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ca. 1880's 1
INCH BRASS CASE NORDENFELT CARTRIDGE – VERY NICE
COMPLETE EXAMPLE: Patented in
1873, the fundamental design of the Nordenfelt Gun is
credited to Swedish engineer Helge Palmcrantz, having
engineered a mechanism that would load and fire a
multiple barreled gun by simply moving a single lever
back and forth.
Thorsten Nordenfelt, a Swedish steel producer and banker
(and later weapons maker) was living in London at the
time and financed the production of Palerantz’s gun,
establishing the manufacturing plant in England and the
sales office in London. Nordenfelt, apparently every
bit the salesman as he was a captain of industry and
finance, arranged for numerous demonstrations in large
venues and exhibitions, securing contracts for the gun
from the Royal Navy and additional purchases were made
by armed forces of other countries.
In
its final form, the Nordenfelt Gun was produced in one,
two and four-barrel versions with a gravity feed hopper
mounted above the individual breech mechanisms. The
cartridges were loaded individually into separate
vertical sections of the hopper – one section for each
barrel. By pulling back on the operating lever, the
gunner simultaneously opened the breeches, and extracted
the fired cartridge cases. In turn, when he pushed the
lever forward, each chamber was reloaded and the bolts
returned into battery. A final push of the lever to its
furthest forward extension fired each barrel, one at a
time, in rapid succession. Repeating this sequence
maintained a substantial rate of fire in the form of a
volley gun as opposed to the continuous fire maintained
by a machine gun.
While the United States never directly purchased any of
the Nordenfelt Guns, as a result of the Spanish American
War, the US Navy wound up with at least two of these
guns. Two Cruisers being built in US shipyards for
South American countries, and nearing completion, were
commandeered by, and commissioned into, the US Navy to
meet its needs during the national emergency. Each of
these cruisers was already fitted with a Nordenfelt and
the Navy left them in place and the crews presumably put
the guns to good use.
With the development of the Maxim Gun the Nordenfelt Gun
was eclipsed, and Nordenfelt merged with the Maxim Gun
Company in 1888 to become Maxim Nordenfelt Guns and
Ammunition Company Limited.
Certainly one of the more historic crew served
multi-barrel firearms of the last quarter of the 19TH
Century, some of you may recall the scenes from the
movie “Khartoum” in which the Nordenfelt gun was
featured. Shown below is a copy of a period woodcut
depicting a Royal Navy gun crew bringing a four-barrel
Nordenfelt Gun into battery, depicting the gunner
operating the loading and firing lever and the gun
captain training the gun onto the target using the
elevation lever and traversing wheel.
This specimen of a 1 inch caliber Nordenfelt Gun
Cartridge is loaded in a brass case. Loaded
with a solid lead pointed projectile and measuring
5 ¼”
long, the cartridge weighs just over eleven ounces.
An impressive looking cartridge, particularly when
compared to a .56-56 Spencer Cartridge as shown below,
and one that would display nicely with a grouping
representing any number of conflicts that occurred
during the late 19TH Century.
(0418) $425
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