Blake?

[waterman]

Someone on the IAA Forum turned up a Blake clip. I've been chasing Krags & the others for about 70 years. Never seen one of these.

[Ned Butts]

Very interesting, thanks for posting

[butlersrangers]

I have only seen Blake rifles and items in museums and pictured in firearm references.
The Blake was submitted, as an 'American made' entry, for the Ordnance Department tests, which saw the adoption of the Krag-Jorgensen rifle, in 1892 and 1893.
Some component parts of the Blake, (barrel-bands, sights, and clearing-rod), bear a strong resemblance to model 1899 Remington-Lee parts.
(Possibly there was some cooperation from Remington, during the Blake rifle's manufacture)?

The Blake was manufactured in military and sporting versions. It was chambered for a variety of cartridges, including 6mm U.S.N., .30-40 U.S. Army and a 'rimless' .30 caliber Blake round. The magazine 'spools' were peculiar to each offered chambering.

Last year, I was surprised to find a reference to 50 'new' Blake rifles in a 1902 inventory of equipment in the possession of the Michigan National Guard.

[MooseNugget]

Listed below is a video created by Ian McCollum, of 'Forgotten Weapons' fame, concerning the Blake Rifle:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6hdhan

Off topic but as an interesting note I noticed from Chucks list of '1902 inventory of equipment in the possession of the Michigan National Guard' an item called the Buzzacott Oven. Listed below is information about the oven and its inventor. The inventor, Francis Buzzacott, is another historical character who lived his life in a way that most individuals would take 100 life times to live:

https://www.spanamwar.com/foodarmybuzzacott.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Buzzacott

[butlersrangers]

Thanks MooseNugget, I kept meaning to look up about Buzzcotte Stoves!

[Culpeper]

Every kid had a roll cap gun when we played cowboys and indians. If we did not have any caps we would do the bang your dead thing. Then the arguments would go to "Ha! You were out of bullets in that six shooter". Uhnuh! You're dead. This is a seven shooter!

The Blake rifle. A gun every kid should have in the toy box.

[5madfarmers]

Off topic but as an interesting note I noticed from Chucks list of '1902 inventory of equipment in the possession of the Michigan National Guard' an item called the Buzzacott Oven. Listed below is information about the oven and its inventor. The inventor, Francis Buzzacott, is another historical character who lived his life in a way that most individuals would take 100 life times to live:

Old thread so diverting it to the Buzzacott is probably ok. I had encountered Buzzacott and his range in some of the documents of the period. Read it and moved on. Then he re-appeared in an odd way.

I ended up with some of those WW2 USMC tri-fold hexamine stoves. So I checked the contract and it pointed to the John W. Speaker company of Milwaukee. Checked the patents and he was there for an improved P-38 can opener. Now, in addition to that tri-fold thing he had a folding one similar to the German Esbit. The scouts bought those and stamped them as the scouts stove. So I checked to see what other patents Speaker had. A couple for collapsible grills. The earliest was an electric cooking stove. Assigned to American Gas Machine Co. With that complete I took a look at Speaker's information. In 1935 he was an engineer at the Beaver Dam Malleable Iron Range Co. Ok. Poked at them. Up popped a lawsuit. BDMIRCo had filed suit against Buzzacott and his partner Pusey for not paying for the ranges supplied to them by BDMIRCo.

The Buzzacott was made by Beaver Dam Malleable Iron Range Co.

Weird way to run into Buzzacott again.

[5madfarmers]

I suppose I should do something on topic.

I have a fondness for rotary magazine rifles. Once upon a time I starting looking for a Blake. Mentioned them to the wife yesterday. "Don't you have a Blake?" She remembered me looking obviously. I don't remember finding one. I don't remember taking one apart. Ergo I do not. I did dig into it.

I'll just add the ending. In 1914 people came looking for guns. Blake was interested in selling what tooling he had and the patents. A Canadian was interested. There was a go between. A bill was working its way through Congress. No munitions sales to countries at war. Amusing given what happened later. The deal was kaboshed. The go between filed suit against Blake for a commission on the sale. He won. Appealed to a higher court, the judgement was reversed - no commission was due. Blake was dead by the time the appeal was reversed, 1917, with his wife being on the hook.

In that legal mess a hint was found. The Blake rifles were likely made by the Baker shotgun company.

The Navy and New York tested the Blake.

[Dick Hosmer]

From reading old Rifleman magazines back in the day, I seem to remember a .40 Blake, or a .400 Blake being mentioned?

[5madfarmers]

From reading old Rifleman magazines back in the day, I seem to remember a .40 Blake, or a .400 Blake being mentioned?

Bumped into this when I was looking at them.

blake.jpg (22.16 KiB) Viewed 6065 times