"I thought that the earliest rifle in the world was Thorneycroft made by the British in the early 20th century ... but today I saw Curtis' rifle and realized that I was too ignorant before ..."
The next batch is Thorneycroft rifles.
Before writing this gun, it is necessary to make clear what is helplessness. Usually, we call a gun with bolt, firing mechanism and ammunition supply mechanism behind the trigger an unsupported gun. Without support, it is not really without support, but the case replaces the original position of the stock, so the case without support is the stock.
But the Curtis rifle we are going to talk about today conforms to the characteristics of the firing mechanism and the ammunition supply mechanism behind the trigger. But it has no ass ... maybe this is the real "no ass"
When I first saw what was on it, I was puzzled. The title of the original English version is "The First Repeated Little Bulldog". I also thought for a long time whether this product is a fishing rod called Bullpup or something, but after watching it for half a night, I found that this product is not simple.
William curtis, the designer of this gun, was born in Islington, London, and his telephone number is 1802. He worked as a civil engineer for half his life. The patent of this gun is 1866. I don't know why a civil engineer would want to make a gun ... but obviously, at least it has a big brain hole.
Its trigger and handle are at the muzzle position, and the launching mode is also carried on the shoulder by a steel rod and belt in the middle of the barrel, and the whole gun is carried on the shoulder, similar to the later rocket launcher. The front trigger set makes me feel like blowing a horn.
Then the question is, how to load this cargo and how to fire it?
Look at its chest of drawers first. There is no problem with the length of this wire drawing machine, but because of its unsupported structure, the wire drawing machine has to open and close the breech through a long connecting rod. Pull back the handle to unlock and exit the empty shell. Push the next bullet into the chamber, and when you push it to the end, it will make a "click" to represent your position.
We know that the trigger and firing pin of modern bareback rifles are controlled by connecting rods, but Curtis's solution is very simple and rude ... directly connected to the firing device of the breech with steel wires.
See the big bronze drum on the gun? This kind of drum design was also very rare in the middle of19th century, but it was not originally created by Curtis, but was patented by an Italian named Mennon in 1862, and Curtis only used it directly.
In addition, Curtis rifle has a tubular magazine design for ammunition in the patent drawings, and even it is proposed in the patent that there is no need to pull the handle. Instead, a hole is made in the barrel to let gunpowder gas enter the lower piston cavity, and the gas is used to push the piston to open the bolt to complete the idea of automatic unlocking. If it had put this design into practice at that time, it could almost be regarded as the world's first long-piston air-guided unsupported automatic rifle. This brain hole is really unprecedented.
At present, only one sample of this gun is stored in Cody Gun Museum in Wyoming, USA, and unbelievers have the opportunity to pay homage there.