The Shot- Gun. 



769 



The Lefaucheux gun is shown below. In the left-hand barrel 

 is a cartridge, the pin of which fits in a recess cut in the top of 

 the breech. This pin is struck^by the hammer and driven into the 

 fulminate held in the bottom of a little brass cup in the center of 

 the base of the cartridge. When the gun is closed, the barrels fit 

 close to the " standing-breech." When the lever, shown under the 

 *' breech-action," is turned till it comes in line with the axis of the gun, 



LEFAUCHEUX S BREECH-LOADER. 



it throws a bolt into the " lump " attached to the underside of the bar- 

 rels, and thus locks the breech-end of the barrels to the breech-action 

 The lump and the slot into which the bolt fit are shown separately at S. 



The down-drop action of the barrels on opening the gun, and the 

 mode of securing them to the breech-action by a bolt working in a 

 lump fixed to the underside of the barrels, seen in Lefaucheux's first 

 breech-loader, has been universally adopted by gunmakers since his 

 gun appeared in 1836. It has been greatly improved in the details 

 of mechanism, but the general plan remains the same. The weakness 

 in the locking of his barrels to the breech-action was soon found out, 

 and has been remedied by numerous plans in which double and even 

 triple bolts, further removed than his from the hinge-joint, have been 

 used. 



The mechanisms invented for opening and for locking breech- 

 loaders are so numerous, and the majority of them accomplished the 

 object so perfectly, that one cannot fail to get a trustworthy gun if 

 ordered of any maker of established reputation. In selecting as types 

 two breech-loaders, one with hammers, the other hammerless, to illus- 

 trate our remarks on the gun, we wish it distinctly understood that 

 thereby we do not intend to convey the impression that we judge 

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