I was regulating a lovely 1890 Woodward 'Automatic' today and while it was in bits I thought people might be interested in what makes a 'Automatic' an 'Automatic'.
The whole patent is about a lever cocking mechanism but there are other clever features in the patent that are not obvious from the outside.
The most individual is the interceptor sear that operates from the safety slide. When the safety slide is in the 'safe' position it locks the trigger blades and causes a pair of limbs to descend in front of the tumblers. If the tumblers get 'knocked out of bent' the limbs catch in the recess on the breast of the tumbler preventing an unexpected detonation.
If the safety is pushed forward, it unlocks the trigger blades but also lifts these limbs out of the way of the tumblers into recesses cut in the top horns of the stock.
Simple and brilliant.
The third photo shows the core of the patent: the underlever has an articulated arm on its internal top end which lifts the tumblers into cock when the lever is depressed, also withdrawing the barrel bolt and resetting the safety slide.
It should be remembered that Woodward continued to use the trade mark 'Automatic' after this action passed into history and you will find totally 'normal' SLE's marked as such even though they owe very little to the original patented design.
