FIG. 282.—THE GREENER HAMMERLESS GUN.
Hammerless Guns.—Among improvements in shot guns the so-called “hammerless” feature is a noteworthy departure. This hides the hammers in the breech and cocks them by the act of breaking down the gun. In [Fig. 282] is given a section and plan view of the Greener mechanism, which was patented July 6, 1880, No. 229,604, and was one of the first guns of this kind put on the market. The hammers A are constructed as elbow levers. Their upper ends have each a round point adapted to strike through a small hole in the breech onto the cap of the cartridge. The lower front portions of the hammers are extended forward and curved inwardly toward each other, so that their inner ends nearly meet. C is a pendent hook jointed to the barrel, and when the latter is tilted, as shown in dotted lines, the hook acting upon the forwardly projecting arms of the hammers turns them backward to the cocked position, in which they are retained by the dogs B engaging with their notches. As the hammers move back the mainspring is compressed, and when the dog B is removed from the notch by pulling on the trigger, the hammers are released and the gun fired.
The rebounding lock, now universally applied to shot guns, is another comparatively recent improvement. This promotes safety by causing the hammers to be normally and automatically held away from the firing pins. The first practical form of this lock was patented by Hailer, July 26, 1870, No. 105,799, in which a single spring serves to deliver the blow of the hammer and also withdraws the hammer from the firing pin. A marked tendency in shot guns in late years is toward a reduction in bore, many sportsmen now using a 28 gauge in preference to the old regulation 12.
Nearly 5,000 patents have been granted in the United States for firearms, and about 2,400 for projectiles. The most important of the latter is the torpedo, of which the Whitehead, or fish torpedo, which supplies its own means of propulsion, is the best known and most used. It was first brought out in 1866 by Whitehead, at Fiume, a port of Hungary. The Gathmann aerial torpedo, weighing 1,800 pounds and carrying 625 pounds of wet gun cotton, is designed to be fired from a gun 44 feet long and 18 inch bore, and is supposed to have a range of ten miles. Tests are about to be made under special appropriation of Congress, and if its claim can be substantiated, it may become the most destructive engine of warfare known.
Explosives.—The invention of gunpowder is ascribed to the Chinese, and at a period so far back that its origin is buried in antiquity. It is believed to have been known since the time of Moses, something very like it being mentioned in the ancient Gentoo laws of India 1,500 to 2,000 B. C. For many years it was thought that Roger Bacon invented it in 1249, but it is now known that he was only a factor in its development. Most likely the saltpetre of the plains of China came first in accidental contact with the charred embers of a prehistoric fire, and to the observant man the oxygen-giving saltpetre furnished the charcoal with its means of energetic combustion for the first time.
Gunpowder consists of about 75 parts of saltpetre (nitrate of potash), 15 of charcoal, and 10 of sulphur, the proportions varying somewhat with the use to which it is to be applied. In ordinary combustion the air supplies the necessary oxygen. In gunpowder the presence of the air is not necessary, as the saltpetre has imprisoned in its composition a large quantity of oxygen which furnishes to the carbon and sulphur the means for its combustion, gasification and enormous expansion. Originally, gunpowder was pulverulent, like that used in fire works, and had but little propelling force. The making of it in grains (“corned”) is ascribed to Berthold Schwarz, a German monk, about 1320, and this, by promoting the rapidity of its burning, added greatly to its effective force, and gave a new impetus to firearms.
In the early part of the Nineteenth Century there were but few improvements in either the composition or manufacture of gunpowder. The introduction of the percussion cap, which exploded the charge by a blow, in the place of the old flint lock, was, however, a notable advance. Alexander John Forsyth, a Scotch clergyman, was the first to apply a percussion or detonating compound, as set forth in his British patent No. 3,032, of 1807. The embodiment of such compounds in the little copper caps was made about 1818, and has been claimed by various parties. Manton’s British patent No. 4,285, of 1818, describes a thin copper tube filled with fulminate and struck sidewise by the hammer to explode it. Joshua Shaw took a United States patent on a percussion gun, June 19, 1822, and the copper percussion cap was said to have been introduced in the United States by him in 1842. The embodiment of the charge of powder and ball in brass and copper shells was done in France by Galay Cazalat as early as 1826. Drawn metallic shells were made by Flobert and Lefaucheux, in 1853, and Palmer, in 1854. Drawn copper cartridges with center fire were introduced in the United States, and patented by Smith & Wesson August 8, 1854, No. 11,496, and solid headed shells by Hotchkiss, August 31, 1869, No. 94,210.