Cursed Guns in History

Since the beginning of civilization, humans have been inventing tools and weapons. From flint axe and spear heads in the Stone Age to nuclear weapons in modern times, mankind has continually tried to improve and build new weapons that would give them an advantage over their enemies on the battlefield. The introduction of firearms marked the beginning of the most exciting chapter in the history of weapons. During this period, there were a lot of guns that were to be iconic of their era. But, on the other hand, there were more than enough guns that carried the title of the worst contraptions in history. This is the story of five of the top worst guns.

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Credit:
Created by Daniel Turner (B.A. (Hons) in History, University College London)
Script: Dejan Milivojevic
Narrator:

Chris Kane

Sources:
Bishop, Chris. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II: A Comprehensive Guide to Weapons Systems, including Tanks, Small Arms, Warplanes, Artillery, Ships, and Submarines. Amber Books, 2016.
Dougherty, Martin J. The World's Worst Weapons: From Exploding Guns to Malfunctioning Missiles. Grange Books, 2008.
Hosley, William N. Colt the Making of an American Legend. University of Massachusetts Press, 1996.
Hogg, Ian V., and John H. Batchelor. The Complete Handgun: 1300 to the Present. Gallery Books, 1986.
Hogg, Ian; Weeks, John (2000). Military Small Arms of the 20th Century (7th ed.). Iola, Wisconsin: Krause Publications.
Weeks, John. World War II Small Arms. Galahad Books, 1979.

[demomanchaos]

One of the other reasons you'd keep your non-firing hand back on a revolving carbine is the sideblast when firing caused by the cylinder gap. On powerful rounds that pressure can be enough to remove fingers.

[fortis]

The irony is that the Mars pistol is a great gun in Battlefield 1. It's pretty much a ww1 era Desert Eagle

[Simplehistory]

What gun was the worst?

Colt Model 1855 Revolving Carbine
Mars Pistol
Glisenti Model 1910
Gyrojet - rocket-propelled pistol
Nambu 94

[garrisonnichols]

The more I learn about early semi automatic pistols the more I'm surprised how much John Moses Browning got right with the Colt 1911.

[cooldude]

"The Nambu was possibly the worst firearm ever made"
The Zip 22: "Hold my beer."
Also part 2 please

[Mitchell]

The designer of the Ruger Mark Series based his design on the Japanese Nambu*. He fixed the flaws and made his pistol arguably the most reliable semiautomatic .22 you can buy.

[airplanemaster]

After that intro, I just *have* to leave this here, courtesy of Drachinifel from his I-400 guide:
"For millennia, man has faced a quandary: The desire to hit someone, but they're really far away. This has lead progressively to the development of: The thrown rock, the thrown, pointy rock, the far thrown rock, the really far thrown rock, the flying pointy rock on a stick, the refined pointy rock on a stick, the spicy refined rock powered by fire, and, by the end of WWII, the happy fun times refined spicy rock transported by the big metal bird."

[wheelman]

During an episode of Lock n Load with R. Lee Ermey, the Gunny showed us the Colt carbine but straight up told the audience that he refused to shoot it.

[txgunguy]

Concerning the 1855 Colt Side-Hammer revolving carbine:
"Cooking off" is when the chamber of a firearm is so hot that a cartridge loaded into it goes off on it's own. This can lead to a belt-fed machine gun "running away" or firing fully automatic against the wishes of the operator. The 2 solutions are to simply allow the weapon to run out the belt or to twist the belt causing the weapon to jam.
When 2 or more cylinders of a revolver go off at the same time other is called "chain firing".

[edwardbryan]

Gyro-Jet Pistol
•uses rocket-propelled ammunitions
Now we know what inspired Warhammer 40k Bolter guns.

[robdegraw]

Interesting side note there is currently a 410 shotgun that uses the revolver type cylinder and apparently it's pretty popular.

[bluedemon]

“A weapon can usually be turned against you, if you don’t know how to use it.”

-Kerstin Gier

[thepiratedoggo]

the funny thing is about the Mars pistol, if i remember correctly, the inventor was really convinced it was a good pistol. so much so that when the army asked him to make changes to improve it, he outright refused and little change was made to the gun other than tiny things being done by the other members of the workforce.

[ToBeIsWasWere]

9:10 "it had almost no recoil"
> animates it with very strong recoil
wtf are you guys even doing? you had one job

[TheChuckwagonLite]

Fun fact, as an owner of one the revolver carbine would "chain fire" until they started using fat around the wad.

[riopratamamartin]

One rule if you want to make a good weapon : make sure the gun is reliable, easy to use and more importanly always reasonable in designing .

[nicholasfitzsimmons]

The type 94 was definitely not the greatest handgun but quite far from the worst, as seen in a video from forgotten weapons.

[NATONations]

This could be a full on series with the amount of “horrible” made throughout history. Chauchat, Breda machine guns, first versions of the M-16 to name a few.

[zanemurcha]

The Gyrojet pistol featured in the Bond film You Only Live Twice. The film makers thought it would be cool to have as a gadget for Bond and his allies to use. They even made a mini rocket projectile to place into the tip of a cigarette, and when lit would fire and stun the enemy. That featured in the film as well, and did actually work.

[peepguy]

7:02 I just like it when after the Italian soldier got stabbed, the Austrian-Hungarian soldier just stood for a few seconds and then ran slowly