Baker Rifle

[Col4570]

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This is a Baker Rifle Kit by the Rfle Shop that I have just Built for a friend.Although a lot of work is involved the resulting Rifle is pleasing and looks authentic.

[JSnover]

Wow!!

[Buzzard II]

Very nice!

[pietro]

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You've done well, Pilgrim..... :drinks:


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[BPJONES]

Great looking rifle!

[curator]

I have a Baker rifle made with original BBC "Sharpes rifles" Indian-made guns and a Ed Rayl barrel. It may not be exactly politically correct but is quite a rifle. Mine has a one in 66" twist rifles barrel and shoots .600 round balls quite accurately with .018 pillow ticking patches. My only regrets is not having a windage adjustable rear sight or a dove-tailed front sight at the gun shoots about 4" left of center at 50 yards, Using "kentucky windage" I am able to keep all shots on a 8" pie plate at 100 yards from a rest. OK, the lock is a bit clunky but it sparks reliably and flints last 40-50 shots.

[tranders]

Very nice. Well done!

[nekshot]

That is nice, very nice! I am mature so I will not envy.

[Col4570]

I have a Baker rifle made with original BBC "Sharpes rifles" Indian-made guns and a Ed Rayl barrel. It may not be exactly politically correct but is quite a rifle. Mine has a one in 66" twist rifles barrel and shoots .600 round balls quite accurately with .018 pillow ticking patches. My only regrets is not having a windage adjustable rear sight or a dove-tailed front sight at the gun shoots about 4" left of center at 50 yards, Using "kentucky windage" I am able to keep all shots on a 8" pie plate at 100 yards from a rest. OK, the lock is a bit clunky but it sparks reliably and flints last 40-50 shots.
Yes at present the rifle has not been tried out yet.I have had it Proofed at the Birmingham Gun Barrel Proof House.I took on the project since the owner sent for the Kit but decided he could not carry out the work involved.I have been doing a bit here and a bit there for a few months and gradually the Rifle started to look the part.He is a friend so there is no profit in it for me except for Proofing and postage costs.The barrel alone needed six dovetails cutting plus a Bayonet Bar fitting.The Lock had been finished at the makers so that was a saving of labour for me.All in all the Rifle looks authentic and I suspect an original had been examined to make the Drawings.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

That looks like a fine piece of work. The Baker was about as good a compromise design as a pre-fulminate and pre-Minié could get. The longer-barrelled and smaller-calibre Kentucky rifles held certain advantages, but probably fouled even faster.

For curator's windage problem you could file just over a sixteenth of an inch from one side of the lug on the rear sight ladder which engages with the base, and solder a sixteenth thick shim on the other side, moving the sight over. Or to keep the sight looking right, do about a third each of that by the shim, widening the slot in the base, and filing the notch over to the left.

Here is a target of Ezekiel Baker's, intended for publicity purposes and therefore unlikely to be pessimistic. It shows pretty convincingly how for individuals it would outclass the military smoothbore as militarily loaded, but that a rank of riflemen weren't intended to approach a line of ordinary infantry. If the 34 shots were fired without cleaning, it would explain the accuracy not equalling your eight inches. Those targets were for some unaccountable reason known as "the eunuchs", although there is no obvious resemblance to the intelligence Corps, who acquired the same nickname for not having any privates. I find it quite refreshing, though, that the targets depicted some kind of generic primitive, and neither an Imperial subject nor a uniformed employee of a competing firm.

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[bob208]

at one time you could get a baker rifle along with the sharps rifles dvd set.

[Col4570]

at one time you could get a baker rifle along with the sharps rifles dvd set.
An expensive DVD set when was the offer?,I wish I had seen it

[725]

Well done.

[aws1963]

Beautiful. A work of Art.

[histed]

Is it true that the Baker could be "tap loaded" without using the ramrod? Looked impressive in "Sharpe's Company."

[Wayne Smith]

Is it true that the Baker could be "tap loaded" without using the ramrod? Looked impressive in "Sharpe's Company."

According to the books they did it with undersized pistol balls, issued for just that purpose. Not accurate long range, but quick to load.

[histed]

Thanks Wayne. "Speedloader" - 19th Century style!

[Col4570]

Yes the Baker Rifle was an ideal Skirmishing weapon.A few Riflemen distributed amongst the Troopers using the issued Brown Bess for Formation warfare was an advantage since the Rifles accuracy could be employed to pick out selected targets.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

That is a just how the Rifle Brigade were intended to be used, distributed among line units. Marshal Soult in Spain commissioned a report which found that in a bad month in 1813 they killed some 500 French officers and eight generals.

Here is an account of Rifleman Plunket's exploit on the terrible retreat to Corunna in 1809, which was about as successful but grim as a winter retreat can be. He killed first General Colbert and then his trumpet-major. There were a cumulative total of 2000 generals in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, but Colbert was exceptional, recognised as one who was going places. The riflemen had mostly been in South America, Denmark and Sweden since their formation, and it is likely that Colbert though himself safely out of range.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xjouDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=%22tom+plunkett%22+rifle&source=bl&ots=pKj6_juNzC&sig=9hI8tRA7EflF-1qRTRLPlix_4c0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjy3ZOl4q_bAhUKQMAKHYh9Co0Q6AEIQjAI#v=on epage&q=%22tom%20plunkett%22%20rifle&f=false

[Col4570]

Thanks for that account,very interesting reading.A point I observe is the relationship between the Officer Class and the Troopers.Although skilled Marksmen the Troopers where kept in their place in society and expected to perform their duty despite the severity of the command.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

They were all kept in their place, although they were different sorts of places, and we must beware of falling too much for modern social-engineering critiques.

The officer class could sometimes get away with a great deal of nonchalance, or apparent nonchalance, about professional training. But much more even than in the present day, they were expected to be what I believe Richard Holmes called "almost incomprehensibly brave". The young officer who portrayed excessive concern for his health in moments of crisis bore the mark of Cain outside the army as well as in.

The "Sharpe" TV series was in one respect inaccurate. In the Napoleonic Wars it wasn't uncommon for officers to be promoted from the ranks, and for the most part well received in their new ranks. Complex stratagems to help the most popular pay their peacetime mess bills and expenses weren't uncommon, and there were cases of officers marrying sergeants' widows. Transfer to the Indian Army, where an officer could live on his pay, was always available. The officer corps was always far less the preserve of the aristocracy than many people believe, younger sons of minor landed gentry, who also struggled with expenses, being far more common. Anyway, in my very limited acquaintance with the aristocracy, they are far more likely to have personal friends among what used to be called the lower classes, than yuppies are.

Social exclusivity probably reached its peak in early Victorian times. But by the time of Rorke's Drift in 1879, nobody doubted that Colour-Sergeant Bourne, who is in contrast to the movie was a bright young man of 24, would have made lieutenant-colonel without the battle. In the First World War no wartime-enlisted or territorial officer rose to command a British division. But Sir William Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, a peacetime major-general and Commandant of the Staff College, had held every rank in the army from cavalry trooper. He had, however, been a regular trooper, which made all the difference.

Of course the only other officer I know to have served in every rank in his army was Marshal Bazaine, who did jail time and died in poverty after a commuted death sentence for the Franco-Prussian botch-up.

[toot]

a great BAKER gun,CUDDOS. and i rely enjoyed the history lesson!! a rely great narrative on BRITISH history. thanks BALLISTICS in SCOTLAND.

[Wayne Smith]

As to the loading of the Baker, J.N. George in "English Guns and Rifles", after extensively quoting Baker's "Remarks on Rifle Guns", he states "However, upon active service the actual rate of fire attained with the Baker Rifle would seem to have been about two shots per minute deliberate shooting (it being a generally accepted maxim that the rifle could fire one shot for the musket's three, when loaded with a patched bullet). For quick loading in an emergency the rifleman carried a pouch filled with made-up cartridges, with which his piece could be charged as rapidly as the musket, the bullet being loaded naked, after the paper cartridge case had been torn off, and pushed into the muzzle for wadding." (George, p.165)

That was the accepted procedure. Who knows what actually happened in combat? Sharpe could be right - in the press of immediate need the wadding might have been left out.

Anyway, the ball did rely on a greased patch for accuracy, and while mallets were initailly supplied they were withdrawn as "a serious incumbrance" to the men and were never used. As per Baker "If the ball fits airtight, as it should do, it will require two or three pushes with the rammer before the air can escape (through the vent) to get it in its proper place.
I do not recommend the ball, as I have before mentioned, to be bruised with the rammer, but pushed. If the ball has ragged edges, it will be much impeded, as well as thrown from it's true direction by the air, more so than when in its globular shape , in the front part of the ball."
(Quoted in English Guns and Rifles, George, p.164-165)

[Marlin356]

Have had one for 10 years built by the Rifle Shoppe. Have a custom mold for it that shoots a 1.2 ounce boolit like a Lee Maxi. Kills with great authority.

Netflix has on DVD the series Sharpes Rifles that shows Bakers in action incuding spiitting unpatcheded balls down the barrel for fast repeat shots. Normally the ball was hammered to start it. Each "chosen man" was issued a wooden mallet to start the ball.

Then there is the bayonet ! OMG !

222186

[Wayne Smith]

What I quoted above was written by Baker himself and was the users manual for the rifle. Mallets were initially issued but withdrawn and the rifle was loaded with a rod only. I don't expect the movies to get it right. When loaded with the paper cartridges it could be loaded as quickly as the musket but was no more accurate either.

[Marlin356]

There is a statue in England of riflemen carrying Bakers and the hammers are hanging from their belts.