[ Collette Gravity Rifle & Pistol ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at Ader
in Paris, taking a look at a pair
of Collette Gravity guns, a pistol and a rifle.
Now I did a video on the Collette Gravity pistol several
years ago, and hasn't really been a lot that's changed.
A few other details that I didn't know at the time.
But the reason that I am filming this is because today I have access to a Gravity rifle.
And I definitely wanted to show that to you guys
because the pistols are rare, the rifles are extremely rare.
So this is a system that was patented in 1852 to 1853
by a Belgian gunsmith by the name of Jean Nicholas Herman.
He was an employee of a gunsmith by the name of Victor Collette.
Victor Collette owned the company,
did a bunch of manufacturing, and actually made a wide variety of guns.
He made Lefaucheux-style ... pinfire revolvers, he made all sorts of stuff.
This was just one of the company's products.
His employee, his gunsmith ... Jean Nicholas Herman came up with this idea, patented it,
then ... licensed the patents to his boss to manufacture.
And the guns all bear a "VC" proof mark on them, which is Victor Collette.
And so they've become known as "Collette guns",
even though Collette isn't actually the guy who came up with the idea, he just manufactured them.
Now, these fire a Rocket Ball style of cartridge.
There were a number of French and Belgian gunsmiths who were working on that style of ammunition
about the same time that the Volcanic folks were working on it back in the United States.
The concept is you have a bullet where the base of the bullet is hollow,
and contains its gunpowder charge and its priming compound.
So essentially 19th century caseless ammunition.
There is no leftover material to have to eject out of the gun after firing a shot.
This ... sounds really cool, but there were a few downsides to it.
First off: it tended to be substantially underpowered because there's just not
enough volume inside a typical bullet to get enough powder to give much power.
If you hollow out the walls of the bullet too much to get more powder space,
you run the risk of the nose of the bullet blowing off when you fire the thing,
and leaving this ring of lead bullet wall in the chamber.
Which will then cause problems when you try to chamber the next cartridge.
Or if it gets stuck part way down the barrel,
cause major problems when you fire the next cartridge into it.
So these were always limited by their power.
The Collette guns had a particularly short style of Rocket Ball cartridge like this,
and were definitely intended not for any sort of military or self-defence use,
but for recreational target shooting where the low power wasn't really that big of a deal.
So, I've covered a bunch of the history of these in my previous video on the Collette,
if you're interested in that I'll link to it at the end of this one. But for now
let's go in a little closer, I want to show you this rifle because it's beautiful.
This thing is really quite nicely embellished, it is a gorgeous firearm.
The only marking on it is here under the barrel.
And there we have a "VC" for Victor Collette, and a serial number of 2233.
I don't have exact numbers on production of these,
I suspect the serial number range covered all of Collette's production, not just these gravity guns.
Now to briefly show you the mechanism,
I'm going to go ahead and use the pistol because it's more compact.
The reason these are called "gravity guns" is because they are a gravity feed magazine.
And the magazine is actually this shroud on top of the barrel.
So what you would do is pop that open and drop your cartridges in here,
not that much unlike a Henry, except that you of course have Rocket Ball style ammunition up there.
So you're going to drop those all in, bullets pointing forward.
And they're just going to fill up this tube.
This is not a combat gun, obviously. Like yes, mud could get in there,
but you're not using this in the mud, you're using this in your parlour,
or your nice clean little shooting range.
Now when you cock the hammer, the first bit lifts this breech block up.
You can see there's a hole there, and you have an open tunnel now
where you hold the gun upright, and gravity pulls
the rearmost cartridge back into the breech block there.
If it gets stuck, or doesn't want to go, you have this lever and you can kind of press it back in.
These cartridges are very, very short, as you can see
by the fact that one of them fits in there.
And this has a capacity of 20, so really short little cartridges.
Now once you've got a round in the breech block, you cock the hammer the rest of the way.
That snaps the breech block back down, it is now in line with the barrel here.
And you can fire and the firing pin will
detonate the cartridge just like a modern centrefire cartridge.
There is a safety in here as well, which is this lever.
If you slide this forward, it will catch the hammer
right there before the firing pin can hit the cartridge.
So it's a very simple style of safety, but it is effective.
And to disengage it, you just cock the hammer back open, pull the safety back,
and then you can fire.
So the rifle here has exactly the same action.
Again half-cock lifts the breech block up.
And ... if you need to press the cartridge in, you can do it there.
This is approximately three times the length of the barrel of the pistol,
and ... I don't have exact numbers, but it should hold approximately 60 cartridges.
... That's a ton, like that's a whole shooting session right there.
We have a very nice fancy style of trigger guard.
That's the sort of trigger guard that lets you pull your hand back in here for support,
as was the style at the time.
Bring that back down.
Some gorgeous wood engraving here as well in the stock.
Someone put a lot of time and effort into this gun, and it really shows.
The pistol is no slouch either, and I should point out this pistol is serial number 399.
And also has some embellishment and engraving on it,
but not quite up to the level of what's on the rifle.
The Collette Gravity guns were introduced at the Paris International Exhibition in 1855,
and they were in production until about 1870.
Not a huge commercial success, but not a complete failure either.
Reasonably expensive guns to purchase, but not as expensive and difficult to manufacture
as some of the other contemporary repeating arms.
Note that the magazine - there's basically nothing to it.
It's just a bent piece of sheet metal that's screwed onto the top of the action.
You don't have springs, and cams, and chains, and gears, and some of the things that
other guns like the Guycot chain guns that are a similar time frame.
You don't have any of that stuff that you have to manufacture,
and that allows there to be more of a profit margin or a lower retail price.
And frankly I think these would probably be very enjoyable for some parlour target shooting.
At any rate, ... as you can obviously tell, I really wanted to show you guys the rifle version.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed it.
Thanks for watching.