| Ferguson Rifle | |
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British Army manual for the Ferguson rifle |
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| Type | Rifle |
| Place of origin | Great Britain |
| Service history | |
| In service | British Army 1776 |
| Used by | UK |
| Wars | American Revolutionary War |
| Production history | |
| Designed | 1770 |
| Produced | 1776-1778 |
| Number built | 100 only were produced |
| Variants | ? |
| Specifications | |
| Weight | 7.5 lbs, 3.5 kg |
| Length | various: 48 to 60in. |
| Barrel length | ? |
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| Cartridge | .615 in |
| Caliber | .650 in |
| Action | See Text |
| Rate of fire | 7 rounds a minute |
| Muzzle velocity | Variable |
| Effective range | 200 and 300 yard sights on the Ordnance Rifle |
| Feed system | Breech loaded |
The Ferguson rifle was one of the first breech loading rifles to be widely tested by the British military. Other breech loaders were experimented with in various commands, including earlier versions of the Ordnance rifle by Patrick Ferguson when he was in the "Fever Islands" (Caribbean). It was often misreported by historians to be a .65 (.648 true) caliber rifle. However, it actually used a standard British carbine ball of .615 caliber. The use of an oversized ball contributed to some of the erroneous claims of fouling and inaccuracy. The Ferguson Ordnance Rifle was used by the British Army in the American Revolutionary War only at the battle of Saratoga (1777). Its superior firepower was unappreciated at the time because it was too expensive, the Crown treasury was too low, the Brown Bess musket was too new (only 10 years into its 50-year lifespan) and the gunsmiths of England could not produce them fast enough for mass deployment during the American War. As such, Ferguson only ordered 1000 rifles to be made. The combined gunsmiths of England could produce 500 muskets a month, but the 4 gunsmiths making Ferguson's Ordnance Rifle could not make 100 in 6 months at 4 times the cost per arm of a musket.
Contents |
The breech of the weapon is closed by 11 starting threads on a tapered screw, and the trigger guard serves as the crank to rotate it. One complete turn dropped the screw low enough to drop a round ball into the exposed breech followed by a slight overcharge of powder which was then sheared to the proper charge by the screw as it closed the breech. Since the weapon was loaded from the breech, rather than from the muzzle, it had an amazingly high rate of fire for its day, and in capable hands fired six to ten rounds per minute.
The action was adapted from the earlier 1720 Isaac de la Chaumette design by Major Patrick Ferguson (1744-1780), who redesigned it around 1770. He received an English patent in December of 1776 (number 1139) on details of the design.
Roughly one hundred of the Ordnance rifles were manufactured by four British gun firms, Durs Egg being the most notable, and issued to Ferguson's unit when its members were drawn from numerous light infantry units in General Howe's army. The largest battle in which the rifles were used was the Battle of Brandywine, in which Ferguson was wounded. While he recuperated, his Experimental Rifle Corps was subsequently disbanded. This was in no way due to "excessive losses" or any political machinations. The unit was an experiment; the men were always slated to return to their original units. If the unit was a failure as reported by some historians, why was Ferguson successful in getting General Clinton to agree to double the size of his experimental corps? Sadly, once Ferguson took a musket ball in the right elbow his chances of surviving, let alone returning to the field, did not look good, and the experiment of the charismatic young officer was ended.
Ferguson's men went back to the light infantry units they had originally come from, and his rifles were eventually replaced with the standard Short Land Pattern musket. Some historians report the surviving rifles were apparently put in storage in New York. But as most surviving Ferguson Ordnance Rifles known to exist in the U.S. today were war booty taken North during the American Civil War, questions remain as to any possible deployment of Ferguson Rifles in the Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution.
The two main reasons that Ferguson rifles were not used by the rest of the army:
However, despite an unsubstantiated claim that one of the actions was found at the battle site of Kings Mountain, North Carolina, where Ferguson was killed in action, the only piece of a Ferguson ever found in America from a gun used in action is a trigger guard found in excavations of a British army camp in New York City. The only association the Ferguson rifle has with the Battle of King's Mountain is that Patrick Ferguson was there.
Experience with early modern replicas, made before the proper screw and thread pitch of the breechblock were rediscovered, seemed to indicate that while reloading was rapid, it seemed to be necessary to first lubricate the breech screw (originally with a mixture of beeswax and tallow) or else the (replica) rifle would foul so much that it needed cleaning after three or four shots. However, through the research efforts of DeWitt Bailey and others, the properly made reproduction Ferguson rifle, made according to Patrick Ferguson's specifications of the 1770s, can fire beyond sixty shots.
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