IMPROVEMENTS IN FIRE-ARMS
Year: 1871

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Pierre Samain at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 13th March
1871.
I, PIERRE SAMAIN, of Blois, in the Department of Loire et Cher,
France, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "IMPROVEMENTS IN FIRE-ARMS," to be as follows:-
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These improvements refer principally to breach-loading fire-arms of the
kind known as the "Snider" or Chassepot," but by means of a special
contrivance, herein-after described, part of them are also capable of
being applied to muzzle-loading fire-arms. They consist in effecting the
opening of the breach, the cocking of the fire-arm, and the extracting
of the empty or discharged cartridge at one and the same time, and by
the same movement, either by means of the breach block and the
hammer being furnished with one or more inclined planes or spiral
slots working in or against one another, or by means of a screwed breach
block and its nut, the screwed breach block when the rotative motion is
given by the action of the lever pushing backwards or forwards, as the
case may be, its nat; in this case the escape of gas backwards, arising

page_text: either from a bad or defective cartridge, or from any other cause, is as
much as possible avoided by means of a washer of compressible material
compressed or forced against the inside of the breach by the forward
motion of the said nut extracting the empty or exploded cartridge by
means of a spring catch or clutch, capable of being compressed, so as
to allow it to get behind the disc of the cartridge, and attached to the
head of the breach block by a small projection which dovetails into a
circular slot in the breach block, thus preventing the extractor from
escaping, but allowing the breach block to revolve, forming and con-
structing the shoe with a shoulder placed at such a point and of such a
kind as to prevent the strain arising from the recoil of the barrel, the
said shoulder also serving as a means of attachment for the trigger, and
thus avoiding the use of another piece for this purpose; placing a spring
catch in such a position on the hammer that its end butts against the
shoulder, and by the movement of the trigger is pressed upwards, and
allows the hammer carrying the pin to advance; further, in furnishing a
stop pin, which passes thro' a hole in the breach and fixes the breach to
the shoe, thus preventing rotary movement being given to the breach
when the arm is not intended to be fired, also preventing the breach
block from sliding too far back by means of a stop piece conveniently
fixed on the back part of the shoe. A fire-arm having these improve-
ments can also be converted into a muzzle-loader, and obturation effected
by means of a metallic cartridge case, so formed as to fill the breach
chamber, the said cartridge case being fitted with a nipple to carry an
ordinary percussion cap, and the arm being loaded and fired like a
muzzle-loader. This part of these improvements may be applied not
only to fire-arms having these herein-before described improvements,
but to any kind of breach-loader which it is desired either temporarily
or not to convert into a muzzle-loader.