesting step of evolution in firearms
I'm amazed at how smooth that rotation and action is. I wonder how hard the SA on the 30 round version was tho. A lot of mass to drag around
Thank you for these videos! Very interesting and very nice to watch! I've been watching the "firearms expert reacts..." videos for some time. I can watch even more of these videos now that I've discovered this channel.
Very cool, nice to get some more insight into the development of this weird but arguably groundbreaking gun. More pls
A collaboration with Forgotten weapons would be so amazing! Two gun geniuses in the same room.
im not really into guns mainly video games which is how i came across you, but ur videos are great!
Really interesting deep-dive into a bit of an oddity, makes you wonder how things might've progressed had this design caught on more!
That is absolutely insane. How interesting.
Great video!! Here from the GameSpot vids :D
Would love to see more of this. Would do well with some more editing and some light music.
Gun wouldn't look out of place in the Wolfenstein universe. What a marvelous contraption. Got some steampunk vibes to it.
Oh nice! Been waiting for this!
You should definitely make more videos like this
Very interesting, thanks Jonathan.
Would have made more sense to the military as a naval light cannon I suppose, scaled up a bit and mounted to the deck of ships. Obviously too expensive and complex as an infantry weapon, but could have a use in combating smaller ships in a sort of Puckle gun kind of way, with a few of them on each side of a larger warship.
If rdr3 ends up being a prequel to rdr2/rdr1 I hope this could be added even if it wouldn't make much sense because it looks cool and would probably be fun to use
Love these videos and guns. I hereby declare you an honorary American
I have to go to that museum. Get from Costa Rica to Leeds, and go to that museum.
I’d love a look at the history of firearms with you and perhaps some early modern experts as well, from matchlock to assault rifle kind of thing
As a fellow Devonian i'm very impressed. Oh and as a side note!: It's CREAM ON FIRST!!!
As a Cornishman, the gun is impressive, the cream tea isn't.
Are we talking about scones or hemerroids?
That is a really neat piece of firearms technology
Bro you are a legend
Welcome to forgotten weapons, my name is ia..... oh no, wrong channel
We've collaborated a few times; I'm hoping to see Ian back in the stores once travel becomes possible again.
@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries we can't wait to see him here again but hopfully covid clears off soon
God damn that looks amazing
Considering our modern perspective of the development of machine guns and other automatic weapons, it seems absolutely insane that this weapon was passed over so easily.
I like Treeby, quite a smart man
I was able to peg this from the thumbnail because of Ian's video on one. Was it the same example that he covered, or is this another one? Regardless, I appreciated the additional details you were able to provide!
Looks very well made. Who did Treeby get to make these rifles ?
Okay, now THAT is cool. Like double or triple cool because Jonathan showed us here before Ian got to it on FW.
I see Jonathan Ferguson, I CLICK!
Is the one in Hampshire in a museum available to view??
I don't know to be honest. I'd like to see it one day myself.
seems more useful for naval infantry/sailors than cavalry. use it like a nock volley gun. though i suppose boarding actions were a bit passe by then
Great video.
Now _that_ truly comes under the heading "forgotten weapons"
So does the barrel seal device need to be applied each shot or does the action allow the chain to operate with the barrel sealed?
Jonathan,
If you were to do a series of guns from videos games. I'd subscribe in a heart beat!
The fact that this thing actually works is fantastic. Kinda makes you wonder what would have happened if it had been adapted.
probably been turned into a belt feed gun. as having whats is a chain of self containing cartridges like that is just to cubersome and the fact there is a hard limit and the case system is way to big.
the best would maybe be as a anti tank gun that can fire more then 1 shot or something but even that is questionable.
@@Zack_Wester this was the 1800's my dude. Nobody knew what a tank was, and this far predates even the gatling gun. Each one of those "cases" is its own pressure bearing chamber. It was not adopted for the same reasons as revolving rifles. Possibility of chainfires and gas blow-by.
i would have thought the navy would have shown interest as a deck mounted gun to repel boarders.
If I had the right equipment I would love to make myself a copy of this
I like how this guy uses the term “couple” correctly
I need to go dig out my copy of Goldsmith's "The Devil's Paintbrush", but IIRC he mentioned finding some notes about Maxim's father experimenting with a sort of rudimentary cap-and-ball belt-feed system like this, and Maxim using that as the basis for his own work after the advent of metallic cartridges.
I bet he did this right after the Hunt:Showdown video
Was about to say the same thing lol. I hope he goes over the other more accurate weapons in the game
A few days later, but it definitely inspired us to go with the Treeby first (even though the game gun was likely based on the Josselyn revolver and not the Treeby :) )
@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries Thanks for all your interesting vids and hard work. Theyve helped keep me sane in lockdown. Soon as we can ill be heading over to Leeds to check out the Armouries for the first time in far too long.
@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries Thank you for replying, I love your content and I look forward to all of your videos.
@@13lochie Glad to hear it!
This is awesome
It looked to me that the "short barrel" sections of the 'chain', could have been made to slide forward into the main barrel, as it is cocked, so that the revolver blow-by could be largely eliminated? Thanks for sharing this really innovative weapon, quite a bit ahead of its time, it would seem...
That's essentially how the Nagant revolver that came around later that century worked. The cylinder would be moved forward during cocking to create a seal between the cylinder and chamber.
"Hello, I am Jonathan Ferguson, keeper of the world's coolest stuff, at a place you can't go to because of Covid and the Atlantic. Also, unlike most of you Americans (including myself), I'm thin." I would hate this guy, for being so much cooler than I ever dreamed of being, but I decided to live through him instead.
The Treeby Chain Gun! Brought to you by PrimeTime Toys!
Yes I as well am a keeper of firearms and artillery.
I feel I could sit and talk to Johnathan for hours on end
Surely the weight of a long chain is not significant to cycling the same as the loaded chambers would be largely balanced by the fired ones.
I wonder if you seal the cylinder gap and shoot. You have to open the cylinder gap to be able to reload another bullet?
What is the sealing lever moving? The barrel itself or an extra part?
WOW - Pretty Darn Cool !!!!!
🙂😎👍
Have you an example of the Gyro-Jet pistol or carbine in the collection?
I want one!
Oh my god this is so fucking cool, i don't even care if it's outdated or impractical i want one.
I would have liked to see more of the gas sealing provision on that gun. At least you showed enough of it that I could make a good guess.
why does he always looks like mom just waked him up for school?
The separate chamber concept was used in the first gatling gun. It was in 58 caliber and used a precution cap for each cylinder. Imagine being the guy that had to take a case of paper rifle cartridges and load hundreds of iron cylinders. With possibly poor gas seals and black powder it must of been an awful job to clean and reload the gun
On the very eve of the American Civil War, the Treeby repeating rifle comes along and they ask, 'What's the use.....?'
Can you imagine the increase of firepower this represented?
hmmm... if belt was actually hanging out and was easy to replace like modern belts... it would work and flexible magazine it would be lighter and less complex
Don't know if it's still out there, but I'd LOVE to know whats the way to "Keeper of Firearms at the Royal Armoury", in other words: How did Jonathan become Jonathan, Keeper of Firearms?
Sir johnathon, Keeper of firearms, Lord of gunpowder, Devout follower of gun Jesus.
From GameSpot....these are so fascinating.
I have a question. Revolving rifles are known to hurt the shooter supporting arm due to gas leakage between cylinder and barred, but why don't they got fire shields?
In the black powder/muzzle loading era, a shield would reflect the hot gas and sparks back towards the cylinder, possibly causing them to all go off at once causing a chain fire. They work just fine in the modern era of brass cartridges.
@@marcusborderlands6177 Thanks
Great video. You should pick a different background. The books are far to busy and distracting. Looking forward to your next one!
looks like something doc brown would have in back to the future 3 :)
Is it true you get a abbot 105mm self-propelled gun as a company car?
It would make a dandy wall gun but a bit late on the scene for a marksman in the rigging.
I could imagine the use for it on a pintle mount on a ship or riverboat back then.
There is an older belt fed gun but they will never show it due to being invented by a vampire.
Wait so ( 3:27 ) it could technically be suppressed when you pull the leaver to seal the chamber???
I'd assume so, yes!
reminds me of the shambler in metro.
Ian should redo his old low resolution video on this, and go out to shoot it with you!
Expensive idea.
Okay hear me out here, it has a drum magazine, but the chain can detach so the drums can be easily interchangeable, and those drums have a loading tool built into them.
Drum feeding would look somewhat like this, with the 0s indicating where the loading tool would be (Obviously there would be small cogs in the drum to make sure the chain feeds reliably):
/|\ ___ \|/
| / \ |
| | | |
\_0_/ \_0_/
Maybe this is just my subconscious wanting to see an LMG of sorts in use in the 1800s with a drum mag looking like the SAW's however, but a casing or magazine of sorts would probably help keep powder reliable in this period, and the inclusion of a loading tool into that magazine/drum would be a great addition in my opinion.