History of the 95th - Articles (The Nock Volley Gun by Richard Rutherford-Moore)

The Nock Volley Gun

As seen on ITV’s ‘Sharpe’

By Richard Rutherford-Moore

The reader should note that the Nock Volley Gun has no historical significance to the 95th Rifles

and this article is published here solely for information purposes because of the great interest shown

in the ‘Sharpe’ series in which this weapon featured and in which the 1/95th Rifles contributed

The French introduced an earlier version of a multi-barrelled volley-gun (of which only one example survives, and is perhaps an indication of its popularity in wild-fowling). It is obscure but has been recorded that at least one of these was later made with rifled barrels.

The gun dealt with here was designed by Captain James Wilson and made by Henry Nock. The concept of such a weapon was based on a thought by Wilson that it might be handy for ships’ captains to have in their cabins a weapon capable of dealing with a mutinous crew to be able not only to immediately halt a charge by a gang of mutineers but for the discharge to penetrate to a ‘depth of several men’. Captain James Wilson may have been an excellent sea-officer but was obviously not a student of Isaac Newton whose law of ‘For every action there is an equal and opposite Reaction’ which may have given a hint as to what effect this gun would have on the firer when it was discharged - with each of the seven barrels charged with two drams of gunpowder and a solid lead ball …. 14 drams of gunpowder and five and half ounces of lead bullets all going off simultaneously … !

The Nock volley-guns did see action with the Royal Navy but they were never a popular arm with users, being elbowed on the grounds that it was cumbersome and un-portable (the guns were never fitted with a carrying-sling), took far too long to load, had to be used at close-range to be effective and was extremely unpopular for a seaman to fire compared to a conventional naval swivel-gun using a peg to fix the swivel to a deck or boat to avoid the firer having to cope with the heavy recoil - and it was also hinted that the muzzle-blast from these guns in action put the sails of the ship in danger of catching fire far more than inflicting serious damage on the enemy. Admirals Howe and Nelson are recorded as making unfavourable comments about the gun and dismissing them from Navy ship-board use - most of the volley-guns made by Henry Nock by 1805 seem to have been either placed in store ashore, scrapped or sent to Australia for use by the prison-guards in penal settlements - who unfortunately for posterity and students of this particular arm never left us any record of serious use or their opinion of this gun.

Overall length: 37 inches

Barrel length: 20 inches

Calibre: 0.52 inch

Weight: 16 pounds

About 500 of the first model (pictured above top) were produced in 1780. The first model has a back-action flintlock, with the frizzen-spring made in a sort-of ‘L’ shape forward of the cock. The lock-plate is stamped ‘TOWER GR’ and the trigger-guard is slightly oval.

A further 100 of the second model (pictured above bottom) were produced in 1787. Again with a back-action flintlock, but this time with a more conventional frizzen-spring fitting - but mounted ‘in reverse’ of the usual position. The trigger-guard is shorter and thicker than previously and rounder in shape and the angle of the stock to the barrel-cluster has been changed.

The volley-gun used on the long-running and highly-successful television series Sharpe - which became popularly known on the film-set as ‘Mr Nock Junior’ through being a 30% reduction in size, weight and calibre - was still a very powerful weapon.

The gun was first used on-film and ‘in action’ in the episode “Sharpe’s Company” when at the top of the breach in the wall despite precautions and several yards between them the muzzle-blast from the gun bowled over two stuntmen, the director and the camera operator! In trials, loading the gun from seven pre-made paper cartridges took the author just over a minute: loading from a powder flask with ‘patched ball’ took about two minutes (bear in mind the author is a skilled muzzle-loader and was familiar with the gun). The gun was fired only once at an old door and in the words of the author ‘it knocked it into the middle of next week and reduced the frame to splinters’.

‘Devastating’ only partly describes this gun in action … there is no doubt that anyone faced with this weapon - and a possible use in anger - would find it an extremely daunting prospect and in 1994, the owner of the gun likened firing the volley-gun ‘live’ to him being fired out of a cannon into the front of a moving train – as the reader can imagine, it takes a very brave man to fire this gun from the shoulder. The psychological effect on a body of men faced with such a weapon in the hands of an antagonist is roughly the same as the trepidation felt by the prospective firer - the concussion and blast from such a fully-loaded weapon should not be under-estimated as a conservative estimate through required Proof of the power generated at the breech is a pressure of seventy tons per square inch ... a greater ballistic pressure than a modern .44 calibre Magnum armour-piercing round.