IMPROVEMENTS IN BREECH-LOADING County of Civil Engineer. FIREARMS
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Henry Edward Newton at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 26th October 1881.
A communication from abroad by the Colts Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing
Company (Incorporated), of Hartford, in the State of Connecticut, United
States of America.
HENRY EDWARD NEWTON, of the Office for Patents, 66, Chancery Lane, in the
"IMPROVEMENTS IN BREECH-LOADING
County of Middlesex, Civil Engineer.
FIREARMS." [A communication from abroad by the Colts Patent Fire Arms
Manufacturing Company (Incorporated), of Hartford, in the State of Connecticut,
United States of America.]
This Invention relates to an improvement in revolvers, with special reference to
the lock mechanism and to that class which is constructed so that the hammer may
be thrown back and discharged by a single pull of the trigger, or be cocked by
hand and then released by the trigger.
The frame of the arm constructed to receive the lock mechanism and a cylinder
recess in the usual manner; the hammer hung upon a pivot is also provided with
the mainspring in substantially the usual manner.
The trigger is hung upon a pivot in the frame and so as to swing freely thereon,
and on the back of the trigger is a seat in which sets a dog. This dog is
constructed with shoulders to rest in the seat, and below these shoulders is a hook-
shaped projection which lies in a recess in the trigger between the bearings for the
dog. The hook opening to the rear forms a seat at the lower end for a strut on
which a spring bears. The action of the spring on the dog tends to throw its nose
to the rear, and also through the bearings of the dog on the trigger tends to throw
the trigger forward. The nose of the dog when the trigger is pulled will engage
with an arm on the hammer forward of the pivot, and so that by pulling upon the
trigger that arm of the hammer will be raised and the hammer correspondingly
thrown to the rear until the hammer escapes from the dog.
The pawl for rotating the cylinder is pivotted to the upper arm of the trigger.
A shoulder on the pawl below the pivot acts on the upper end of the dog, so that
as soon as the hammer has been thrown back by the pull upon the trigger to the
position of full cock the nose of the dog has been forced so far forward as to escape

page_text: from the arm of the hammer, and thereby permit the hammer to fly forward by
the force of the mainspring. In this movement the spring bearing upon the
dog and through the dog upon the pawl below its pivot serves to force the nose of
the pawl forward into contact with the ratchet in the cylinder. As soon as the
trigger is released after firing an upper arm of the trigger strikes the body of the
hammer and presses it away from the firing pin and out of the path of the head
of the next advancing cartridge.
On the side of the upper arm of the trigger next the hammer is a shoulder a
little above the nose of the dog, and when the hammer is drawn back by the thumb
in the usual manner the arm will be engaged by the said shoulder, to be released
therefrom by the pulling of the trigger, also in the usual manner.
The forcing back of the hammer by the return of the trigger is performed
independently of the dog and pawl, and hence may be employed in a lock in which
neither a pawl nor dog is required nor in which the pawl is operated in the usual
or other independent manner.
The pawl and dog may be used in connection with the trigger without the self-
cocking property, that is to say, arranged so that the same trigger-spring will
through the dog serve as the spring for the pawl.
The self-cocking devices, to wit, the trigger and dog, may be employed without
the pawls or without the band-cocking arrangement. In this case the same trigger-
spring serves as a spring for the dog. In this arrangement the dog works as a
spring-latch, to yield as it passes down over the arm of the hammer; then, when
below, the arm springs back to engage it.