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Post by Marthor on Oct 17, 2021 17:57:37 GMT
The Flintlock Rifle in this video review was a recent acquisition and I just recently enjoyed learning more history about Flintlocks and specifically the French and Indian War. I do costuming and was working on a Daniel Boone outfit... Since I was talking about industry of the era, I wanted to add what I learned about Flintlocks. The entire Flintlock rifle would be made by a gunsmith (lock, stock and barrel). The gunsmith would usually ask the customer how many shots they wanted per pound of lead. Forty-four (44) caliber or 0.44 inches diameter lead ball in particular was popular because it came out to exactly 50 shots per pound of lead. The gunsmith would provide a mould with the gun so that you could cast your own lead round balls that would fit with the gun. In the Mel Gibson movie "The Patriot" it shows him melting down his son's lead soldiers to cast his own ammo. Daniel Boone's flintlock rifle had the name "old tick licker" because he would say he could shoot a tick off the butt of an animal without damaging the hide. Daniel Boone's flintlock was 44 caliber also. My Flintlock in the video is 50 caliber which I chose to match my Flintlock pirate pistol which I already have and for standardization to have the same ammo a 50 caliber can be used with either. In the Revolutioary War, the Americans were outmatched in almost everything with less Navy, less artillery, less cavalry, less infantry but one thing they did have more of was Flintlock rifles. The British and American regular infantry had muskets with bayonets. The Americans took all their best Marksman with Flintlock rifles and put them into an elite unit called Morgan's Rifleman. They had a much longer effective range and where a decisive advantage in the American victory battles of Saratoga and Cowpens. Since Morgan's Rifleman were filled with many Frontiermen who brought their own rifles there was a large variety of caliber of ammo. No standardization. The Americans had no standard uniform either especially at the start of the war. General George Washington issued an order 1776 that his field grade officers would wear a pink feather or ribbon (aka cockade) in their hat to identify themselves. Company Grade Officer Captains were ordered to wear a white cockade in their hat, Etc. In the movie The Patriot you can also see the same canteen that I showed in the video and the main villain in the movie was a British Cavalry officer, Col Tavington, with a sabre.
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Post by Marthor on Oct 18, 2021 0:35:50 GMT
Edelweiss, Thanks for this link on the Potter Sabre. This is an outstanding article and thoroughly enjoyable read. I like this quote in particular. Continental Major Richard Call writing to Governor Thomas Jefferson of Virginia about the Potter Sabre "... the sword is the most destructive and almost only necessary weapon a Dragoon carries." The article is chocked full of history details. The metal lead statue of King George III was torn down in New York City to make lead musket balls for the Rebel Army. Musket balls were bigger caliber by the way perhaps 66 caliber. Without rifling inside the barrel they loaded faster, but were less accurate. James Potter was a Loyalist producing the sabres for the British and a surving records of 1590 being ordered over 3 years. That's not what I would call mass production and is a good feel for an upper limit even the most advanced British Empire could do at the time. The parts were not standardized and the article cited an employment advertisement for 3 additional filers. Filers would make parts fit by doing necessary filing until it fit. The potter Sabre if you disassembled a few of them, switched parts around, you most likely wouldn't be able to reassemble it with the mismatched parts. Mass production wasn't achieved until the Industrial Revolution after the Civil War. Mass production is in million, not thousand. Parts standardization didn't really reach an Apex until Henry Ford's moving assembly line in 1913. The expectation was any part out of the supply bin would fit on the car without any additional work on the part. Henry Ford's parts were interchangeable. I like how the Continental troops would prize getting a Potter Sabre off the battlefield even moreso than WWII GI's would prize getting a Luger. The Continentals needed them out of necessity and their main source of getting quality Sabres was taking them from the British. The article says Knox captured 200 Potter Sabres in a raid on the armory at Yorktown. I can imagine those arriving at Yorktown by boat and being placed in the vault. I like to imagine what Knox raid looked like and when they busted open the door and got those. It is eye opening to realize how much the Revolution was fought by Colonial Rebels vs Colonial Loyalist. It wasn't just British troops (and Hessian mercs) being shipped in from Europe. The British forces were largely filled out by colonists already here who took up arms for the Crown to fight against the Rebels. James Potter was such a Loyalist in New York City. After losing the war, James Potter even left America rather than stay in the Independent New Nation. Love history.
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Post by Marthor on Oct 18, 2021 14:29:18 GMT
Here's three swords I own that I mentioned earlier. See the external nut construction is the same as your saber. They do a semi decent job of blending it to hide it but it is an external nut. I wouldn't give the Atlanta Cutlery guy too much of a hard time many of their sabers like their Civil War era sabers are peened and he may have been confused. I haven't heard back yet from KOA, but I got a ticket opened. The nut in your picture here is identical, so this proves it is a threaded nut and at most has a superficial peen on top of the nut. After I hear back from KOA, I have decided to add a comment to the video description to clarify exactly rather than redo it. Also, I had my OP pictures linked to Facebook. This has happened to me in the past where after a few days Facebook does something to scramble their links and picture links break. I don't blame Facebook for doing this because they don't want to be a picture hosting site for other sites. I signed up for a new Imgur account today and re-hosted the OP pics. Also in the post with the Neumann book, I re-hosted those pics on Imgur as well. There were still a few more pictures of the peen close-up and the one with the pencil are still working at the moment but in a few days Facebook will probably break those links too and I'm not going to re-host those two pictures. Those two are water under the bridge. I'll still let you know what I get back from KOA.
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Post by nddave on Oct 18, 2021 14:35:15 GMT
Here's three swords I own that I mentioned earlier. See the external nut construction is the same as your saber. They do a semi decent job of blending it to hide it but it is an external nut. I wouldn't give the Atlanta Cutlery guy too much of a hard time many of their sabers like their Civil War era sabers are peened and he may have been confused. I haven't heard back yet from KOA, but I got a ticket opened. The nut in your picture here is identical, so this proves it is a threaded nut and at most has a superficial peen on top of the nut. After I hear back from KOA, I have decided to add a comment to the video description to clarify exactly rather than redo it. Also, I had my OP pictures linked to Facebook. This has happened to me in the past where after a few days Facebook does something to scramble their links and picture links break. I don't blame Facebook for doing this because they don't want to be a picture hosting site for other sites. I signed up for a new Imgur account today and re-hosted the OP pics. Also in the post with the Neumann book, I re-hosted those pics on Imgur as well. There were still a few more pictures of the peen close-up and the one with the pencil are still working at the moment but in a few days Facebook will probably break those links too and I'm not going to re-host those two pictures. Those two are water under the bridge. I'll still let you know what I get back from KOA. Yea it's not an end all be all with the video thing, sometimes things get mixed up. Also structurally the external nuts are nothing to worry about in regards to cutting and usage, they hold up and are full tang up to the threading. I've never had a Windlass external nut fail me when using those three swords. Plus if you're ever interested in customization of the sword the external nut make such a job that much easier.
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Post by Marthor on Oct 18, 2021 15:33:08 GMT
Email reply from KOA received...
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Post by Marthor on Oct 19, 2021 15:16:51 GMT
www.warhistoryonline.com/history/78-year-old-samuel-whittemore.htmlI just watched American Heros Channel (AHC) Revolutionary War series episode 1. The neatest thing about this show is it is highlighting a lot of lesser known heroes. Samuel Whittemore was 78 years old living in the town of Menotomy near Lexington. He was a British Veteran serving the Dragoons in the French and Indian War and also Pontiac's Rebellion. He had taken a French Sabre as a souvenir from the French and Indian War. He would say he came by the Sabre after the Frenchman died suddenly. At Lexington, 700 British troops met a few dozen rebels. Somebody fired a first shot. Eight (8) Americans were killed in a musket volley and the rest retreated. Next, the 700 British Troops arrived at Concord where they met 2000 Rebels. The Rebels won the skirmish and caused the British to retreat back toward Boston. The Americans followed them and continued to press in. The battle moved to Menotomy where the British were said to have received most of their casualties. 78-years-old Samuel Whittemore joined the rebels at Menotomy with his personal musket, both of his dueling pistols and his souvenir French Sabre on his belt. Samuel Whittemore shot a British soldier with his musket. He shot two more with his dueling pistols. Then he drew his French Sabre Souvenir and hacked away with that. A British Soldier shot him and then a few angry British soldiers together bayonet stabbed him perhaps a dozen times. As the British continued to withdraw, Samuel Whittemore was found gruesomely bloodied still trying to reload his musket. He was taken to the town doctor who declared it a waste of time to work on him because his wounds were too severe. His family persuaded the doctor to dress his wounds anyway and took him home to die. He didn't die though and recovered with a badly scarred body and still lived 20 more years. Samuel Whittemore's Sabre in the show appears to be this same American Revolution Sabre made by Windlass. The Sabre is first shown in the show on his mantle above the fireplace. The sheath is a match too. I looked at Atlanta Cutlery website and they have reviews of this Sabre dating back to 2010. This AHC TV series was aired in 2014. I think this sword was used by them for the show. Samuel Whittemore is known as the "oldest" Patriot of the American Revolution. I would add he was probably the first American to use a Sabre in battle as well.
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Post by dok646 on Jun 28, 2022 22:54:15 GMT
Email reply from KOA received... I super appreciate this. Should make it easier to do that leather wrap I'd wanted on the handle and bluing the handguard... I bought his sword last year from Atlanta cutlery. Not impressed with their sharpening job and I think this blade seriously need a more significant distal taper. I chose this one over the Universal version because of the higher carbon blade but the non tapered blade, to me, is cumbersome, not as well balanced as it should be, but I do feel like properly sharpened it could easily remove limbs from a body. I'd like it to have a 6-9in back-edge too, and not so rounded a point.
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