This is a really interesting piece with a mostly unknown origin. It was manufactured in the UK (the barrel was deemed Enfield-made by former Royal Armouries curator Herb Woodend) and is chambered for the .58 Morse centerfire cartridge. The date of production is unknown. It uses a gravity-feed magazine and fires via hand crank. Turning the crank cycles the bolt forward and back, not completely unlike a Maxim gun but without the automatic operation. It cam out of a small Canadian museum in the 1950s, but its provenance before that is unknown.
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Could those rear Bars/Nobs be for some type of Butt Pad, Pillow, recoil attachment?
Was thinking the rear slider was akin to a machine gunner’s fold up buttplate flap that sits on the operator’s shoulder.
Fascinating gun. Ian didn’t go into the action itself much but looks as though the bolt tilts to lock?
I surmise that the eccentric rod actuated by the crankshaft is the locking mechanism –at the moment of firing it is supported at the butt end by the crankshaft and presses forward on the rear of the bolt. I think this is a positive lock until further cranking lowers the rod, unlocks the bolt, and effectuates extraction. The reverse of an internal combustion or steam engine, where cylinder pressure actuates the cyclical movement.
“(…)It uses a gravity-feed magazine and fires via hand crank. Turning the crank cycles the bolt forward and back, not completely unlike a Maxim gun but without the automatic operation.(…)”
There is important difference, in Maxim design crank goes back and forth (think what would doing, if you has belt of dummy cartridges and are supposed to use it all), whilst this one does full turn. So if you want automatic Doppelganger it would be Yurchenko https://guns.fandom.com/wiki/Yu-7.62
I want to note some similarities between presented examples and early GARDNER https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPnIIM4Il9U namely
– requiring circular movement of crank by user, which is then translated into back-and-forth movement
– crank’s axis is relatively close to aft of gun
– wide usage of non-ferrous metals
– having single barrel (shown example) / could be ordered with single barrel (GARDNER)
If presented example was supposed to mate with similar mount to GARDNER folding bit might interact with elevation mechanism (c.f. elevation mechanism of GARDNER)
is: “(…)Doppelganger(…)”
should be: “(…)Doppelgänger(…)”
Kickstand for stabilizing it when upright?????
Yes, it resembles the Gardner, but it seems to be more of a cross between the Ager and Williams guns of the American Civil War.
I’m wondering if it could have been a one-off “proof of concept” model for what might have been a larger-caliber gun.
The brass construction might indicate a naval origin. It might have been intended as a gun for use in the fighting tops of the warships of the era.
As for those two bars in the “stock”, I have no idea what their function would be, either.
clear ether
eon
Might James H. Burton have been involved in some way? Burton was Master Armorer at Harpers Ferry 1849-54, then went to UK on a 5 year contract to set up RSAF Enfield with machinery from the U.S. about the time the Morse cartridge was being introduced. Morse returned in 1860 to become head of Confederate rifle manufacturing, which included a trip back to the UK in 1863-64 to get rifle making machinery. Post-Civil War he went back and forth between U.S. and UK where he set up manufacturing by Greenwood & Battey, and later for the Russians.
While Woodend’s verdict that the barrel is Enfield product, the fact that the provenance dead ends in Canada seems to open up a possible North America connection. Sight view marks suggest it was simply surplus part utilized to complete the gun. (Much as Browning’s prototype “potato digger” has a trapdoor rear sight.)
Crank action supports possible connection with Gardner whose gun appeared about 1874. Eugene Parkhurst worked for Pratt & Whitney on the Gardner gun, and was involved in all sorts of firearms development in that era. Burton had close connections with P&W who supplied machinery to Enfield and G&B (and later Lithgow).
While the .58 Morse cartridge may be a close match to the chamber, I am skeptical that it was the actual cartridge the gun was designed around. Very few .58 Morse guns or cartridges were ever made, and while a revolutionary breakthrough at the time (mid 1850s) rimfire cartridges quickly dominated until about 1864-65 when internal primed, then external (Boxer/Berdan) primed cartridge became practical. I believe that this was intended for use with the .577 Snider cartridge, and any possible chamber “step” would be related to the early composite Snider cases. (See Tony Ewards info on the early Snider cartridges Patterns I through IV at https://sites.google.com/site/britmilammo/-577-inch-snider/-577-inch-ball-pattern-i-to-v).
Very interesting gun! Thanks for highlighting this one.
Correction- Burton not Morse returned in 1860.
The star of the next steam punk movie.
If you need companion land vehicles then I recommend https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww1/mexico/tnca-salinas
If there’s only that example of the gun & if it’s before the American Civil War & the invention of the Gatling gun; then I’d say this was a British experimental/demo gun. The Brits knew of this Morse gun and hearing about the Gatling the British military decided to see if they can create their own. Ian did state that the Brits did give support of the Confederates. And the inventor did side with the Confederates as well. Maybe some deal between the two states; the Brits develop the gun and sell to the Confederates for their war effort. Since there’s only one example of the gun the project was scrapped eventually as the war and political situation developed. I guess the Brits had discovered other options for a Gatling-like weapon. It’s possible that the Britian gave the Morse gun to Canada to experiment with or someone in the British military just took it on their own to see what they could do with it. It came to naught I guessing. Thanks.
The content I love about Forgotten Weapons , good one Ian 🙂
A US legal machine gun .
May I suggest that the Mark II would have moved the crank axle closer to the trunnions to improve aim?
looks hard to hold steady, but at say an inch sized bore, a motor, and a good mount, who knows?
same loss of cooling with a single barrel (compared to a Gatling type system) but at typical low pressure black powder loadings, maybe a high rate of fire could be matched with a reasonable cooling period. Or a water jacket.
Anyone want to make a repro in 1 Inch Gatling?
Thanks
CG