this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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Sir Joseph Whitworth is quite the famous name in engineering circles, credited with the development of such things as Whitworth threading (the first standardized thread pattern) and engineer’s blue. When he decided to make a rifle, he decided that he could make flat surfaces more precisely than round ones, and chose to design a rifle with a hexagonal bore and mechanically fitted bullets.

Video: [15:19]

https://youtu.be/Hi-S_horZGk?si=

Ian makes a correction to the original video: [7:18]

https://youtu.be/cUd2RQGfL7E?si=

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Sir Joseph Whitworth is quite the famous name in engineering circles

How ironic.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Well alleight then, from now on I'll call my hip group of engineers The Hexagon. You'll have to tell Jimbo that he's out, though, as he was the seventh member.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] Crackhappy 5 points 11 months ago

Vi, is that you?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Looked up how to drill hexagonal holes and came up with some answers for holes that weren't much deeper than their width... Really not sure how this would be done for a rifle bore, though. Is there twist to the bore? Seems like a nightmare to manufacture.

[–] LowtierComputer 6 points 11 months ago

I think it would just be a broach. Pull a twisted broach through it.

[–] Maalus 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Pretty sure that rifling nowadays is sometimes done this way. I think it's called polygonal rifling.

[–] FireTower 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Polygonal rifling is commonly found on nearly all Glock pistols along with many of Heckler & Koch's guns just to name two brands. I think technically the mechanics of the Whitworth rifling differentiate it from modern polygonal rifling, but that's me being very technical and pedantic.

[–] AtmaJnana 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Button rifling is common, but as I understand it the machines are pretty expensive, so it's the big players doing that, mostly. There's still plenty of traditional cut rifling too. IIRC, the cut rifling ends up with a better finish and doesn't get as much stress imparted to the steel.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

But isn't the spin of a bullet part of why it's so destructive? Super interesting!

[–] Sallp 23 points 11 months ago

Spinning helps with range and accuracy. How destructive a bullet is more because of its weight and speed, which is controlled by how much propellant like gunpowder.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

Spinning "rifling" is what makes a bullet go straight. Before then, you'd just have to hope it hits in that general area you're aiming for. Any imbalance in weight would steer the bullet then.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] FireTower 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It had a 33 inch barrel, I would consider it to be a full length rifle.

Carbines when referring to guns of this period are typically shorter in barrel length that rifles or muskets.

Here's a video from Ian on the differences:

https://youtu.be/gQ4dJ-Y2Fb0?si=

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thank you for your answer! But I was mainly making a joke because of the hexagonal "bee" shape of the barrel :)

[–] FireTower 3 points 11 months ago

Good thing for me we don't have r/whoosh here.

[–] blahsay 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I hesitate to ask but has some Muppet tried square or triangular bullets before?

I think I can guess how well they'd work 😅

[–] FireTower 3 points 11 months ago

The Dardick used triangular rounds but I think the actual bullets weren't triangular.

[–] Anticorp 2 points 1 month ago

Do we use round bullets today because he was wrong about his assumptions, or was he correct, but round is easier and cheaper to manufacture?