IMPROVEMENTS IN BREECH-LOADING GUNS
Year: 1869

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by George Wightwick Rendel at
the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
the 25th September 1869.
I, GEORGE WIGHTWICK RENDEL, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Civil
Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN BREECH-LOADING GUNS," to be as follows:-
The Invention has for its object improvements in breech-loading
guns, and relates to the mechanism of the parts for closing the breech
and of the means of preventing the passage of gas past the said parts
on the firing of the gun.
The improvements in the mechanism of the breech-loading parts
are chiefly applicable to systems of breech-loading in which a screw or
grooved plug is employed to close the breech, having a portion of the
threads cut away to allow of its being withdrawn for the purpose of
charging the gun, as, for instance, in the so called French system.
One improvement consists in withdrawing the screw on to a bracket
support, which is made to slide in grooves cut in the breech of the gun
horizontally in a plane at right angles or nearly so to the axis of the

page_text: bore. The breech screw being turned and withdrawn against stops on
the bracket is then traversed to one side with the bracket by means of a
rack and pinion with a lever.
Another improvement consists in making the bracket so as to carry a
guided loading tube, which upon the screw being withdrawn and put on
one side as described can be thrust forward against the rear end of the
bore of the gun and secured by a slight turn so as to form a continuation
of the bore up to the outside rear of the gun, enabling the gun to be
easily sponged and loaded.
Another improvement consists in the arrangement of a bar or plate to
cover the vent and prevent its being accessible for firing the gun until
all the breech-loading parts are properly in place. The vent cover is in
connection through a spindle with a locking bar, which can only be
thrown out in the one position of the breech screw, viz., the position for
firing. In this position the bolt comes opposite a hole in the gun
provided to take it. Thus when the bolt is thrown out the vent is
uncovered and the breech screw locked by the same action, and before
the breech screw can be again moved the locking bolt must be with-
drawn, which is done by means of the vent cover plate. This apparatus
is described here in its application to a rear central vent in the breech
screw, but it is of course equally applicable to a vent in the gun itself
either vertical or inclined.
The improvement relating to the mode of stopping the escape of gas
past the breech screw consists in the employment of a wad or obturator
in front of the screw and fitting the end of the bore of compressed
fibrous material, such as coarse brown paper pulp enclosed between two
discs or cups of tin plate, brass, copper, or other similar metal. The
rear disc is made with a flange or lip turned up so as to form a cup, and
the front plate may be hollowed or dished. A hole is left in the centre
of the wad for the passage of the flame from the friction tube by which
the gun is fired. I prefer to attach the wad to the cartridge so as to
load them together, and in that case I make a recess in the breech and
of the bore to receive the wad, and bring up it and the cartridge at the
proper place when they are put into the gun.