IMPROVE- MENTS IN BREECH-LOADING GUNS AND IN EXTRACTING CARTRIDGES FROM SUCH GUNS, AND ALSO IN WINDSIGHTS FOR FIRE-ARMS
Year: 1862

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Rigby at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 8th July
1862.
I, JOHN RIGBY, of Suffolk Street, in the City of Dublin, Ireland, Gun
Maker, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN BREECH-LOADING GUNS AND IN EXTRACTING CARTRIDGES FROM SUCH GUNS,
AND ALSO IN WINDSIGHTS FOR FIRE-ARMS," to be as follows:-
My Invention relates, 1st, to improvements in fitting and furnishing breech-
loading guns which open by moving the barrel out of the line of the breech
on a vertical pivot, so that it shall move in the line of the breech until it is
free thereof, and then swivel or move on its pivot. I mount the pivot in an
excentric piece fitted in a bearing in the breech piece, which is extended
forward under the barrel for that purpose. On this excentric is fixed or formed
a hand lever, by the movement of which the sliding of the barrel is first effected,
and by its continuance the barrel is deflected, and the breech piece exposed for
the insertion of the cartridge. Instead of the pivot of the barrel having a
rigid bearing in the excentric it may be carried in a slot bearing and be further
guided by longitudinal guides to maintain its parallelism during a certain
portion of the motion of the excentric.
The second part of my Invention relates to a method of extracting cartridge
cases from breech-loading guns. It has been attempted heretofore to withdraw
these cases by allowing the cock to remain down upon the firing pin or needle

page_text: of the cartridge, but which often fails to effect that object by the pressure of
the cock acting obliquely on the rear part of the cartridge. To obviate this
defect, I place a small nib or projection on the breech piece to form a resting
place for the lower part of the cartridge, (that is, diametrically opposite to the
point of impact of the cock,) this nib is received in a cavity made for it in the
breech end of the barrel when it is closed; I may further have a cross groove
to receive the metal bead usually formed on breech-loading cartridges.
The third part
of my
Invention relates to apparatus or means for extracting
the cartridge cases from breech-loading guns in which the action or breech-
loading piece turns on an axis out of the line of the bore, at right angles thereto,
or nearly so; take for example that patented by Needham, No. 184, October 2nd
1852. Immediately behind the barrel, in the metal of the breech, and under
the movable breech-closing piece, I sink a small sliding cradle or piece which
can be slid towards and from the breech, the nose or front end passes a little
way into the chamber of the barrel, the upper surface of such nose filling up a
cavity there cut for it, and completing the breech end of the barrel. (In these
breech-loading guns, it is usual to form an enlargement at the rear of the
chamber to receive a bead on the end of the cartridge, to prevent its being
thrust too far in the barrel; this enlargement coincides with the position of the
cradle piece, and being so formed and disposed forms a lip thereon that will
keep hold of and withdraw the cartridge if the cradle piece is drawn backwards).
To draw this cradle piece backwards, I attach a spring-hooked rod to the
under side of the movable breech-closing piece: when down (in line with the
breech) the hook enters a small hole in the cradle piece, so that when the
breech piece is moved out of the line, it draws 'the cradle piece backwards a
certain distance. As the motion of the hooked piece is greater than is
necessary for the cradle, the hook leaves the hole and runs down an incline
and along a groove, which course it retraverses in closing the breech. When
loading with a cartridge the bead on the rear end thereof carries forward the
cradle piece in readiness for closing the breech. When the breech is closed
the spring hook enters the hole in the cradle piece, sliding along its groove
and up its incline.
The last part of my Invention relates to the wind sights of rifles and other
fire-arms, which as at present used are a very imperfect guide, unless a shot
or shots be first fired and the deflection measured at the precise range at which
the firing is to be, the deflection of a shot at one range being no guide to that
at another range with the same pressure of wind. I. determine the pressure
of the wind by any suitable anemometer, a small pendent vane being a simpl
and convenient one for the purpose. I graduate an arbitrary scale transversely

page_text: to the line of the barrel to regulate the movement of the foresight, this I take
to represent one, two, three, four, or more degrees of wind, as may be necessary
to divide it into, between a calm and a hurricane.
According to the anemometer, I set the foresight at so many degrees of
wind as may be indicated, but this does not act on the foresight directly, but
through the intermediation of a bar controlled also by another longitudinal
guide and index graduated according to the distance to be fired; thus, the
degree of wind being ascertained, to prepare the second index, actual shooting
at a target is performed at the several distances desired, say at 200, 300, or
400 yards, and on the exact amount of deflection allowed for and the position
of the sight being accurately determined, the scale is graduated for that
distance, and so on throughout the different ranges. The second scale being
so determined, it is only necessary at any time to ascertain the degree of wind
by the anemometer, and by it to set the wind scale, and then adjust the sight
by the distance scale according to the distance of the object to be fired at.