AN IMPROVED METHOD OF IGNITING OR FIRING GUNPOWDER, GUN COTTON, AND OTHER LIKE EXPLOSIVE COMPOUNDS IN LARGE AND SMALL FIRE-ARMS AND ORDNANCE, APPLICABLE ALSO TO THE FIRING OF EXPLOSIVE COMPOUNDS GENERALLY
Year: 1861

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Charles Hanson, of Haymarket, in the City of West-
minster, Gun Maker, for the Invention of "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF
IGNITING OR FIRING GUNPOWDER, GUN COTTON, AND OTHER LIKE EXPLOSIVE
COMPOUNDS IN LARGE AND SMALL FIRE-ARMS AND ORDNANCE, APPLICABLE ALSO
TO THE FIRING OF EXPLOSIVE COMPOUNDS GENERALLY."
Sealed the 30th August 1861, and dated the 5th March 1861.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Charles Hanson at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 5th
March 1861.
I, CHARLES HANSON, of Haymarket, in the City of Westminster, Gun
Maker, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "AN IMPROVED
METHOD OF IGNITING OR FIRING GUNPOWDER, GUN COTTON, AND OTHER LIKE EXPLO-
SIVE COMPOUNDS IN LARGE AND SMALL FIRE-ARMS AND ORDNANCE, APPLICABLE ALSO
TO THE FIRING OF EXPLOSIVE COMPOUNDS GENERALLY," to be as follows:-
My Invention consists in firing gunpowder, gun cotton, and other like
explosive compounds in fire-arms and ordnance, whether made up into cart-
ridges or loose, by means of air compressed or forced in a chamber and
through a small tube or tubular aperture opening into the breech or other
chamber in which the gunpowder is contained. I thus effectually dispenso
with percussion caps, fuses, and igniting compositions.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Charles Hanson in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 5th
September 1861.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CHARLES
HANSON, of Haymarket, in the City of Westminster, Gun Maker, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Fifth day of March, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, in the twenty-fourth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Charles Hanson, Her special licence that I, the said Charles Hanson, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Charles
Hanson, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time
agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter
during the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use,
exercise, and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,
the Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for "AN IMPROVED METHOD
OF IGNITING OR FIRING GUNPOWDER, GUN COTTON, AND OTHER LIKE EXPLOSIVE
COMPOUNDS IN LARGE AND SMALL FIRE-ARMS AND ORDNANCE, APPLICABLE ALSO TO
THE FIRING OF EXPLOSIVE COMPOUNDS GENERALLY," upon the condition (amongst
others) that I, the said Charles Hanson, my executors or administrators, by an
instrument in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals,
should particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention,
and in what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be
filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Charles Hanson, do hereby declare the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement
thereof, that is to say :-
My Invention consists in firing gunpowder, gun cotton, and other like
explosive compounds in fire-arms and ordnance, whether made up into cart-
ridges or loose, by means of air compressed or forced in a chamber and
through a small tube or tubular aperture opening into the breech or other
chamber in which the gunpowder is contained. I thus effectually dispense
with percussion caps, fuses, and igniting compositions.
.
Without limiting myself to any particular arrangement of mechanism for
applying my Invention to small arms and to ordnance, I will describe one which

page_text: I find to answer. I attach on to the rear of the barrel, in small arms, a
chamber or cylinder of steel, or partly of steel and partly of iron, and fit it
with an air-tight plunger, and I cause communication between the inner end
of the cylinder and the breech chamber by means of a small aperture. The
cylinder may be wholly or partially open at back. I cause the hammer of the
lock or other suitable apparatus to work a spring which liberates the plunger
and drives it forward in the cylinder, thereby compressing the air and causing
it to explode the charge in the gun.
For the firing of the charge in ordnance I bore a cylindrical aperture in the
rear of the gun and line the aperture with a tube of steel, or partly of steel
and partly of iron, and cause it to communicate with the chamber in which
the powder is placed by a small aperture. I place an air-tight plunger in the
tube. On the plunger being driven forward by the action of a spring or
otherwise, the air becomes compressed, and being forced through the small
aperture, fires the charge.
And having now described the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, I declare that I claim, igniting gun-
powder and other explosive materials in fire-arms and ordnance, as well as
the igniting of explosive compounds generally, by means of air compressed,
substantially in manner herein-before described.
In witness whereof, I, the said Charles Hanson, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Fourth day of September, One thousand eight
hundred and sixty-one.
C. HANSON. (L.S.)