Cochran Turret Revolver
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- čas přidán 2. 04. 2016
- / forgottenweapons
The Cochran turret revolver is one of the more common turret revolvers in the US, although that's a pretty low bar, as only about 150 of them were made. Turret-sytle revolvers never became popular on the commercial market because of the potential hazards posed by a chainfire when one has chambers pointing in all directions - including back at the shooter.
21 years old and given the title " Master of Cannon". Hells yeah.
Thanks Ian. Very interesting, I am Turkish and an officer also. This Cochran is unfortunately not a known figure today. His legacy wasn't that persistent. However by looking at the possibilities, lets say if he was given rank of "master of the cannon" or "Topcubasi", then he is possibly one of the last western personas to be honoured in this way. The previous holder of the rank was the Hungarian cannon maker Orban, (the one who made the great bombards for the empire for the siege of Constantinople 1453) Ottomans before 1800 were following a strict self sustainability code in terms of design and materials. After the Greek independence the reform pursuit had never ended. The district Cochran put his workshop and his effort is today known as Tophane (literally, The Arsenal). So this story ought to be happened during 1830s which was the last reigning years of Mahmud II and himself was the guy who written off all janissary corps for the sake of reforms. He was the Meiji emperor equivalent of Japan for Ottoman Turkey. So it is not at all surprising that Cochran was working under someone very enthusiastic about military innovation. And of course bags of gold had been the sultan's traditional way to show gratitude since 1300s.
Also lets say Ottoman measurements in weight or height or range must have been completely alien to John Cochran, and industrial techniques were very different, steelmaking was more or less the same since byzantine times, standardization or replaceable parts was very new idea back then. I can understand his frustration about workers and conditions.
I went through some research about his possible surviving examples of his cannons. Even though records doesn't show such a name (or I can't read ottoman script) It is still pretty possible to find one such example in military museum of Harbiye district in Istanbul. Even though maker names were never etched or inscribed on military hardware in Ottoman empire, It is possible to find things like that through semi distinctive royal monoghram (tughra) on the cannons. Those things were to be added or riveted to the existing military samples just behind the fuse hole. New sultans also did not touch the previous ruler's tughras so that narrows it down. You can find samples of last 300 years of artillery in the garden of military museum (unless Cochran guns were used in ships, which makes a survival less likely) . You can even have a virtual tour in the garden here : www.askerimuze.tsk.tr/
+lordanglachel Thanks for the information! I got the account of the story from a series of reports published in the US, dating back to the 1850s. I suppose it is possible that they were fabricated or embellished - which would be unfortunate; it's a great story. If I have an opportunity to visit Turkey it would be interesting to try tracking down the event from the Turkish side.
LITERAL BAG OF GOLD
Royalties tend to have them somewhere (shifts eyes)
The idea of John Cochran creating those cannons and firing them all day for the sultan and receiving the bag of gold is really a very interesting story and probably would make a cool movie :)
It's almost too cool to be true
+traderjoes I don't think Disney would do a movie about guns though :D
Coco I agree, I was thinking more of a non Disney movie though :)
Ottomans staying out of tech business while Europeans were enlightening themselves lead to many bizarre and interesting stories like this one. Adding that it's a complete alien culture to the European one, makes them a lot more weird to westerners. Search for Marco Paşa for example.
Call it "Master of Cannons"
"Hand-building a cannon for the Sultanate of Turkey." Now there's a few words that have probably not been used together in a sentence often.
+OneTallOrder like "kingdom of america" or "republic of ottoman"
Only here baby
Or put on a resume.
Clearly you have never heard of my main man Urban
@@maelstrom8897 lol I was just reading about that guy yesterday. Shame Constantine couldn't afford him.
That would fit into one bizarre looking holster.
W1se0ldg33zer aYou would need to remove the turret
Concealed carry would probably be incredibly uncomfortable...possibly painful...
@@killersalmon4359 nope,wear it in your pants with the grip sticking out like a little hardon
@@killersalmon4359 you could just put it in a way so that the grip is sticking outside
Love the steampunky craziness that simply abounds in the look of turret weapons. Really enjoyed this video, cheers for the background story Ian!
+Blueswailer I thought the bergman and swedish trails pistols looked even more steampunky to my eyes.
Primarch359
Well, those weapons would certainly fit the bill too.
Personally I just like the large exposed rotary magazine of turret weapons since steampunk evokes ideas of all sorts of cogwheels, cranks, ratchets and such.
Now that is cool
Nah, bruh, *YOU* are cool.
+Xaro Xhoan Daxos *shouts from a distance* gaaaaaaay
warpatato And?
+warpatato yup,sounds like your cruzin for a date.
Dr stone sends his regards
"Give up. We have you surrounded"
"Not so fast!"
I recently came a cross Cochran Turret Revolver #49. It has a nice confirmed history of spending more than 100 years at Tidö Slott Rustkammare (Tidö Castle Armory) before being sold to a Swedish collector in 1970 who owned it since. It is the best condition I have seen with a Cochran Revolver and it is equipped with engraved german silver grips just like the one you have in the video
Somebody needs to put this next to a DP-28 and take a picture.
+dogboy0912 ... it reminds me of first StarTrek series "Enterprise" ...
"Don't talk to me or my son ever again"
Mister Fanboy, you deserve a cookie for such a joke.
That pseudo-rebounding hammer and the good sight picture really impressed me. Cochran was a bright kid!
i love the side stories, when theyre relevant and when theyre not its just so interesting. I love this channel :) and i really like the additive of how much it sold for in the description
So, theoretically, you could carry multiple extra, pre-loaded, cylinders, and swap them out like magazines in a more modern weapon?
I mean, technically we could have done the same with the normal cylinders for revolvers. Take em out and put a preloaded one in like a magazine swap. In fact you can with the Scavenger 6 and the Six12.
Great story Ian. It's nice to here some colorful history as well as seeing a gun that I have never seen.
It must be frustrating not to be able to bring all those incredible guns home. I wish there was a channel like your about early electrical and electronic apparatus. Thank you for making those videos.
This is one of the most badass creator stories I heard actually, thank you ! For those who don't know, the napoleon 12 pounder smooth bore gun is what was most used in the civil war for smoothbore by a huge margin, it's a big gun, and making a turret one is no small feat, especially if you have to build it yourself and have that kind of longevity ! It's always when you think you heard it all that you learn about a new cooler yet story !
thanx Ian.after the last turret revolver i really wanted to see a cochran.also,thanx for the history.that's what keeps me coming back for more and more.
This is mindblowing! I never knew such a odd weapon existed!! thank you for your videos! they are amazing!
I love these videos Ian, and I'm very curious how you learn so many interesting tidbits about each weapon.
I enjoyed that story very much :D thank you!
Very cool gun, mechanism and story as well as the commentary and video. All around great job.
When I was perusing the catalogue this one jumped out. As a machinist this has a certain something. I love the handle.
The chain firing turret revolver sounds like the makings of memorable set piece in a spaghetti western.
Another cracking story to go with yet another fascinating lot.
Very interesting. It definitely added to the vid talking about the Turkey story. Definitely on my list of favorites.
Great vid. Great story. Fascinating design. Enjoyed this vid significantly.
what an oddly graceful looking pistol, thanks for the video!
Fascinating story! Wonderfully told. Thanks Ian. 😎
I think the story of the inventor made this one of my favorite videos of yours .
I don’t know if he realizes but pretty much ALL the stories he tells are really cool! That’s why we are here!
I am really not a firearm person, but I absolutely LOVE his channel it’s so interesting and loaded with history!
What a great biographical anecdote about Cochran's life. I would love to see a movie about him.
These stories are the reason, I watch Forgotten Weapons
You have never once let me down in my pursuit for weird, cursed and interesting guns.
This may not be the coolest weapon you have ever showcased Ian but it sure is the coolest story you have ever shared from history!
good videos. thank you for making them.
Forgotten Weapons-the channel i give a like before im watching!!!keep on Ian.great channel!
Ya... I can see how that would make one slightly uncomfortable.
I love the story and history. Excellent as usual, thanks Ian.
That... story... is... amazing... God I hope I'm not too drunk right now, and able to remember it! A young fellow in his EARLY EARLY 20s goes to England and another country to sell a design, didn't get their attention but did get the attention of a Turkish fellow who was there. Goes to Turkey, meets the Sultan, is asked to make full sized cannons. Makes 2 1 pounders and 1 12 pounder, it went VERY well, and upon being asked what he wished for the work in payment, in knowing how royalty liked being treated,said something of the effect that "But to serve was suffice enough", and went about his humble way (humble... very rare trait in Americans, it seems). He's brought back, given a literal BAG FULL of gold, and takes it home to continue working on firearms.
Perhaps my drunkenness affects my judgement, but I still find that to be an incredibly interesting story, and I'm horribly jealous. I sketched my first rough design of a firearm probably when I was 22, and here's a 21 year old over 150 years ago meeting rulers of nations and designing firearms basically ON HIS OWN. Damn... I WANT TO MAKE A FIREARM! I want to make my own SMGs, pistols, assault rifles, battle rifles, maybe even LMGs! I WANT! I WAAAAAANT! This Cochran guy is a lucky and obviously talented bugger... good man. I would love to talk to the man after my end comes, if the books are true and I get the chance. The stories he'd have... no doubt remarkable.
Hope you decide to follow your drunk dream
I want to see one of those Cochran Turkish cannons, do any of them still exist? Or even illustrations of them?
It almost sounded too much like a fairy tale to me. I'm skeptical about how much historicity there really is to that story.
+Pyxel Dust history is usually more colorful than the best fairytales. bag of gold sounds plausible. sultan could not offend by offering too paltry sum or he would risk losing face.
Mikael Levoniemi "history" is also full of propaganda, tall tales, and myths. I haven't actually looked into this one at all but I'd like to see some official Turkish records.
I have not seen any here in Turkey
buuut to not leave you gun-less, we Turks used this gun www.guns.com/2013/01/10/giant-gassers-the-bfr-of-1870/
i also found an article from The London and Paris Observer that relates the story in the video
books.google.com/books?id=hjVNAAAAcAAJ&lpg=PA543&ots=R4aZQcybaM&dq=Cochran%20Turkish%20cannons&pg=PA543#v=onepage&q=Cochran%20Turkish%20cannons&f=false
aside form that i cant find a full sized model or anything
I had never seen a gun like that before. Thanks for sharing. :)
I can't get enough of these crazy gun designs! Like always, excellent video.
It only take a couple of chainfires to kill a lot of your own people!
What a beautiful work of functional art.
He knows so much about all of this stuff, and most of it is NOT on the internet. That's really the impressive thing for me ...
Great video! Loved the story
That was a very interesting overview, thanks. Apart from the additional shot capacity were there any advantages of the turret design over the traditional revolver layout?
The term Nickle Silver referes to group of nickle alloys that look like silver. This 'German Silver' is probably a specific alloy in that same family of alloys. You an fins this stamped on 'silverware' produced in the late 18th century. Sterling Silver is an actual silver alloy that was used for jewelry, silverware, and Brittish coinage, as in the Pound Sterling.
What you guys call "German Silver" we germans call "New Silver" [Neusilber], and yes, is a Cooper-Nickel- Zinc alloy possibly with some other metals in lower %s
Interesting firearm. Funny enough John Cochran was a ancestor of mine and it's nice to see a item invented by him. Thanks Ian
Thanks to Battlefield 1 I found this channel, what an amazing channel it is. Keep it up chaps.
very good video ! A video about the making of guns at the time, when electricity wasn't commonly available would be so awesome. I have no clue how the manufacturers got that done.
Wow, a brilliant if not altogether practical firearm. Mr. Cochran was obviously a very smart fellow.
I’ve been waiting for this one
Very cool story & breakdown thanks !
Thank you, Ian!
A possible advantage of this gun would to have multiple pre-loaded cylinders, and interchange them whenever you need to reload.
I mean, technically we could have done the same with the normal cylinders for revolvers. Take em out and put a preloaded one in like a magazine swap. In fact you can with the Scavenger 6 and the Six12.
@@livingcorpse5664 my h&r can do that but I only have one cylinder
Great story about the sultan of Turkey, and I find the aesthetics quite good. I just can't figure out why the song "The hills are alive with.....", popped in my mind as you told the story.
to be honest that gun is by far the most badass thing i've ever seen
brilliant story, if it wasnt for forgotton weapons that would not be known today. Greetings from great britain.
If the glove fits.. wait, wrong Cochran.
apologies for not reading all the comments first, but the brass nipple 7 spoke bar rubbing on the the brass shield would prevent iron on iron sparks
Awesome story about the bag of gold!! Just watched your new video and it lead me to this video lol
Man what a cool story and gun.
You should start a new stories of the gun show ;') your stories are the best
If this had been more popular, it would have been easy to tinker some sort of hafl-index notch to misallign the hammer from any loaded cap allowing it to be carried fully loaded, either by changing the hammer to hold on an safety notch, having the indexing lever a hole for half-index or have a totally differen disengageable spring and lever for new position for half-index to hold on to.
It would have been amazing if these guns had a berserk mode, a plate or something that could be easily engaged to set off all the forward facing cylinders at once. It may have made them more appealing. This is a beautiful piece.
Hey Ian... I was curious, have you ever done a video about the DP 28 lmg? or at the very least shot one... or have some experience about it...
I can't confidently say it's a "forgotten" weapon but I do very much believe it to be an under appreciated gun... but that could be my fondness of it.
Excellent video and discussion on a unique gun and gun designer. Any chance we'll see one of his custom-made Turkish cannons on the auction block? ;-)
I saw some wheellock weapons in the catalog, and I don't think you have any videos on that mechanism. I know muzzleloaders aren't your prefered subject, but will you cover them in one of these videos?
+Kloick Yes, I have a video on one of them coming.
+Forgotten Weapons Sweet. I love the idea and complexity of Wheel-locks, but there's so few full diagrams of them out there.
Sometimes the wrong turns tell us a lot about human ingenuity and tenacity, something for which America rightly congratulates itself on being an unparalleled channel
superb use of the word "extant", nice vocabulary Ian
I would like to see a video on the different types of weapons using caseless ammunition. Have you ever done any of those?
A *literal bag of gold.*
Neat piece of a handgun! Extraordinary design of fire mechanism... Till very end I was trying to figure out how does cartridge stay inseide?!... (dumb, I know) The answer was soo simple... For some unknown reason I realy like this gun. Pretty, pretty...
that story though... like damn that's cool
Cool gun. Cool story!
You may want to do something about sound muffling. The backup beeper and thumps are a bit distracting!
Again a very interresting weapon, Ian. I just wonder. In this video you describe this as a muzzle loader. Was it customary to load each from the muzzle, rotating the turret for each chamber loading, instead of just loading all chambers while you had the cylinder out? The cylinder had to come out to load new percsussion caps, anyway.
One thing about this pistol that I think slipped by in the time is that it essentially had a removable magazine, which at the time to my knowledge was unheard of.
fascinating story ian
are there any cases that the percussion cap "molted" into the hole and unable to take it out?
This looks like something straight out of the steampunk world
Secondhand Lions is my all time favorite movie.
Really cool gun!!!
Lmao what a strange and weird weapon. Love some of these forgotten weapons -- they such strange ideas. Also these videos on weird guns end up making me want to see them fired but so many of them would probably not work or explode lol
Great story indeed. Revolver itselfs however seems to be pretty complicated design for something seemingly as simple.
I just wish we could see some of the Forgotten Weapons in action, 'cause it looks like this one might still work...
jdzencelowcz i doubt there are many of these out there. too valuable to fire a round through and risk breaking the old, brittle internals.
Incredible design & workmanship! Safety issues aside. If you had a 7 shot repeater in the first half of the 19th century...I also notice some dosing elements used in future weapons. I'm sure your subscribed audience can recognize them. Can't resist: did they make a kydex holster for it?😂. Thanks for showing me a gun I had never seen before.
Correction: design
The Cochran turret revolver was invented by one of my great uncles by the name of John Webster Cochran. He was the son of Jacob Cochran who was one of my great grandfathers . My mother actually has the schematic and paperwork from it. John Webster Cochran made many inventions which we have paperwork for as well. He was a very interesting man with some cool inventions.
+Jonny Gib Cool!
+Forgotten Weapons , the strangest thing just happened. I tried to leave that comment just before and then it was telling me comments were disabled. So I actually just sent you guys an email about this as it's a piece of family history for me. Thank you again for doing the video.
Isn´t the possibility of a chainfire way lower on a turret revolver than on a traditional revolver design?
The openings on the chambers are more appart and the chamber wich is facing back is completely covered.
It's lower, but it still exists.
And is way, way more dangerous
While looking in the catalog I saw an American Civil War Greene underhammer breech loading rifle I have never seen a good video on it, will you get a chance to do a video on it ?
That is a crazy story.
Have you ever visited the firearm collection at House on the Rock in Spring Green WI?
The "ears" at both sides cover the cylinders to prevent the 2 pointing aft being susceptible to ignition, that said a very elegant piece indeed, the evol of Da Vinci's multi-fire concept. A much better system. 50/50 on the current tech v genius aspect, a good argument both ways.
I have to say what an incredible and achievement right there.
Wonder if it be better to just have loads of loaded disc and when reloading just place them in for best speed
The rear sight seems very good for the day.
It's fascinating to see a revolver (given it's a turret revolver) intended to be used with quick change turret.
Awesome story!
Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
I started singing it after he said Constantinople :D a very catchy song
Even old New York, was once New Amsterdam.
They might be giants
@@semihiseri What papers did you start signing?
@@floatingchimney lol, corrected :D
How difficult would it be to reload when you're standing with nothing to place your gun on?
8:20
Wha... no, nickel silver is a brass, 60 copper, 20 the others