1866 Chasspot needle gun

[mm1ut1]

Almost bought one. Saw it advertised online and ended up buying something else when I got to the dealer. It needed a little work and the ammunition looks to be tedious to make, but the cool factor is off the scale !

[Mytmousemalibu]

I'd actually like to get my hands on one! To me anyways, I think making the cartridges would be a lot of fun! Dare I say I would enjoy that aspect more than shooting it! That would be pretty satisfying to make the entire round from bullet to base and go send them downrange!

[Andy]

This was the first ever bolt action, right? Or at least the first bolt action put into service as a primary military arm, am I correct on that?

[Mytmousemalibu]

This was the first ever bolt action, right? Or at least the first bolt action put into service as a primary military arm, am I correct on that?

Just a wild guess but I think the Dryse was 1st.

[Earlwb]

I think it would be quite fun to make the cartridges up and shoot them in that rifle.

As I remember reading about it, the Dryse Needle gun had a faster fire rate, but the rifles and cartridge had about 1/2 the range of the Chassepot needle guns. Thus the French had a range advantage. Unfortunately, the paper cartridges and black powder would cause the Chassepot rifles to foul out much faster than the Dryse guns. Supposely the paper cartridge would be consumed when it fired, but that didn't work out like they thought.

But yes the first Dryse needle gun came out in 1824 and the Chasseport needle gun came out in 1866 but he had a number of earlier versions before then.

[fivefang]

the Bavarians , which used a metallic Ctg. in the 1870 war used to say whenit rains , the Prussians cant shoot, ( wenn's rengt, kennad Priesen ned schiasen}

[Mica_Hiebert]

When I hear "needle gun" I think of one of them diabolical contraptions used to remove rust and paint from metal!

[Bigslug]

mm1ut1,

Been there and done it. You might find this helpful: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?286848-Mle-1866-Chassepot-Cartridge-Construction-DIY-Insanity!

Cheers!

[matheu]

dreyse was the first bolt action but you could not shoulder it as the gases will spray you in the face(I wear a face shield) . chassepot was the first sealed breach bolt action. I have a few of them love everyone of them and no the cartridge is easy to make. tools to make them are easily fabricated.

[matheu]

dreyse was the first bolt action but you could not shoulder it as the gases will spray you in the face(I wear a face shield) . chassepot was the first sealed breach bolt action. I have a few of them love everyone of them and no the cartridge is easy to make. tools to make them are easily fabricated.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

mm1ut1,

Been there and done it. You might find this helpful: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?286848-Mle-1866-Chassepot-Cartridge-Construction-DIY-Insanity!

Cheers!

Many people overlook links, especially when a becoming degree of modesty prevents Bigslug from saying "In which I made a priceless contribution to making this thing work." It really is good, with valuable information from various sources. It is a pity the site doesn't allow simply grafting one website into another, for most of what would be useful here, is there.

What they don't give us, unfortunately, is a way of obtaining really good accuracy with a modest amount of work. But a lot of mosatisying achievements don't quite fit that description.

The Dreyse needle-gun design was quite dated by the time the Chassepot arrived on the scene, and the latter was a far better rifle. There are accounts of German soldiers having to fire from the hip when the Dreyse was badly fouled. The Chassepot had gas escape problems as well, when the rubber obturator deteriorated. But the combination of modern synthetic rubber and the improved understanding from that thread should make that much less of a problem.

[salpal48]

I have One and sometimes shoot it. Yes It is difficult to make ammo @ first. There are Instruction on Line . You can follow them Or I have improvised.. At first expect a 90 - 95 % fail rate . If you get Better results Your doing good. There very accurate
I Like 777 and used it now all the time.. The trick don't make too many @ once . Keep notes on what goes off and what does not

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Only 90-95%? That is a pretty good start, though it will improve. As Dr. Johnson said, "If a man teach his cat to play the fiddle, the wonder is not that it is done badly, but that it is done at all." You can get a pretty high sense of achievement with the Chassepot.

[Adam Helmer]

Ballistics,

If one has too much free time before the end times, loading for a needle fire would make sense with a 95% failure rate. As a serious reenactor, my guns of choice are flintlocks and caplocks and all are well above 95% SUCCESS rate. So, pick your poison and be happy.

Adam

[Harter66]

The French solved part of the ash and fouling problems by using silk socks on each round .......lots of research, no shooting. ...... dang it .
The 1 passing through my hands has an 1871 issue stamp on the stock .

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Ballistics,

If one has too much free time before the end times, loading for a needle fire would make sense with a 95% failure rate. As a serious reenactor, my guns of choice are flintlocks and caplocks and all are well above 95% SUCCESS rate. So, pick your poison and be happy.

Adam

I believe salpal48 was talking about shooting at things, and the 90-95% included what happened to the bullet.

[Bigslug]

Many people overlook links, especially when a becoming degree of modesty prevents Bigslug from saying "In which I made a priceless contribution to making this thing work."

Well. . .since the Chassepot is to launching bullets what Wile E. Coyote is to chasing roadrunners, I tend to downplay any contributions I may have made in the field, lest I be granted a coat with long sleeves that have no openings. . .:veryconfu

Considering this is an 1866 design, and that the American Civil War pretty much showed the world the direction ammunition was going, it truly is fascinating how much misguided intelligence was obviously poured into designing, developing, and deploying such a system. Even more so when you consider our discussion on the "improved" Callibaud cartridge, with which the French were trying to hang onto a fabric composite cartridge even into the mid 1870's. Not only did they do it, apparently, nobody told them to stop. Just sayin' that the 2016 election season may NOT be the depth of human stupidity.

Summer is coming, & when it's too hot to do anything outside, Dad & I will probably revisit the rolling of Chassepot cartridges. At last attempt, chamber fouling was the major remaining hurdle. He came up with a pretty good way of correcting the sights on a rolling block that did not require alteration of the gun, and we will probably apply much the same to the Chassepot. Accuracy testing goes MUCH easier when you can take your focus off of Kentucky Windage and Tennessee Elevation.

So look for a re-boot of that thread over in the Black Powder Cartridge sub-forum over the next month or three. Swing by and drop a line or two - increasing the size of the group helps convince me I'm sane! :mrgreen:

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Yes, and after the French had a good claim, I think, to inventing the rimfire, pinfire and centrefire case, a revolver that saw service in WW2... But I would call it more like Gottlieb Daimler's motor-tricycle than Wile E. Coyote. For the bolt action and heavy bullet were where military rifles were going.

But then, I always wished that coyote would win.

[Earlwb]

I think that way back then they had a different design for the primer that was used to set off the needle cartridges. Today, we have nothing that comes close to what they were using way back then. Thus with a good primer device they likely had 100% ignition out of the things. So they could have a cottage industry setup for making the rounds at the time. But today that type of primer device design is lost to history. So we can only approximate it with existing percussion caps. I think that if we had a similar if not alike primer device then making the cartridges that work would be more successful.

The French were quite innovative, and unimaginative too, but sometimes they had some rather odd or weird decisions on what to use, etc. Of course were weren't there and we can only armchair quarterback after the fact. I would think they got caught in that old "if it works leave it alone" kind of thing at the time. The bureaucracy (accounts, etc) probably kept it going in France due to budgets and the fact that they already had thousands of the rifles, etc. So they were stuck with it, until something comes along to motivate them to strongly upgrade. War and the threat of losing to the victor likely drove it then.

[mac60]

Here are one man's experiences with making cartridges for his Chassepot rifle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi47hIRi3b0

His channel has several more videos relating to him testing the cartridges and also doing some accuracy testing.

[Earlwb]

That was great, thanks for finding and sharing it with us. I found it quite interesting, even if I don't own a needle gun. You never know what might pop up on my doorstep one day.

[mac60]

That was great, thanks for finding and sharing it with us. I found it quite interesting, even if I don't own a needle gun. You never know what might pop up on my doorstep one day.

You're welcome. It just goes to show that where there's a will there's way (well sometimes anyway).