doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com British Firearms Patents, 1846-1854

Does anyone have access to British firearms patents (with drawings) between 1846 and 1854 inclusive? I have them from 1855 on (as well as most U.S. and French patents of the 1840-1860 period), but the pre-1855 British patents elude me. Specifically, I'm trying to find out if any enterprising gunmaker patented a breechloader with forward-sliding barrel in the 1846=54 time span.

Do you have Vol 1 of The British Shotgun by Crudgington & Baker?

I'm not near my copy but it's where I'd go first to look.

Tim

Thanks. Tim. No, I don't have that book (although I've heard that it's well worth having). I should note that my query about breechloaders with forward-sliding barrels isn't limited to shotguns, but applies to any breechloader of the type, whether shotgun, rifle, or pistol.

Lou

The book won't help you much for this search. Reference is made to a Needham patent of 1852,but no description or drawings.
There is always the Patents for Inventions Small Arms class 119 by Armory Publications.

George Hoyem edited British Patents Fire-Arms and other Weapons, Ammunition, and Accoutrements from 1588-1854'

Also Illustrated British Firearms Patents 1714-1853 by Lindsay might help. If you have specific questions, I have these books.

Thank you, gentlemen. Daryl, my specific question concerns any British patent for a breechloader with a forward-sliding barrel issued between 1846 and 1854. We have the U.S. Nickerson patent for this system in 1852, and the Bastin patent for same in 1855, but I'm guessing that a British patent for this concept originated some time prior to 1852.

Lou

It appears the the Heurteloup's Patent 6611 of 1834 may have forward sliding barrels.

Daryl: Many thanks for checking. Heurteloup's French patent that year (a really lengthy one) seems to suggest forward-sliding barrels, but the drawings show the typical break-open design, so perhaps we're talking about different guns here.

By the way, the French patents of the 1830s and '40s show some remarkably advanced breechloading doubles, almost all of them of the break-open variety. For example, an 1847 patent by Pierre Loron shows a break-open double which is apparently striker fired, and opened by a simple push on a rearward extension of the trigger guard. Slick stuff!

P.S. I see from your Baker shotgun ads that you and I have both waded through those valuable issues of "Forest and Stream" for the 1870s and 1880s---really first-rate material.

The patent I referred to is a British patent. The patent reads quite long, but the drawing seems to show the barrels sliding forward, then dropping down. On closing I see the barrels back on face over projections on the standing breech , maybe similar to the Dougall Lockfast. I could be wrong as I don't have my glasses at the moment.

Yes , the Forest and Streams are valuable research materials. I have most of them from the beginning up until the 1920s. Really too much to go through in the weekly magazines [up until the end, the publishing was less frequent]. Hundreds of pounds of material.