A CERTAIN METHOD OF LOADING FIRE-ARMS, CANNON, AND ALL ORDNANCE, EXCEPT MORTARS, AT THE BREECH, WITH A
Year: 1813

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I,
JAMES BODMER, of Stoke Newington, in the County of Middlesex,
Gentleman, send greeting.
WHEREAS His present Majesty King George the Third, in and by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing
date at Westminster, the Twenty-third day of November last, for Him-
self, His heirs and successors, did give and grant unto me, the said James
Bodmer, His especial license, full power, sole priviledge and authority,
that I, the said James Bodmer, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, and every of them, by myself or themselves, or by my and their
deputy or deputies, servants or agents, or others, as I, the said James
Bodmer, my executors, administrators, or assigns, should at any time
agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter
during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might
make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of
Berwick upon Tweed, and in all His Majesty's Colonies and Plantations
abroad, my Invention of "A CERTAIN METHOD OF LOADING FIRE-ARMS,
CANNON, AND ALL ORDNANCE, EXCEPT MORTARS, AT THE BREECH, WITH A

page_text: RIPLED OR PLAIN BORE, AND ALSO A TOUCH HOLE FOR FIRE-ARMS AND
ORDNANCE, AND ALSO A MOVEABLE SIGHT FOR FIRE-ARMS AND ORDNANCE;"
in which said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging me,
the said James Bodmer, by an instrument in writing under my hand
and seal, particularly to describe and ascertain the nature of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, and to
cause the same to be enrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery
within two calendar months next and immediately after the date of the
said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, reference being
thereto had,. will more fully appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in pursuance of the said proviso, I, the 'said
James Bodmer, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention,
and manner in which the same is to be performed, are fully described
and ascertained as follows, that is to say:
In the Drawing hereunto annexed, in all which the same numeral
characters do denote the same things, the numbers 1, 2, denote a piece
of ordnance or other fire-armı; 3, 4, the bore thereof; wherein 4, is the
chamber, and the bore may be either rifled or not as may be needful or
expedient; 5, denotes the cone or breech stopper, which is made to fit
like a conical space at the breech end of the hore, which for that
purpose and for loading is perforated quite through the piece; 6, 6, are
the outer extremities of the cross piece (15), by the action of which
against the cone or breech stopper this last is kept in its place while
the piece is to be discharged; 7, 7, are two trunnions or suitable pro-
jections or protuberances from the gun itself, which serve to support
and secure the side plates or pieces 8, 9, and these last support and
secure the cross piece (15) in its place. And the said side plates or
pieces may be either fixed to the trunnions, and in that case the cross
piece may react against a wedge made use of to confine the cone or
otherwise, as in the Drawings hereunto annexed; the side plates may
be moveable upon the said trunnions, so as to bring the cross piece to
its place behind the cone, and also to allow the same to be withdrawn
for the purpose of loading, and the said cross piece may either, by the
obliquity of the face thereof, act as a wedge, or may support and react
against a wedge for operating upon and confining the cone 5, when in

page_text: its place on the gun; 11, is a lever or handle for moving the side plates
or pieces, and along with them, of course, the cross piece and its fittings
up into the position shewn by 9 a, in the red outlines, by which means
the cone 5, becomes at liberty to quit the breech of the gun; 12, is the
touchole perforated through the cone, and closed at the inner end by
the valve 13, which last is opened by the priming wire at the time of
priming, and being again closed by the blast of the discharge prevents
any part of the force being lost through the touch hole; 14, is the arm
which carries the cone, and of which the motion is governed by the
forked piece 16; 18, is an arm or lever fixed to the side plate, and
serves by its action upon the forked piece 16 (at or near the end of the
motion of the side plates to the position 9 a) to move the cone into the
position 5 a, at which period the gun is ready for charging; 19, is a:
lever or handle moveable upon the center 20, which is fixed in the
cross piece, and the said lever serves by its other extremity 10, to force
the cross wedge 21, 23, between the cross piece and the cone in the
position shewn at 22, by the red outline, and thereby secures the cone:
very firmly in its place; 24, shews the touch hole in the cone itself, and
25, is a rising part from the wedge last mentioned, which covers the
touch hole in the first position 25, and prevents the gun from being
fired until the cone has been duly wedged up; 27, is one of the sights
fixed upon a ring 35, which is to be put over the muzzle of the piece;
31, 32, are small friction wheels, which run in a groove in the gui,
near or upon the said muzzle, and facilitate the motion of the said ring,
whereby and by virtue of the weight of the bar 34, attached beneath a
vertical situation is constantly given to the said sight, notwithstanding
any motion of the whole gun and carriage, as on board ship or other-
wise; 28, represents a sight, which is put on the gun near the breech
by means of a similar ring and small wheels 29, 30, which run in a
groove like those of the ring last described, and the said ring 29, 30, 33;
is formed in two parts for more easily putting the same upon the gun, and
the sight 28, is provided with a vertical slit, either in the sight itself or
in the pendant piece, and with a sliding piece for directing the eye, as is
usual in such constructions, but was not required to be expressed in the
Drawing; 34, is a bar by which the said sights are connected together;

page_text: and the same acts as a weight to give and preserve their vertical position.
Figure 4, is an end view of parts of the gun fitted up according to my
said Invention and supposed to be charged; and Fig. 5, is a view of
the same parts in a situation ready for charging. And I do further
declare that the breech piece 5, may be made hemispherical and also
cylindrical, with such needful alterations in the other machinery as a
competent workman in works of this or the like nature will easily
make from this my present Specification; and that in such constructions
of fire-arms as require a small chamber for the powder, the said chamber
may be made in the cone or breech stopper, whether formed as in the
Drawings hereunto annexed or otherwise, as aforesaid; and that the
kind or description of materials to be used in making the said fire-arms
and the parts thereunto to be added or therewith connected as aforesaid,
and the respective dimensions of the same, may be much varied, accord-
ing to the uses and purposes intended to be answered and the size of the
bore of the piece; and that for the said reasons, and because the manu-
facturers of fire-arms cannot find any difficulty in using and adopting
what may be severally requisite in those respects, I do not consider it
to be necessary to particularize the same, nor to give any other scale or
admeasurement than may be deduced from the relative magnitudes of
the parts set forth in the said Drawings; and, lastly, I do hereby
further declare that among other mechanical contrivances or con-
structions, by which I do disengage or remove the cross piece from
behind the cone or breech stopper, and do, at or near the termination
of the motion as aforesaid, withdraw the said cone or breech stopper
in order to change the gun or fire arm, I do by preference form,
fashion, or make the face of the said cross piece which is to come into
contact with the said cone or breech stopper sloping, or duly curved,
so as to act in the manner of a wedge against the said cone or breech
stopper and that I do also fix upon one or more of the extremities of
the axis of the levers which carry the said cone or breech stopper, a
wheel with teeth; and do form or make arms or projecting pieces from
the said plates having the outer ends thereof toothed as to circular parts
concentric with the trunnions 7, 7, upon such radii so placed, and with
such teeth as shall duly take in the wheels aforesaid, and carry the said

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Eleventh day of January,
in the year above mentioned, the aforesaid James Bodmer came before
our Lord the King, in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specifica-
tion aforesaid, and all and everything therein contained, in form above
written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped according to
the tenor of the Statute in that case made and provided.
Inrolled the Twenty-second day of January, in the year above
written.