Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian, I am here today at the Rock Island Auction House.
I'm taking a look at some of the guns that they are going to be selling
in their February of 2016 Regional Auction.
And what I have here is technically a pistol, sort of, it's sort of a takedown pistol.
This was made in the UK by the Greener Company,
and this is technically called a Greener's Humane Horse Killer, Mark I*.
And when you assemble it, it looks like this.
We'll take a closer look at this in just a minute.
Now, as long as humans have been domesticating animals,
there has been a need to kill them from time to time.
Whether that be for slaughter and eating,
or because simply an animal has been hurt to the point that it can't heal, can't survive,
and you just want a way to humanely put it out of its misery.
Well, that's what Greener came up with this device for.
Now ... really to this day there are two main types of tools to do this.
One is called the free bullet killer, which is what we have here,
and the other is known as a captive bolt.
So if you watched "No Country for Old Men" for example,
you saw a captive bolt killing device being used.
And basically that uses a captive bolt that can only travel a few inches,
and a compressed-air or other power charge.
And it just drives the bolt into an animal's brain, kills it, and then retracts it.
So the advantage to those things is that there isn't any projectile flying around,
there's not a lot of potential danger to anyone else around.
Unless you let Anton what's-his-name get really close to you.
The free bullet ones are simpler, they're smaller,
you don't have to carry around a separate
source of compressed air or other power
because they use a typical firearms cartridge. And that's what this is.
Now Greener first developed this ... all the way back in 1865.
And they manufactured them for literally 100 years with only small variations.
They made versions specifically fitted for a bunch of different livestock animals.
Apparently they actually made a small one just for dogs, which is a little
not so cool for us today. But they did it.
This particular one is for horses. The two main ones were for horses and for cattle.
Now, you may be wondering, ... "Is there really that much market for these?"
Well, something to consider is that the British Army during World Wars One and Two
used quite a lot of horses for transport and other purposes.
And ... veterinarians in military service needed a way to be able to put down an injured animal.
Certainly ... an animal in a combat zone is much more likely to get injured in a way
that requires it to be euthanised than one that's just wandering around a field.
So a device like this, a humane killer,
was a standard part of a veterinarian's field supplies in the British military.
And really in militaries all over the world, but this happens to be a British one.
So that's the reason that there are quite a lot of these things out there having been manufactured.
So, it ... comes apart and goes together in a nice compact "Pocket Form", as they called it.
Easy to carry around in a veterinary bag, and actually pretty easy to use.
Why don't I bring the camera back here, and I will show you how this thing
goes together and comes apart, and how it works.
It's pretty simple, but it's an interesting piece of firearms associated machinery.
Alright, so this is how the device is packaged for travel, transit, for carry.
It all screws together into this nice little tube.
This is the business end. You'll see it's marked Mark I* in very traditional British style.
This does also have a broad arrow proof on it here,
indicating that this was issued by the military or accepted into military service.
Now for those who aren't familiar with British military nomenclature,
the star indicates a minor change in the pattern of something.
So these went through some very slight modifications, but not much.
Now it is marked. We have our "Greener's Humane Horse Killer" right here.
All their information, and then it is marked for "top".
You'll notice that the firing end of this is sloped.
This is actually designed to mirror the slope of a horse's forehead.
So "top" indicates which way you want to have this thing pointed,
because depending on ... which side you hold up
will impact exactly what direction the bullet is going.
And it's quite important to use this properly
that the bullet hit directly into the base of the brain of the animal.
So that it kills it instantaneously and painlessly.
Now to actually use it, what you would do is unscrew the top.
This is marked "Mallet"
right there, we'll get to that in a moment.
Now we want to take out this inner piece.
Take that out. And then I'll just take this whole thing apart.
A few more pieces to it here.
And this comes off.
There we have a firing pin spring, and that.
Alright, so there is our complete Humane Horse Killer disassembled.
This is of course the firing pin, this goes into here.
And then we have a chamber here, with a firing pin spring.
That threads together.
These are all serial numbered. Serial number there, 11520.
We now have a spring-loaded firing pin, right there.
This is the actual barrel.
It is rifled, interestingly enough,
despite the very short distance of travel that the bullet has to go.
This is the chamber end, so you would put a single cartridge in here.
These were chambered for the .310 Greener cartridge, which was specially made for this device.
It's basically a shortened version of the .310 Martini Cadet round.
Actually pretty similar to something like the .32 Smith & Wesson.
It doesn't have to be a particularly heavy-duty cartridge,
because ... there aren't particularly heavy-duty requirements for it.
At any rate, what you would do is put one cartridge in there,
and then we thread on the firing pin element.
Once this is on, the gun is live and dangerous.
And if you were to hit this hard enough it would fire, so you have to be careful about that.
You then take the handle end here, and thread this into that, like so.
This acts as a nice open area to slightly deaden or muffle the sound of the report.
Gives you a little bit of stand-off, because you do not want
the muzzle directly in contact with the animal's head,
or the charge of highly pressurised gas that comes out the muzzle will do disgusting things.
So this gives you a little bit of offset, and quiets the thing down a bit.
Put that up against the animal's forehead, and then you use this.
It's marked "Mallet" because it is the mallet.
And you use that to hit the firing pin and fire the cartridge.
You'll notice this has obviously been used a lot,
that mallet's full of little dimples from people hitting the firing pin with it.
So you hold the thing like so,
hit, fire, and the deed is done.
So as an interesting little technical aside, these generally are not considered firearms.
However, because they do have a pressure bearing chamber and a barrel,
being made in the UK they are proofed as firearms, as you can see right here.
Well, while you don't really use this as a firearm,
you genuinely would not want it to explode and break in half while you're trying to use it.
Especially while your hand is wrapped around the barrel, so the proof marks make sense.
Once you're done, take the empty cartridge out here.
And then the whole thing ...
telescopes back ...
into its case like that.
Well, thanks for watching guys, I hope you enjoyed the video.
I hope I didn't squiff people out with this.
It's kind of a commentary on something that we are much more used to firearms
that were used to kill people than ones that were used to kill horses.
But, that being said, if you would like to have this thing yourself,
perhaps you are interested in cavalry accoutrements,
it is coming up for sale here at Rock Island.
And if you take a look in the description text below,
you'll find a link to the catalogue page where it is photographed and described.
And you can place a bid for it online right now.
Thanks for watching.