Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887

by Various

FIG. 10.--LEE MAGAZINE GUN

There is a projection, Z, on the fore part of the carrier, which keeps the next cartridge from leaving the magazine while the trough is in the upper or loading position. A supplementary cartridge stop, R, pivoted at P and having a spring, L, underneath it, acts in conjunction with Z in retaining the cartridges in the magazine, and especially in preventing more than one at a time from passing out into the carrier when the latter is depressed; it also retains the cartridges in the magazine tube while the latter is being filled.

Lee Magazine Rifle.--This arm (see Fig. 10), which occupied the place of honor in the report of the American "Board on Magazine Guns," embodied two new principles of considerable importance, viz., the central position of the magazine, and having it detachable with ease, so that two or more magazines can be carried by the soldier.

The breech action of the Lee does not materially differ in design from other bolt rifles, except that the bolt is in two pieces only--the body, or bolt proper, and the hammer or cocking-piece. The firing pin, or striker, is screwed into the hammer; the spiral main spring, which surrounds the striker, is contained in a hollow in the body. The handle is placed at the rear end of the bolt, and bent down toward the stock, so as to allow the trigger to be reached without wholly quitting hold of the bolt. The extractor is so connected with the bolt head as not to share the rotation of the latter when the handle is turned down into the locking position. When the handle is turned up to unlock the bolt, the hammer is cammed slightly to the rear, by means of oblique bearings on the bolt and hammer, so as to withdraw the point of the striker within the face of the bolt. This oblique cam action also gives great power to the extractor at first starting the empty cartridge case out of the chamber.

The magazine, M, is simply a sheet iron or steel box of a size to hold five cartridges, but there seems no reason why it should not be of larger dimensions. It is detachable from the rifle, and is inserted from underneath into a slot or mortise in the stock and in the shoe, in front of the trigger guard. A magazine catch, C, just above the trigger guard, engages in a notch, N, in the rear of the magazine, the projection, L, first entering a recess prepared for it in the shoe. There is a magazine spring, D, at the bottom of the magazine box which pushes the cartridges up into the shoe. The point of the top cartridge is pushed into the projection, L, and this keeps the lower cartridges in their places in the box while the latter is detached; when the magazine is inserted in the rifle, the withdrawal of the bolt causes the top cartridge to be slightly drawn back, so that it is now free to be fed up into the shoe by the magazine spring, D.

There is a later pattern of magazine, which has its front face quite plain, with no projection, L, as the magazine catch was found sufficient to hold the box in its place. To prevent the cartridges being pressed out of the magazine before the latter is inserted in the rifle, there is a strong spring placed vertically in one side of this box, the curved upper end of which bears upon the top cartridge; when the magazine is in its place in the shoe, this side spring is so acted upon that it ceases to hold down the cartridges in the box.

To use the rifle as a single loader, formerly the magazine had to be detached, when a spring plate in the shoe, which is pushed aside by the insertion of the magazine, starts back into its place and nearly fills the magazine slot, so as to prevent cartridges falling through to the ground when fed into the chamber by hand. The later pattern, however, has two notches on the magazine for the catch, C, to engage in. When the magazine is inserted in the slot only as far as the upper notch, the rifle can be used only as a single loader, but on pressing the box home to the second notch, the magazine immediately comes into play.

The magazine can be released from the slot by an upward pressure on the lower projecting end of the magazine catch, C, which is covered by the trigger guard.

Improved Lee.--This rifle is precisely similar in principle to the Lee, the chief difference being that the magazine is permanently fixed in its slot underneath the shoe, and in front of the trigger guard. The cartridges are inserted from above. There is a stop by means of which the cartridges can be prevented rising up into the shoe, and which forms a sort of false bottom to the slot in the latter, so that the arm can be used as a single loader.