The Gun PT2 Joseph Whitworth

Mr Clarkson implies toward the end that the British army suffered a crushing defeat at Rourke's Drift, when, in fact, they won. It had been the previous day at Isandhlwana where they had been annihilated. The muzzle-loading Whitworth would have been a disastrous choice for the British Empire - it was the cartridge-firing Martini-Henry, capable of shooting ten rounds a minute, that won it.

tac

True but he is referring to the barrel and its accuracy not the attached mechanism.

Actually, the contemporary of the Whitworth would have been the 1853 Rifle/Musket, which is also a muzzle loader.

But isn't the Henry barrel built on whitworths work, they just have ribs on the groove to avoid patent rights.
oh and wouldnt a hexagonal rifle bullet be difficult to allign in a chamber under the stress of battle, sorry muzzleloaders were obsolete even in 1879

It depends if they got the number of turns right on the rifling. It is the hexagonal that defines it I would think and yes it would cause a mechanism problem as I say below. India still used muzzleloaders quite late.

The Whitworth rifle was a muzzle-loader - aligning the hexagonal bullet in the hexagonal bore is not problem - I do it most week-ends with my Parker-Hale .451 Whitworth.

tac

We were talking about the idea of fitting a hexagonal barrel onto an underleaver rifle or Matini Henry etc.

In my opinion the Henry Martini Rifles were better suited to fighting the Zulus as they had a high rate of fire, and the Zulus wouldn't be far away they would charge with their Spears, so Muzzle Loaders no matter how far they can shoot would have been useless during the Zulu War

As I said below I think he means how good they could have been if they used a Whitworth barrel, maybe on a Martini or even better an 1873 Winchester mechanism, but you are right and he should say barrel system.

It would be interesting to test a Whitworth Hexagonal barrel on a Winchester or Martini Henry but hexagonal cartridges would have to be made, could be a problem in a Winchester mechanism but not a Martini maybe.