Why no working reproduction volcanic guns

They really are rather little-known outside of those of us who are better read in the history of repeating rifles.
That, and the ammo. As you no doubt know the original Volcanics used a sort of "caseless" ammo. The lead bullet had a hollow base which was filled with black powder and a cork or tin disk sealed it in. On the disk was fulminating mercury as a primer. This system worked but it was really not a very good system.
It's main deficiency was lack of power. The hollow base of the bullet did no allow for a lot of powder and the rounds were never viewed as being sufficient for the purposes a rifle would be used.
Benjamin Tyler Henry developed the Volcanic's toggle-link design into the Henry. Even that round (a more conventional design; a rimfire .44) was not stupendously powerful round but it was better than the Volcanic, and thus a better success in the market.
The Volcanic was a commercial failure.
So, if Uberti or Pedersoli was to make a Volcanic today, what caliber would they use? Even the 1860 Henry and the 1866 Improved Henry, originally chambered in the .44 Henry Flat are being reproduced in .44-40, or other centerfire "cowboyish" loads, since rimfire .44 is long gone from the market.
There really seems little point in a Volcanic rifle. It was a novel historic design in its day for what it brought and what it evolved into, but not really, for what it was.

There are many other milestone designs that are not being reproduced commercially. For example, the Ferguson flintlock breechloader. In general, these types of guns have a limited market, and even that market is fractured. If a manufacturer makes modifications to satisfy the shooters (such as changing the ammo from .44 rimfire to .44-40 centerfire, as in the repro Henry, or the caliber from .54 to .58, as in the repro Harpers Ferry flint pistol), it turns off the historical purists, and if it doesn't, it turns off the shooters.

I certainly don't see enough of a market for a resurrected, heavily modified Volcanic to justify the tooling costs. A manufacturer is almost guaranteed to lose money on this.

I wanna know why no Mars pistols, Evans repeaters, or especially, Meigs repeaters

Talk about some designs that were exceptional for their era

TCB

Probably for the same reason there's no Borchardt, Bergmann-Bayard, or Webley-Fosbery reproductions: limited market, complicated design, and/or too expensive to manufacture.

Now if someone were to make a Ferguson rifle replica I would be first in line for one of those!

Theuer conversion of the Colt 1860 too...

Front loading cartridges (stuff 'em into the front of the cylinder). Shoot all six, flip a lever, and then cock and refire the action to eject the cartridges out of the front of the cylinders...

There *have* actually been hand-built working reproductions of these made, including the cartridges. Where there's a will there's a way.


The Volcanic had the unfortunate trait of not having a positive gas seal at the breech. A brass cartridge was the missing link, and is what the Henry brought to the table. After that the rest of the story of cartridge repeating arms fell into place quickly.



Willie

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I would rather like to see the Henry made in 44 Colt or Russian. Their shorter length would allow for greater magazine capacity and closer to being "That dang Yankee rifle you load on Sunday and shoot all week."

IIRC, I saw an ad for a 22 LR Volcanic looking something in Gun Digest years ago.

Never saw one in person.

I'd like to see them make a replica of a Savage-North.

So little market there's no point.
Those are historical curiosities only.
Denis

A Volcanic repro would not have ammunition available, and if you convert it to use a cased cartridge, you get a Henry.

Unless the mercury fulminate was incorporated into a percussion cap as part of the Volcanic "cartridge", it would not be lawful to transport. So getting new manufactured into the hands of end users would be problematic.

173.71 Fulminate of mercury. (a) The offering of fulminate of mercury in a dry condition for transportation is forbidden, except as...

WestKentucky said:

Yeah, but it's kinda interesting that back then they had case less and we still can't really make that work. It's also incredible that the volcanic became the Henry and then after several patent infringements and shady business practices later that same basic action became a machine gun. That gun was the seed for MANY modern firearms, and the money made from the post-volcanic designs stolen/modified paid for the design work that led to many more modern weapons. The volcanic is at the top of the heap when looked at in family lineage. Not many others could claim such a wide berth of importance.

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Well not so fast, back in the late 80's the 4.7mm caseless ammo for HK's G11 rifle was pretty much perfected after a long development process, as was the rifle, but due to the collapse of communism the project was cancelled.

But back to the Volcanic pistol, a modern reproduction would obviously have to use off the shelf ammo in order to sell well. I just don't think there would be that much of a market for the guns. They are interesting pieces of firearms history, but they are not nearly as famous as guns like the Henry rifle or Colt SAA. I would predict they wouldn't sell as well as those designs do today.

While we are dreaming, I'd love to see a modern repro of a Girandoni air rifle as used by Lewis and Clark to hunt animals on their journey. It's a repeating, high power air rifle with a 20 round magazine shooting .46 caliber balls and powerful enough to kill a deer at a good distance... and came out in 1780 or so... and ran on AIR lol! It was used by the Austrian army for about 30 years and predated the famous Henry repeater by decades.

Doesn't mean I'm ever going to get to own a reproduction of it! Unfortunatly, the market just isn't there most likely. Maybe it's due to lack of noteriety, but the Volcanic is pretty much in the same boat.

rodregier said:

Unless the mercury fulminate was incorporated into a percussion cap as part of the Volcanic "cartridge", it would not be lawful to transport. So getting new manufactured into the hands of end users would be problematic.

173.71 Fulminate of mercury. (a) The offering of fulminate of mercury in a dry condition for transportation is forbidden, except as...

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I should think any modern repro would use modern priming compound. The mercury fulminate was far too unstable when dry.
But with modern stuff it's pretty safe.
And no one is talking about transporting fulminating mercury around wet or dry anyway.

There was an Internet report on a one off new made Volcanic pistol.
Since it used cased ammunition, it was not a faithful reproduction, but it LOOKED good.
The ammo was loaded in shortened .40 S&W brass to keep the gun in proportion. Still not very powerful, but I guess it scratched his itch.

Found it:
Video at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Dn9YK8HfH4
Looks like it would take a lot of work on levering technique to keep up with a revolver.

Production report. 28 pages of pictures and discussion at
http://www.homegunsmith.com/cgi-bin/ib3/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=3;t=22531;st=0

Ammo shown at
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?52146-Home-Built-Volcanic-Pistol-And-Ammo

I was going to post what Mr Watson did.

There was also a short lived outfit that made a few Volcanic type guns in Montana. I've never seen one, but heard of them.

The Volcanic is a smaller action than a Henry. Henry's arent simply a Volcanic made for 44 rimfire loads, its a quite noticeably larger action.

I had an 1866 Uberti repro converted to .44 Russian...kinda a cool gun! I really like .44 Russian...

Michael B

That is about as close as you could get and have something to shoot.
.44 Russian was derived from .44 American, which is very close to .44 Henry except centerfire.

Malamute said:

I was going to post what Mr Watson did.

There was also a short lived outfit that made a few Volcanic type guns in Montana. I've never seen one, but heard of them.

The Volcanic is a smaller action than a Henry. Henry's arent simply a Volcanic made for 44 rimfire loads, its a quite noticeably larger action.

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When living in Connecticut I once drove with a friend to a range a fair distance from my home. I missed a turn and stopped at a nice looking gunshop to ask directions, thinking if anyone knew where the range was the gunshop people would.
One wall above a counter was loaded with firearms, all hanging there. One looked like a Henry with a suspiciously short receiver, and an almost squared elevator block. I asked the employee I was talking to if that was a Volcanic and he said yes, it was.
In general layout the Volcanic was similar to the Henry and its interior mechanism was still the toggle-link. But Malamute is right there is a distinct difference in the size of the receiver as it doesn't have to be as long since the round it used was "caseless."
Unfortunatly I didn't get to examine or handle the Volcanic .... that would have required a large ladder and some disruption to the business the store was engaged in, so ....maybe in the future I might get the opportunity to examine a original Volcanic.

bannockburn said:

Now if someone were to make a Ferguson rifle replica I would be first in line for one of those!

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I would be second in line.

The Rifle Shoppe will sell a set of all metal parts for a Ferguson for $1795. Stocking and finishing is left as an exercise for the Enthusiastic Internet Shopper.

Narragansett Arms built 250 Fergusons about 20 years ago.
Price on the secondary market is no doubt high, but those of you in line did not say you were on a budget.