Considering all the springs, sliders etc, are all over 100 years old. I'd say its working really well Fantastic design

Honestly, I *love* this. It screams steampunk, but unlike random exposed gears on a hat, it has practical use. I wish I were a machinist so I could recreate this with modern carbon steels and for today's standard shell length.

When I saw the shotgun in Hunt: Showdown with this system, I thought it was something weird created for the game. But damn, it's a real life design.

A pocket full of shells, and a proper break action(with eject) is pretty damn fast once you get used to it, so I can understand why this didn't catch on. It's still beautifully designed, considering how raw everything is, and being a lover a mechanical movement, it would definitely be a wonderful item to have!

The fact this thing works with 100 year old springs in such a Rube Goldberg manner and actually DOES work is amazing

What is more impressive is the spring tension is still good after 100 years

Theses are the kinds of "weapon modifications" I love to see. Really would like to see things like this in more FPS games

This video single handedly brought this attachment to Hunt.

The only thing that disappoints me about this video on such a cool mechanism working, is the fact that we didn't get to see any high speed footage of it. Getting to see it work in slow motion I think would be REALLY cool!

As much as I love seeing the modern and advances milled weapons out there, THIS TAKES THE CAKE for just the sheer cleverness of the homegrown style, steampunk like, design.

basically, it made the entire grip and stock part into the lever of a lever action? THAT'S GENIUS!

Given that it still functions reasonable well after 100 years, I bet it worked almost flawlessly when new.

i imagine what a device like that would look like for a double barrel,like two of these one on each side,or maybe just one for the 5 plus 1 ammo capacity

I am honestly shocked you guys didn’t slow motion capture the reloading sequence. We need that in our life.

I love how this channel focuses on historic and obscure .. and sometimes unique and bizarre - firearms engineering rather than how many pumpkins can be blown up. You bring a certain awesome class and honest respectability to shooting.

I'd love to develop a 3d print for one of these to modernize 'em a bit. It would take a bit of fiddling with the spring strength to get perfected. It's such a cool design yet it's a shame we don't have any modern continuations of this patent.

I don't care that pump and semi shotguns are available, I want one. Also, imagine if a similar contraption was made for the m79 grenade launcher.

Someone needs to remake this with modern materials and manufacturing, for no other reason than just because it would be cool!

In regard to $ value of 1925 vs today, it's roughly 16x what it was. So the 6$ attachment is an equivalent of around 96$. A break-action shotgun's 15-20$ would be 240-320$, and the 35+$ pump-action would be 560$+. Pricing seems to be roughly in line with what can be found today, although obviously we also have guns that are considerably above those price points. Very interesting all told.

this is actually one of the coolest designs ive ever seen

9:22 Imagine the creator and his boys having this same excited “heh heh!” over 100 years ago

I've always wanted to see two of these mounted to a double-action shotgun as an upgrade in an FPS. In real life it'd be a hilarious disaster, but in the world of say Bioshock it could work perfectly and look cool doing it.

This really reminds me of the weapon upgrades in Half Life Alyx - alien tech thrown onto old weapons to improve performance, such as robotic arms to auto reload pistols. It's so cool that something like this really exists, and it's a hundred years old!!! Fantastic design.

This is unbelievably cool. I love old mechanisms like this.

When this was new, I don't think people had the expectation of flawless function that we have today. So the little bobble to get the round to feed would have been taken in stride and without much notice... Very cool. Tinkering at it's best.

This looks like a badass videogame upgrade, never thought I'd see someone so cool irl

Devs for The Hunt: Showdown are in the back scribbling notes.

I think that if you adjust that bolt at 2:56 (you have a fingertip underneath it) the loader will work without hesitation. It aligns the loader tilt with the barrel. On the video it looks like the tilting action goes too far. And then you might want to adjust the height on the mounting system. And that repeat these two steps in aligning 425421 times and you good to go :D

Just the sound of that reload; all the springs, levers, movement falling into place perfectly is beautiful

This thing is genius. I imagine it started as “what if a cylinder holding a new shell could push the it into barrel automatically?”. And then each and every problem that arises was addressed one by one. Where does this cylinder come from? It pivots in when the lock is opened. How does the old shell get ejected? The ejected shell triggers the mechanism, so the cylinder only pivots in after successful ejection. How does the cylinder hold the shell in while not in action? There is a blockage on the side of the gun… Wait let’s put more shells held under spring tension there! Those shells get held on the side by an extra blocker when the mechanism operates. I think it looks steam punk because every piece is visible and has a simple function. It’s not that the mechanism is overly complex, but that it has many simple steps that none were hidden or integrated to one part. You can pretty much draw a circle between each and every part of the action, and end up with the whole shape of the visible area.

My 60th birthday today and what a great content to see. This is really great to see as you say, many devices never really worked. This one is fascinating. Well done!

So that's where Hunt devs are getting their ideas

Crytek is literally taking note for putting this in hunt showdown

This mechanism seems more complicated to design than the whole gun, and I love it.

Hunt Showdown gun research brought me here. I find myself suddenly in love with these 18th-19th century weapons.

Hello from Hunt: Showdown community!

Would be cool if someone makes an entire gun around this concept. Impractical for sure, but undeniably cool.

17:02. You can see the problem that causes the boble to be necessary. The transfer tube is over too far. The adjustment screw is probably worn from use, and needs to be tightened so the tube doesn't go so far. Or replaced, depending on if it will move.

god just the idea of someone seeing a break action shotgun and saying "fuck it I'm turning this thing into a makeshift pump action" and succeeding baffles me to no end

Watching your channel has given me a new appreciation for gun mechanics in general, but something about this... contraption is just so freaking cool. It's amazing.

The Alofs seems to load more reliabily when the shotgun barrel is pointed towards the ground. Most of the hiccups occured when the shotgun barrel was at or near horizontal. It appears that when the barrel is pointed down, the shell is able to slide a bit further into the chamber which helps it to clear the receiver when closing the action. I bet a thorough cleaning and perhaps light oil on the chamber would aid reliability as well. Very cool video, nonetheless. Thanks!

I have one mounted to my Grandfather’s Champion 12ga. The barrel has had so many buckshot shells run through it the top end has grooves.

romero alamo it's you?

They just added this to Hunt: Showdown so i had to come back and drop a shoutout to Ian for being the reason more than 3 people in the 21st century have ever heard of this…thing.

The whole design, the basic idea and the intended market... This is absolutely genius. And to think it runs this well after a hundred years, I would not be surprised if those hiccups were very uncommon when it was brand new. And even if that wasn't the case and it had those hiccups out of the box, it's still nothing more than a tiny inconvenience to an amazing, useful gadget. If you squeezed my arm and forced me to come up with anything that could be improved, I'd suggest to add a lever that disconnects the feeding tube tilting mechanism, so when the main tube runs out of ammo, the feeding tube gets fixed in place so you can manually reload without the feeding tube getting in the way.

The fact that it's such a weird design, managed to be a cheaper combination than an actual repeating gun, worked back then, and STILL mostly works today with nearly 100 year old springs... I'm honestly flabbergasted. I don't even have a shotgun, yet I want one of these. Someone will surely come up with a 3D printable design (with store bought springs and metal pipes) for this at some point. EDIT: And it wouldn't even be that much more difficult to design some quality of life improvements into this, like a cut-off for the loading mechanism when empty, so that it doesn't get in the way of loading manually after you run out, cartridge stops, etc...

This is such a fun design, and the movement of the action is incredible!

I found this after I saw that they added this version for Romero in Hunt: Showdown, so cool to see it was actually a thing.

This is where you can really see that Ian is, deep down, a mechanist that loves mechanisms. He just really wants this to work and is so happy when it does.

The ingenuity of the designers of this era never ceases to amaze me

Guy that shot with the alofs near the end... I would NEVER let him anywhere near my stuff. Especially not my firearms. Cocky, impatient, broke your damn alofs and kept firing. Reminds me of a friend of mine

I've got one in 20 gauge with the Canada patent dates on it. They were sold through The Iver Johnson Sporting Goods Company which was owned by Iver Johnson Arms & Cycle Works. Haven't seen it listed in any of the IJA&CW catalogs.

I'm amazed that it actually worked. I'd imagine that when it was brand new it probably functioned quite smoothly if it works this well after all this time. I think part of the problem might be that 2 3/4" shotgun shells are the norm nowadays but they weren't back when this was made. I have dug up a box of shotgun ammo that my grandfather had and it was 2 1'2" which leads me to believe that the shells this was designed for were 1/4" shorter.

I'm surprised I haven't seen these in Hunt: Showdown, considering that they have something as niche and weird as the auto Mosin, which is a Huot conversion on a Mosin Nagant which wouldn't work for obvious reasons.

I love thing like italian coffe makers, safety razors, pocket watches, zippo lighters, bar shifters for bikes, typewritters, steadycams. These are what I call rudimentary advanced, they are nowadays obsolete and are quite simple tools doing their purpose, but in fact they are quite clever, impresive relying in pure mechanicals and physics and that makes them shine. Now this things is one of the most rudimentary advanced tools I ever seen.... Ilove it!

I like the little groove in the brim of your hat from countless weapon recoils

im almost certain the issues with loading in and out of the intermediate tube are an issue because of modern oversized shells causing increased spring tension and i would love to see this thing ran with ones closer to what was intended, just in case it could operate flawlessly a century old

There's only one thing I want more than high-speed footage of this, and that's for someone to mirror the design and bolt one to either side of a side-by-side double barrel!

Hunt Showdown community sends it's regards!

If you guys are interested in having one, the Sulun arms are making the modern version of it, the ST-601 "Auslof"

For anyone wondering what the price in 1924 equates to now, $6 then is a bit under $100 and $20 then is about $325 now. So to buy a single shot break action and this add on would run you about $350 to $425 today as opposed to the $575 that the price of a factory repeating shotgun is equivalent to today

As a mechanical designer, I had my doubts about this contraption but after watching you work it out in the field, I am duly impressed.

Think this might be my favorite random gun thing I've seen, I love the idea and how efficient it is for someone's old diy project essentially

Well thanks for wishing a wonderful new year. But I didn't expect I would see so many wonders this year.

Im possibly more impressed with this than any other gun on this channel, and I've spent countless hours watching. Thanks for finally getting this footage out here bro. I love the complex engineering with no thought given to practicality. "we'll make it work, damn it!" I can just hear the guys designing this awesome thing

I always wondered if there was a left handed version of this, so you could mount one on each side of a double barrel shotgun.

That’s a really pretty loading mechanism. I don’t think it would be that hard to iron out some of the bobbles when loading, either. I really thought that was going to jam hard and fast, instead it has an immensely satisfying sounding and looking loading action. For extra credits, a detachable/easier to reload ammo tube would make the ultimate steampunk shotgun… … until the double barrel break action version is made.

This is the coolest gun attachment ive seen by FAR. absolutely beautiful action

I love when Ian is very clearly excited to show us something wild.

Love Ian's dedication to the shot hiding his terror over the guy seemingly breaking his Alofs loader! Great video as usual!

Such a cool design. Reminded me of the video game 'Hunt: Showdown'.

Ian makes my day better. Thanks for the great videos burh.

This is exactly the kind of ahead of its time design that would work in a game like hunt showdown, especially since they already have a single shot break action gun

This gun needs to be put into video games, it's so ridiculously cool! This thing looks like it should be hunting vampires and werewolves in Victorian England or something! 😂❤

@17:28 "Rally 'round the family With a pocket full of shells" good quote

That is such a cool and unique reload method, I love stuff like this

I get the steampunk associations, but I think this also fits really well into the fallout universe (or any post-apocalyptic setting). I can totally picture some survivors building this out of scavenged parts and various break-action shotguns (imagine a double barrel one with this system! ;D) to get the upper hand against raiders because more advanced weapons are rare and hard to maintain

I'm sure when new, and with some fine tuning, that would cycle pretty well. There are lots of options to tune the device to match the gun its mounted on.

The noise it makes when it rechambers is so immensely satisfying

I know they all started at their own times and all have their own separate channels but Forgotten Weapons, C&Rsenal, the great war chanel and anvil with mark have all seemed like one big group of people with similar interests but specialities in different fields of the same hobby

I’m pretty sure Othias did a video showing how this contraption worked a couple of years ago, it was a pretty short video just to show that it did actually work.

This would be a fantastically cool device to fit on my old single-barrel 16-guage shotgun. Shame this Rube Goldberg of a device is long out of production.

Really appreciate you sharing this.

This has got to be the best, most fun, shotgun device I have ever seen. This is a tinkers, builders, dream. Post apoc, steampunk, etc....amazing.

I've wanted to see one of these actually run for a very long time, thank you for showing it off for us. Also, my heart skipped a beat at 16:24 when it looked like 100 years of mouse trapping was finally over.

Love the click-clack and tube sounds while running the action. Clever, crude and yet awesome design.

This a crazy, yet simple and working contraption. Quite interesting!

The only way I can describe the both the mechanism and process of firing this firearm is *delicious*

I've got to say, this does put a smile on my face, hats off to the original designer. For how wonderfully brilliant the whole action is, how well it works and how extremely nicely it has help up over time.

This reminds me of the auto-loader upgrade for the shotgun in _Half-Life: Alyx,_ though this one is only slightly less ridiculous.

This thing is really really cool, I love awesome engineering like this, and it seems to have held up well. Amazing mechanics, sounds sweet too.

Had to come back after seeing they added the new alamo in Hunt

I love how Matt just straightup ripped the shotgun apart in his excitement

Surprised we haven't seen this beauty in a movie/series yet, that is an iconic mechanism!, awesome!, thank you again for another great video Ian!

The sounds are so satisfying when the roload just works perfectly.

WTF?! HUNT SHOWDOWN IN REAL LIFE!!!!

Honestly, if you were in an environment where there weren't a lot of repeating shotguns, this would make you king of the hill. You've got at least 4 shots where you'll be faster than the next guy (unless they've got a double), and after that there's nothing to stop you from single loading until you get a couple minutes to top up. Pair it with a cartridge belt or a bandolier, and you've got a high speed, low drag shotgun in 1905. Could you win a 2-gun match against a proper repeater? It wouldn't be impossible, but most likely not. But that isn't really what it's for. In the intended role of giving you repeating firepower for hunting, it probably works great (unless you drop it in the mud), and like Ian said, a $10 topper and $15 Alofs device is substantially less expensive than a $35 pump, and if you inherited the topper, the savings are even higher.

It's a really pimp device, i can't belive that after almost 100 years works so well; happy new year to you and your family too.

That is awesome, I would love to have one on a old single shot. From 1 to 5 shots is a huge improvement. Also a fun little gadget one could learn to load faster.

This is one of the coolest engineering pieces i have ever seen in my life Great video