Muzzleloading semi-auto/full auto concepts.

[Bill Akins]

Member kwhi43@kc.rr.com's thread entitled "What Competition Ruger's (Old Army) look like" at this thread.....
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=461087

.....had this picture in it.....

So using that picture and my idea for a semi-auto muzzleloading revolver, I did a little work in photoshop to help visualize my idea.

Spring loaded, frame mounted, inertial firing pin rod, (pictured in white) won't reach percussion cap unless firing pin rod is firmly struck by long drop of hammer. Which means revolver may be somewhat safer with six chambers loaded. (Could it discharge cap if dropped muzzle down on concrete? Unknown at this time.) Upon the cylinder recoiling, Webley Fosbery style zig zag cylinder's slots ride on modified cylinder bolt lug on inside bottom of frame which turns cylinder halfway to next chamber.

Recoiling cylinder also pushes back on inertial firing pin rod which pushes against hammer and cocks it (using inertia like a short stroke M1 carbine piston), hammer stays cocked to the rear while trigger is still depressed. (Hammer to trigger lockwork would be modified to allow hammer to cock and hold while trigger is still depressed, then upon trigger release, the trigger would reset to be ready to be functioned again to drop hammer for next shot.)

As recoil spring decompresses and pushes cylinder firmly back toward barrel breech, zig zag cylinder slots riding on lug turn cylinder the final half way to the next chamber. Hammer has semi-automatically cocked for next shot, shooter releases trigger which then resets and then shooter functions trigger again to fire next shot. Nipple holes might possibly be enlarged too so cap could blow off nipple against firing pin rod to add to and aid force of cylinder recoil forcing the firing pin rod rearward for cocking the hammer. (Not sure if that would be necessary or not though.) No doubt the powder charge would have to be experimented with to get just the right load for it all to work.

Never been done before. A blowback cylinder semi-auto muzzleloading revolver.

Why?....Why not?

SASS competition approved of course....

Well, maybe as a side match under "Steampunk muzzleloading" category....preceding the semi-auto 1911's in the "Wild Bunch" category. It could happen .

It's all an academic design idea at this point, but can y'all visualize it better now?

Captain Nemo's character would like it or a civil war version of Hellboy's character would too. (Only Hellboy's version would have to be scaled up to .68 caliber and fire explosive balls )



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[Bill Akins]

My above post's pic showed a zig zag cylinder much shorter than a standard muzzleloading cylinder would be on either a Ruger Old Army or a '58 Remington.

In order for there to be enough blowback force to operate everything correctly, it MIGHT (not sure yet) be necessary to elongate the frame so that either the normal full length cylinder or even a longer than normal cylinder could be used so that more powder could be loaded in the chambers.

Compare the difference between my initial concept photo in 1st pic below, to possible elongated frame and longer cylinder version in 2nd below pic.

1st short cylinder concept rendering.

2nd enlongated frame with longer cylinder rendering.

Thoughts? (Besides the obvious "Why make a muzzleloader semi-auto?")




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[Hawg]

At least you're using a Ruger for mockups.

 

[Rifleman1776]

OK, it is a black powder, not a muzzle loading forum.
So, shoot me. But please do it with a true muzzle loading firearm.

 

[maillemaker]

I'm sure right about the time you get it all figured out the BATFE will **** you over again.

Steve

 

[Jo6pak]

THIS IS THE BEST THREAD THAT I'VE EVER READ ON THIS ENITRE SITE.

One of the best things about shootng and guns is the mechanics and inventiveness of the whole evolution of them.
It's the men, who through the ages, asked the same questions and had the same discussions. "What if we tried this?" "How can we modifity that?" "Let's take this part of George's design and add that part that Hank had on his gun."

Often modern firearms get a bit boring. Another polymer frames wizz-bang, another uber accurate computer designed super magnum, yet another new tactical rifle for tomorrow's "warfighter"....yada, yada, yada.
Sometimes you've got to look back at history, squint a little and see what you see.
Just wish I had a machine shop to try out all the stuff that I've imagined or heard of.

 

[Bill Akins]

Thanks Jo6pak, glad you appreciate the subject matter and history like I do.

In continuing this thread, I've got some harmonica rifle still pics never seen before until this thread. These "Mysterious Island (2005)" muzzleloading harmonica rifles are pertinent to this thread because I can see the concept capability of these PARTICULAR muzzleloading harmonica rifle's design being made semi-auto or full auto, and either being blowback, recoil or gas operated.

I scoured the internet intensely and was unable to find even just ONE picture of the harmonica rifles from the 2005 movie "Mysterious Island" (by Jules Verne). No still pics of them seem to exist online. So I downloaded the movie and studied/evaluated the rifles externally and visually and made some screen shots of them which I believe may be the only existing still pictures of them available online.

I've noticed some of my harmonica rifle pictures I've collected and uploaded at Webshots.com are being referenced by "External links, More pictures of a harmonica gun" at this Wikipedia link, which comes up at the top of any google search for "Harmonica rifles".....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonica_gun

Not sure who did that or if some search engine did it, but the good thing is that now that I've just added the "Mysterious Island (2005)" harmonica rifles to my same photo set at webshots.com, these only existing pics (to my knowledge and intense searching) of the "Mysterious Island (2005)" muzzleloading harmonica rifles will finally be available online at last and people won't have to download and screenshot the movie like I had to do.

First take a look at several more Jonathan Browning harmonica rifles as well as an underhammer harmonica rifle by an unknown maker and then we will compare them to the "Mysterious Island (2005)" harmonica rifles.

3 shot underhammer rifle.

3 shot underhammer rifle underside of receiver closeup.

Hand built copy of a Remington Style, Underhammer harmonica rifle. To my eyes, it appears that the front of the chambers are made to telescope into the breech ala the Nagant revolver. Forming although not a perfect gas seal, at least a better one than it would have had without it, and precluding lead and powder spitting at the harmonica block to breech junction. That alone would make it worthwhile even without a perfect gas seal.

Harmonica AIR gun. (Not pertinent to this particular thread, but I couldn't resist sharing it here as a rare curiosity.)

Jonathan Browning harmonica rifle action

Continued next thread due to six pics per post limit.....




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[Bill Akins]

Jonathan Browning harmonica rifle

Top view of Jonathan Browning harmonica rifle action

This is a Jonathan Browning REVOLVING rifle. But I'm posting it to show how unless my eyes deceive me, Jonathan Browning extended the front of the cylinder's chambers so that they would fit into the breech of the barrel ala the Nagant revolver. Which would make for a better gas seal exactly like I was contemplating with my harmonica rifle concept at this thread. Look very closely at the chamber fronts. I can only go as high as 600 pixels on my webshot.com uploads, so you may not be able to see it like I can on my hard drive since I can view it much larger than on webshots.com which are the pictures I post here. So if you can't tell, you'll have to trust me that those chamber fronts look extended to telescope a short distance inside the breech. Many decades before the Nagant revolver used the same concept with its cylinder's cartridge mouths pushing forward also telescoping into the breech to form a much better gas seal than the Jonathan Browning rifle could due to the Nagant's expansion of the brass against the chamber.
So although this isn't a harmonica rifle, it demonstrates an early attempt of pushing the chambers forward telescoping into the breech to avoid spitting lead, burnt powder spitting, and loss of compression at the cylinder to barrel gap. Not ideal of course without an expanding brass cartridge case, but an improvement over the normal barrel to cylinder or barrel to harmonica block gap.

You will note that most of the harmonica rifles you see are either exposed underhammer or overhammer versions. They all also mostly have percussion cap nipples that thread into the harmonica block chambers SIDEWAYS.

Now here's the "Mysterious Island (2005)" muzzleloading harmonica rifle screen shots I took.

Note the trigger guard. It is also a crank that manually rotates 360 degrees to cock the striker/hammer and advance the harmonica block. You can see the actor doing that in the 2nd pic following this one and the one after that also. Note also the cone shaped cutout in the receiver just forward of the harmonica block receiver cutout for supposedly loading a muzzleloading projectile.

Actor is just beginning to rotate the trigger guard which is a crank handle turning 360 degrees to advance harmonica block.

Now you can see the trigger guard further into the process of being rotated to advance the harmonica block. I will refer back to this following pic and the above pic when I discuss the lack of a trigger movement slot and the fact that the harmonica block did NOT advance when the trigger guard was rotated, making me wonder whether or not this is just a harmonica block cosmetic mockup using a real muzzleloading single shot only, or a single shot cartridge gun mocked up to look like a harmonica muzzleloader,.....or just an inoperative non firing movie prop.

Continued next post due to six pics per post limit....




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[Bill Akins]

All Captain Nemo's designed harmonica rifles being held in this pic.

A nice clear pic to study the barrel bands, sights, ramrod and left front of receiver.

Right side view.

Partial underside view.

Nice right side and partial upper view.

Nice upper view study of top back of receiver. Rear of receiver design almost looks modern doesn't it?

Did you notice what was different in design from most of the other harmonica rifles? One is a lack of an exposed hammer. Another is the very straight cylinder (like a skinny bolt) trigger, that does not appear to be able to move. I see no movement slot for it to move in the closeup photos of the actor turning the triggerguard crank handle to advance the harmonica block. That trigger makes me wonder if this is an operational muzzleloader, or just a movie prop. You could see flame and smoke come from them, but that could be computer generated. Also when the actor rotated the trigger guard SUPPOSEDLY to advance the harmonica block....the block did not advance. That's a dead giveaway that it may not be a real muzzleloader at all and just a non firing movie prop, or that it could be a single shot muzzleloader mocked up to look harmonica fed.

So I'm not sure if this is a movie prop or a real muzzleloader. I did a movie search and found who the armorer and asst armorer for the movie were, but have no links or way to contact them to find out more about the rifles. As I mentioned earlier, there is NOTHING online describing the operation of, or showing these rifles. Until now in this thread. So I have to extrapolate from what I can see, analyze and deduce.

Assuming that the rifle is real and not a prop, it could also be a single shot with a simple internal striker/hammer firing a single percussion cap so it could be filmed firing for the movie. And the rotating trigger guard supposedly to advance the harmonica block, as well as the harmonica block too, could all just be cosmetic and inoperative. The trigger looking like it is screwed into the bottom of the receiver, and has no movement slot, makes me lean towards it being an inoperative movie prop. But let's analyze its design as if it were real.


Continued next post due to six pics per post limit.



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[Bill Akins]

The rotating trigger guard is historically reminiscent of the Furguson flintlock rifle's rotating (and chamber opening) trigger guard.....

There could be a gear or other internal function that when the Mysterious Island harmonica rifle's trigger guard is rotated, it cocks the internal striker/hammer and also advances the harmonica block. That in itself is an ingenious design concept....movie prop or not.

You will notice on the right side of the receiver forward of the harmonica block cutout, there appears to be a conical shaped hole that looks like the hole on a muzzleloading revolver's receiver that gives you room to put a conical or ball projectile into the chamber. See it? But....there is no pivoting ramrod. Only a standard type long ramrod under the barrel. I am wondering, since the ball or conical needs to be tightly rammed into the harmonica block chamber to avoid it moving forward or falling out due to recoil, would that standard type ramrod be able to exert enough force on the projectile to ram it into the chamber tightly enough to shave a ring of lead?

It appears that one would load a projectile into that cutout on the receiver, then place the ramrod down the barrel and ram the ball or conical projectile into one of the harmonica block chambers, advance the harmonica block, and ram the next projectile into the next chamber. But using a standard type ramrod and ramming down the barrel. See what I mean?

But the beauty of this real or prop design, is that it has an internal hammer, and easily advancing harmonica block which could be modified to blowback, recoil or gas operation, or a combination thereof to preclude having to manually rotate the trigger guard to cock the striker/hammer and to advance the harmonica block. It has a pleasing streamlined receiver looking modern on the rear of the receiver area, but still looking very Victorian, Jules Vernian, "Steampunk". Very appealing.

The blowback operation concept I've already discussed much earlier in this thread both for a rifle and revolving handgun using either a zig zag TYPE Webley Fosbery cylinder or harmonica block. The cylinder or harmonica block literally blows back upon firing compressing a spring, cocking the hammer and the zig zag slots would advance the cylinder or harmonica block.

But the Mysterious Island rifle could also be modified to gas operation wherein the harmonica block never moved rearward, but either through direct impingement of gas, or by a piston, the hammer is cocked and the cylinder is advanced. The gas port could be adjustable so that the system would still operate with different powder charge loads. Using modern black powder substitutes to avoid standard black powder fouling. There also wouldn't be an issue of having to have a heavy enough charge to move the weight of the harmonica block to the rear as in my blowback conceptualization.

It could also be modified to use recoil. A recoiling barrel could do the above too. Just like on the browning rifle shotgun and machinegun. The only disadvantage of using a recoiling barrel, is that you can't adjust to let more gas in for operating using reduced charges like you could on a gas operated design. So with a recoiling barrel operated design, you'd have less options with your powder charge load. The advantage of recoiling barrel vs gas operation would be the omission of any gas piston assembly and its weight. But....you could do direct gas impingement using a tube without a piston just like on the French MAS 49/56 and M16/AR15 rifles. For these reasons I believe the modified version concept of the semi-auto or full auto Mysterious Island harmonica rifles, should most obviously be a gas operated one. For THAT particular rifle.

I picture two versions. One would look very much like the movie rifle. Only it operates semi-automatically and has a 10 rd harmonica block. Horizontal harmonica block is excellent for prone shooting. Nothing sticking downward.

The other would be tripod mounted with spade grips or a single pistol grip.
It would have anywhere from a 50 to 100 rd harmonica block supported by struts the harmonica block rests on as it sits in the gun and feeds. I see it with and without a water jacket. I see extra harmonica blocks ready to put in the weapon when the first one is empty. I see it as semi-auto or full auto.




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[Bill Akins]

Here's the link to the section of the movie I cropped of the actor rotating the trigger guard that recocks the striker/hammer and advances the harmonica block on the "Mysterious Island (2005)" movie harmonica rifle, so you can see the actual moving footage of how it is supposed to work......

http://good-times.webshots.com/video/3027317030099763970MVUDIT

But......I noticed that when he rotated the trigger guard that the harmonica block did not advance. There was the same number of holes sticking out on the harmonica both before and AFTER he rotated the trigger guard. This is the same section of video that I took the still screenshots from showing the triggerguard rotating. Immediately after rotating the trigger guard, the actor was accosted by the bad pirate (his brother) and when the good guy whipped around getting the drop on his bad pirate brother, (as you can see in the still pic showing the ramrod and full length of the barrel with bands and sights), you can see that even though he had rotated the trigger guard, the harmonica block had not moved and there was still the same number of holes sticking out on the block as there had been before he rotated the triggerguard. Which further makes me think it may be a single shot dressed up to look like a harmonica rifle, or else an inoperative movie prop and they added the smoke and flash with CG. But just not sure. All this is from visual observation only.

 

[pvt.Long]

The harmonica gun is a very interesting rifle. Has any one ever thought about working with the revolving rifles as a platform? Its a sound proven design

 

[4V50 Gary]

The Colt Root 1855 Revolving rifle was the first weapon issued to Berdan's Sharpshooters. I'm thinking that the gas can be tapped to an operating rod to push the hammer (and rotate the cylinder) back.

 

[Rachen]

The Colt Root 1855 Revolving rifle was the first weapon issued to Berdan's Sharpshooters. I'm thinking that the gas can be tapped to an operating rod to push the hammer (and rotate the cylinder) back.

A fella' named Stoner had the same thought one night in a farmhouse sometime in the 40s.

 

[Jo6pak]

OK, so after reading thru all the "developments" in this thread, I came up with another idea. Sorry, I have no drawing skills, or auto-cad to give visuals, but I'll try to explain the best I can.

Take the harmonica rifle design concept and take it into the 'crew-served muzzle loading medium machine gun"
(admittedly, I'm leaving out the fouling properties of BP, and probably a whole plethora of other issues, but hear me out)
Also, I'm using several terms very loosely to aid my explaination, don't hammer me if the terms aren't "technically" correct

Here goes, I hope this makes at least a little sense to someone
Take the harmonica rifle as a starting point, but rotate the "magazine" to the 12 o'clock position so it drops down, rather than moving side to side. Possibly even at a 45 degree angle, moving from 10 o'clock to 4 o'clock.

Either way, now add a reciprocating action similar to that of the Browning 1895 "Potato digger" MG. (I believe one of Mr. Browning's earliest autoloaders was a modified Winchester rifle using a gas operated lever-action)

The op. rod of the "digger" actuates a lever which runs along the "zig-zag" grooves in the "magazine." The action of the op. rod would push the "magazine" into it's next firing position. The action could possibly be aided by tipping to magazine forward, making it a parallelagram with angled chambers, instead of a rectangle. (think of the angle that .22 cartridges sit in a straight pistol mag.)

One variation could be to use a revolving cylinder instead of a box style harmonica "magazine"

Ignition would be using a Maynard type primer strip which would be advanced when the hammer was reset.

Mount it on a tripod. Crew it with a gunner to aim and fire it, and an assistant gunner who would reload the "magazines" similar to the Japanese Type 92.

Am I crazy?

 

[Bill Akins]

Pvt.Long wrote:
The harmonica gun is a very interesting rifle. Has any one ever thought about working with the revolving rifles as a platform? Its a sound proven design.

4V50 Gary wrote:
The Colt Root 1855 Revolving rifle was the first weapon issued to Berdan's Sharpshooters. I'm thinking that the gas can be tapped to an operating rod to push the hammer (and rotate the cylinder) back.

Pvt. Long, when I was looking at using a modified muzzleloading Webley Fosbery style zig zag cylinder on a modified muzzleloading revolving handgun (as seen earlier in this thread), I also considered a revolving rifle such as the 1858 Remington carbine/rifle for using the same blowback technique to recock the hammer and advance the cylinder as seen in this below photoshop mockup I made that could easily transfer the same system of operation to the 1858 Remington carbine/rifle.....

But the zig zag cylinder blowback system (as with using a recoiling barrel system) also suffers from the same problem of only working when the correct powder charge load would be used to have enough force to operate the system. It could work, but you wouldn't have a lot of options for different powder charges and would have to stick to whatever charge was sufficient enough power to operate the system. But still, that doesn't mean I might not try making that blowback zig zag cylinder system on a modified 1858 Remington muzzleloading revolving handgun. It sure would be simple and less complicated than a gas powered system.

But 4V50 Gary has a good idea too, and one that has been around since Browning, Pederson and Garand and actually even before them. And a gas powered system to cock the hammer and rotate the cylinder, would allow you to have a gas adjustment where you could let more or less gas into the system so that it would operate with a variety of different grain powder charges, giving you a lot more options in powder charge loading. Of course you would have to use less fouling black powder substitute powders almost exclusively instead of using the more fouling standard black powder.

So either cylinder or harmonica block blowback, or a gas operated muzzleloading system should work for either a revolving cylinder or a harmonica block. But, with a revolving cylinder you have limitations on how many chambers you can have in the cylinder without it becoming a big circular bulky beast of a cylinder. And remember, the middle of the cylinder is wasted space because all your chambers are around the outside perimeter of the circle. Which is why I believe a horizontal harmonica block would hold more rounds with no circular bulk and no wasted space as you would have in the unused middle of a large cylinder.

Case in point, look at this 15 shot muzzleloading Hall revolving rifle below.....

Now compare the Hall revolving rifle's bulky profile to these two slimmer profile harmonica rifles...

And here's a close up pic of the bulky 15 shot Hall cylinder for the same above Hall revolving rifle. Note the huge amount of wasted space in the middle of the cylinder circle. (It would seem to make more practical sense to me, and to eliminate wasted space inside that circle, to instead just straighten out that cylinder into a flat harmonica block)......

See all that wasted space in the middle of the cylinder that isn't used because the chambers are all on the outside perimeter of the circle?
So all that other space to get to the chambers on the outside of the circle, is just wasted space adding to bulk. Whereas a flat, horizontal harmonica block wastes no space. Plus that large cylinder is obviously not easily removable because it is a closed circle and would not be as easy nor as fast to remove and insert a new cylinder as it would be to push another harmonica block into an action as the other harmonica block went out the other side. Plus even though this bulky cylinder holds 15 chambers, a harmonica block could hold many more chambers and with much less bulk because it is to the side and doesn't require a larger circle to have more chambers with wasted space in the middle of the circle as a revolving cylinder would.

For a semi-auto muzzleloading revolving handgun, not requiring a high capacity of shots, a cylinder would be okay, but for a muzzleloading rifle or one mounted on a tripod with wanting to utilize a large muzzleloading ammunition feeding device, the harmonica block would be the best choice I believe.



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[Chris_B]

If nothing else, this thread is an education! That Czech single-shot is a handsome pistol by the way. I wonder if any of them made it over here...

Bill, once you make the semi-BP gun, you need to film it. Of course, there will be so much smoke once you start firing, nobody will see anything

 

[Bill Akins]

Jo6pak wrote:
Take the harmonica rifle design concept and take it into the 'crew-served muzzle loading medium machine gun".

The "crew served muzzleloading medium machine gun" concept you mentioned, is exactly what I too visualized for a tripod mounted, harmonica block, horizontally fed, muzzleloader.

Jo6pak wrote:
Here goes, I hope this makes at least a little sense to someone
Take the harmonica rifle as a starting point, but rotate the "magazine" to the 12 o'clock position so it drops down, rather than moving side to side. Possibly even at a 45 degree angle, moving from 10 o'clock to 4 o'clock.

I hear you Jo, using gravity to help drop (advance to next chamber) the harmonica block would aid the operating system, but I see several problems with using it vertically or at an angle as you described. Either completely vertically or at an angle, the harmonica block is going to drop downward as it advances to the next chamber. If the harmonica block is long enough to hold many chambers as I visualize, it would eventually hit the ground stopping its downward travel and the system from operating. So you could only use it from say for example, an anti-aircraft tripod that was tall enough for the harmonica block to not hit the ground before it expended all its chambers.
Also, if hung vertically or at an angle, all the full weight of the harmonica block would be on the lug engaging the zig zag slots on the harmonica block.

Whereas if a horizontal harmonica block was supported by horizontal supports with rollers, those support plate rollers would lessen the weight of the harmonica block and by the harmonica block rolling over them.....aid it in feeding into the weapon's receiver and the full weight of the harmonica block would never be fully borne by the lug engaging the zig zag slots. Kind of like a horizontal conveyor roller system supporting the harmonica block feeding into the receiver and also on the other side as the harmonica block exits. This would lessen the cantilevered weight on the lug engaging the zig zag slots, lessen weight on the receiver and thereby aid the action and make it smoother too.

Visualize the full weight of a vertical or angle fed 50 to 100 chamber harmonica block being completely just supported by the lug which engages the zig zag slots. Also visualize the vertically or angle fed harmonica block hitting the ground before it was supposed to. Not an optimum situation.

Instead visualize a horizontal harmonica block being supported on both sides of the muzzleloader's receiver by a supporting system consisting of angled braces holding horizontal plates with rollers that support the weight of the harmonica block as it rolls along the rollers into the muzzleloader's receiver and another horizontal plate with rollers is also on the other side of the receiver helping roll out the harmonica block and support its weight as it exits the weapon. Thereby no cantilevered weight stress problems.

Jo6pak wrote:
Either way, now add a reciprocating action similar to that of the Browning 1895 "Potato digger" MG. (I believe one of Mr. Browning's earliest autoloaders was a modified Winchester rifle using a gas operated lever-action)

Yes, for his first prototype John Browning used a gas catching muzzle cup on the end of the barrel to catch the muzzle blast which actuated a lever on the front of the barrel which had a strut which went back to operate the formerly manually operated Winchester action. For his second prototype he tapped the gas into a cylinder and used a gas piston which was and is the usually used (but not always) predominant system used in semi-auto rifles and machine guns today. As in these below scanned photos and description from my well tattered book "Smith's Small Arms Of The World".....

and a description of the above rifle's operation also from my "Smith's Small Arms Of The World"......

By the way, one of the German semi-automatic rifles from WW2 used the same (many decades done before by Browning), gas trapping cup on the end of the barrel to actuate the action. If memory serves me, I think it was the Walther rifle, but can't precisely remember the name for sure.

Jo6pak wrote:
The op. rod of the "digger" actuates a lever which runs along the "zig-zag" grooves in the "magazine." (added by Bill..."The harmonica block")
The action of the op. rod would push the "magazine" into it's next firing position.

Good idea Jo. So instead of using blowback forces to blow the muzzleloading harmonica block (or the cylinder in a revolving handgun) rearward, causing the lug to travel in the zig zag slots, you suggest instead using a gas operated lever to actuate that. Your idea also reminds me of a feed pawl advancing the cartridges in a belt fed machine gun. I like your idea Jo but I think it would work better with a horizontally fed harmonica block rather than a vertically fed one for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Also if we used gas operation, the zig zag slots on the harmonica block would be unnecessary since the harmonica block wouldn't have to blowback to advance. The gas system could actuate an internal receiver gear which advanced the harmonica block rack gear without the harmonica block having to move rearward at all. Which would be great.

There could be a straight gear rack running full length the bottom of the harmonica block, that engaged a internal receiver gear that was actuated by the movement of a gas piston. Kind of like a rack and pinion gear system on a car. No zig zag slots or harmonica block rearward movement necessary to advance to the next chamber. All done by a gas piston or direct gas impingement against an internal gear that engages the gear rack on the bottom or top of the harmonica block. Hmmm, I'm deviating a bit from your original idea of a piston actuating the zig zag slots, but your description is causing me to get some good and even better ideas here than I had before Jo. Thanks!

Jo6pack wrote:
The action could possibly be aided by tipping the magazine forward, making it a parallelagram with angled chambers, instead of a rectangle. (think of the angle that .22 cartridges sit in a straight pistol mag.)

I can visualize what you are describing about the chambers being bored at an angle in the straight rectangular harmonica block Jo, but could you please explain a bit more how that would aid the action? I'm having trouble tracking on visualizing what you are talking about there and what the purpose of those angle bored cylinders would be for.

Jo6pak wrote:
One variation could be to use a revolving cylinder instead of a box style harmonica "magazine"

I think that would be okay for a revolving muzzleloading handgun that I showed my idea for a blowback zig zag cylinder earlier in this thread, but for the same bulk and lack of chamber capacity I mentioned earlier in this post, I think the rectangular harmonica block would be a better choice for a high capacity muzzleloading rifle or tripod mounted high capacity full auto muzzleloader.

Jo6pak wrote:
Ignition would be using a Maynard type primer strip which would be advanced when the hammer was reset.

I thought about using a Maynard tape primer too in these semi-auto/full auto concepts for muzzleloaders Jo. But I remember as a kid using paper roll cap guns a lot. I remember that the paper roll did not always advance under the hammer as it should have and I had to pull the roll up to get a "cap" dot under the hammer. I also remember the cap roll chamber the roll of "caps" sat in and the pawl it had to push up on the paper roll when the hammer was cocked. That takes up a lot of space and complicates the action when a percussion cap on a nipple takes up very little space by comparison and you don't have to worry about the percussion cap not advancing in line with the chamber like you would with a Maynard roll cap dot system.

Jo6pak wrote:
Mount it on a tripod. Crew it with a gunner to aim and fire it, and an assistant gunner who would reload the "magazines" (added by Bill..."harmonica block") similar to the Japanese Type 92.

Exactly what I had in mind Jo. Just like a tray fed Hotchkiss (which the Japanese copied). We think a lot alike. See below pic of tray fed Hotchkiss which the Japanese type 92 used the same action of. Now just replace that cartridge holding tray with a muzzleloading, percussion cap fired, primitive ignition system, single piece, harmonica block. Note the droop of the cartridge tray on the Hotchkiss caused by cantilevered weight of the tray. That's why I'd put horizontal plates with roller supports on either side of the receiver on the harmonica block muzzleloader.

Jo6pak wrote:
Am I crazy?

No, you are not crazy at all Jo. Quite the opposite. You have an inventive mind and are capable of visualizing design concepts in your head.

Keep those ideas coming!




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[Bill Akins]

Chris B wrote:
If nothing else, this thread is an education! That Czech single-shot is a handsome pistol by the way. I wonder if any of them made it over here.

Thanks Chris, it's gratifying to know I've helped educate some people on weapon history. I try . I also enjoy hearing other members ideas and concepts on rapid fire muzzleloaders.

To my knowledge that modern Czech made vertical harmonica block pistol was not made in the U.S. and that the Czech's mainly made it for export to countries where they cannot have cartridge handguns like England. There was a much earlier made harmonica pistol that the main differences between it and that Czech one is the Czech pistol used a horizontal harmonica block that was separate from the barrel, whereas the earlier pistol used a vertical harmonica block that had the barrels being integral with the harmonica block. That pistol was the German pinfire "Schuler Reform" pistol and here's a couple of pics of it....

Chris B wrote:
Bill, once you make the semi-BP gun, you need to film it. Of course, there will be so much smoke once you start firing, nobody will see anything

Chris, if I ever built a semi-auto muzzleloader, I'd use non smoking black powder substitute. You can get the substitute black powder where it does not smoke if you want, or they have the versions that do smoke if you prefer.
Naturally for this application I'd buy the non smoke making black powder substitute. The less smoke and fouling I could avoid in a muzzleloading semi or full auto the better.


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[pvt.Long]

the thing with Bp gus is that the loading system is so delicate with the percussion caps, flintlocks and maynard tape along with the fouling that will gunk up the gun. Has any one thought about weapons that are converted to take cartridges? that would make the loading process so much easier. like getting a 1858 revolving rifle with converted cylinder, or trying a gun with the zigzag converted to cartridges? (I would personally love to see a converted le mat and a walker but thatss just me)