774 



SHOT-GUNS. 



above the general outline of the gun. A very 

 large percentage of the accidents that have hap- 

 pened from the careless handling of firearms 

 have resulted from the existence of the external 

 hammer. In passing through thick undergrowth 

 the hammers are constantly liable to be caught 

 in the clothing or in the branches of trees : in 

 climbing fences, or in shooting water fowl from 

 a boat, the old style hammer is a constant source 

 of danger. Its banishment, therefore, undoubt- 

 edly reduces the danger of gunning to a very 

 considerable extent. Mr. Need ham, of London, 

 brought out a hammerless gun early in the history 

 of breech-loaders, but owing to its complicated 

 construction it did not find popular favor, and 

 the invention was practically forgotten until 

 about 1871. Small progress in the way of im- 

 provement had been made until that date, when 

 Murcott, of London, patented a hammerless lock 

 that was fairly successful but was in time super- 

 seded by numerous inventions, and at present 

 the market is flooded with such guns, good and 

 bad, cheap and costly. 



The early breech-loaders were constructed with 

 movable breech-pieces, or chambers that opened 

 to admit the cartridge and had to be closed 

 again before firing. It was well-nigh impossible 



the dotted line the two arms of C will be pressed 

 together, their force being exerted to drive A 

 forward upon B. But when A has made a quar- 

 ter revolution the notch in its base is engaged 

 by D (gravity acting to raise the short arm). 

 Thus the hammer will be held back until disen- 

 gaged by upward and backward pressure upon 

 the trigger D, when it will fly forward with force 

 proportioned to the strength of the main spring. 

 In practice, such a lock is likely to act, or refuse 

 to act, at the most unexpected and inconvenient 

 times, and it is necessary to provide various deli- 

 cate safety appliances to guard against accident. 

 But the principal parts remain the same, though 

 they may be differently placed in relation to one 

 another, and may be connected by cams, tum- 

 blers, and the like, to any degree of elaboration. 

 The introduction of central-fire cartridges has 

 rendered possible the use of a spiral spring car- 

 rying the hammer and delivering a straight blow 

 with its pointed head, instead of describing a 

 segment of a circle, as in the hammer of an or- 

 dinary lock. Hammer-lock breech-loaders were 

 at first discharged by means of the percussion 

 caps in common use at the time of their intro- 

 duction, and various forms of pin and needle 

 fire were employed before it occurred to any one 



to prevent the escape of gas and consequent loss 

 of power, not to mention incidental danger. The 

 snap-action gun now in general use carries the 

 barrel hinged or pivoted to the fore part of 

 the stock, so that when disengaged the muzzle 

 drops almost of its own gravity and the open 

 breech rises above the stock sufficiently to admit 

 the ejection or extraction of the old cartridge 

 and the insertion of new ones. This device, ap- 

 parently somewhat awkward at first sight, is in 

 fact extremely simple, since it insures through 

 the proper adjustment of the hinge an exceed- 

 ingly firm seat and grip for the barrels when in 

 place, ready to be discharged. Moreover, it ren- 

 ders possible simple automatic attachments for 

 the ejection of shells and for sundry safety ap- 

 pliances within the lock itself. 



The purpose of gun locks from the earliest 

 times has been to provide mechanism, in the 

 most compact form possible, capable of deliver- 

 ing a sharp blow at any desired instant, the blow 

 to be hard enough in the early days to strike fire 

 from steel, and in later times to explode a small 

 charge of fulminate. To this end a main spring 

 was necessary as the actuating force. Some of 

 the oldest examples of sporting arms are fur- 

 nished with a V-spring very like those in use to- 

 day, but it was often placed on the outside of 

 the stock, and acted directly upon the hammer. 

 Fig. 2 may serve to illustrate a crude form of 

 gun lock. 'A is the hammer (turning upon a pin 

 at A'), B the object upon which it strikes, C the 

 main spring (fixed at C'), D combined sear and 

 trigger working on pivot at d'. It is obvious 

 that if A be forced backward in the direction of 



FIG. 3. FLINT LOCK, 1750-1830. 



that the exterior hammer might be altogether 

 dispensed with. 



One of the most perfect and safe of modern 

 sporting arms is known as the " Invincible Ilam- 

 merless Gun." It is patented in the United 

 States and Great Britain by the inventors. Messrs 

 Burkhard and Novotny (No. 288.618). Since it 

 appears to combine in a remarkably perfect man- 

 ner all the best safety appliances known to gun- 

 makers, with several new and original devices, a 

 partial description of its mechanism is given : 

 Reference to the drawing of the rudimentary 

 gun lock will show that, in order to make its 

 action approximately certain, at least two addi- 

 tional springs are necessary, namely, a sear 

 spring. aTid a safety spring, the breaking of any 

 of which might prove disastrous or possibly fatal. 

 In the perfected gun the main spring furnishes 

 the sole motive power alike for delivering the 

 blow of the hammer and for engaging or disen- 

 gaging the safety device. In other words, so 

 long as the main spring is capable of driving 

 the hammer, so long the safety device is efficient ; 

 after that it makes no difference whether it is 

 efficient or not. This end is attained by an at- 

 tachment known as a "safety dog," so arranged 

 that when the hammer is thrown back the " dog " 

 is turned partly upon a pivot and drops its lower 

 foot upon the main spring, in which position it 

 remains until designedly released for firing. Ap- 



