Sánta Ákos: Vadászfegyverek - A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum tárgykatalógusai 4. (Budapest, 2018)

cm in length, capable of firing both shot and bullets. The piston-like lock moves back and forth in the chiselled casing. The spring-propelled firing apparatus and the attached long needle, which is strained by moving the lock backwards, are situated within the lock. The barrel moves forward with the aid of a key and can be broken for loading. The barrels of some the needle guns were made of cast steel. The cartridge was encased in a paper sabot, which was punctured by the needle when fired, and moving through the gunpowder hit the percussion cap. The gunpowder lit in the inside of the weapon gave a perfect flame and therefore exerted a greater force. The bullet was signifiacantly smaller than the inner diameter of the barrel. It fitted the riflings of the bore tightly, making the trajectory flatter and thereby increasing the range significantly, from 100-150 metres to 550-600 metres. Besides its several advantages the disadvantage was that the remnants of the paper casing in the muzzle often soiled it and the weapon had to be cleaned after every fifth or sixth discharge. The long needle projecting from the lock broke easily and had to be regularly maintained due to heavy oxydation.

The separation of rifles and shotguns had already started in the 18th century, but after the appearance of needle guns their development took diffent paths. The development of rifles took the course of repeating firearms and the swift improvement of military guns, while shotguns mostly developed from the mid-19th century in the direction of break action mechanism. In 1832 the Parisian gunsmith Casimir Lefaucheux created a breech-loading hunting shotgun for which he used the brass encased integrated cartridge patented by Jean Samuel Pauly in 1812.° The priming compound was placed within the cartridge at its base. This could be fired by a pin built into the cartridge that protruded from above the base of the cartridge. The great advantage was that the hunter could reload the cartridge at home, with the aid of some simple tools. Its lock mechanism is identical to that of the muzzle-loading percussion rifle, except the head of the cock was remodelled with a flat surface, enabling it to strike the protruding firing pin. The barrel tilted on a hinge placed at the end of the stock’s midsection, with a lock mechanism working with a hook welded at the base of the barrel, which lay on a revolving peg in the stock by the barrel when tilted back. A lever, also known as the long key, acted as a bolt. In order to break or open the two barrels, the lever was turned to the right. At the same time the hammer had to be in a half-cocked position. A similar Lefauchaux lock type of double-barrelled shotgun was made by Mathias Huzella in the second half of the 19th century. The hunter’s shotgun made by the excellent gunsmith in Pest is one of the most treasured items in our collection. In the chamber of the barrel which tilted by its own weight a notch is seen in the upper part, this is where the firing pin fitted when loading. On discharge,

the hammer strikes the firing pin, which penetrates the priming material placed at the centre of the cartridge base. The gun did not have a cleaning rod, therefore the discharged cartridge shell had to be extracted from the barrel with the aid of the pin. The thickness of the smoothbore Damascus barrel’s wall was thinner compared to earlier types, which made the gun lighter and more graceful. The so-called Damascus plate was created by welding of iron and steel plates together, from which a 6-7 cm long band was cut and twisted around a mandrel, and then forged together. Apart from making the barrel surface more attractive, this method resulted in a thinner barrel that was more resistant.20 21 Until the beginning of the 19th century the Damascus technique was known only in the Middle East and Spain, but the significant improvement of this technology is associated with 19th-century French gunsmiths.22 Our collection contains several such items. The Lefaucheux gun, popularly known as the pinfire gun, started to spread in the mid-19th century, especially after it was presented at the 1851 Crystal Palace exhibition in London. Soon it became highly popular among hunters due to its simple structure, easy maintenance and reasonable price. Among its disadvantages the most well-known is the fact that in the moment of firing there is a loss of pressure at the opening of the firing pin, and that due to the protrusion of the pin the weapon was dangerous to transport.

The above-mentoned disadvantages were largely eliminated by the invention of the centre-firing mechanism in 1852. Its inventor after whom the device was later named was Charles Lancaster, a London gunsmith. There were also experiments with centrefire in the 1850s in Belgium, Germany and France. Due to its early problems it did not spread among hunters for a long time, but today is it generally regarded as the precursor all existing hunting shotguns.

In the late 1860s a new invention appeared, the double underbolt developed by James Purdey. This involved a sliding bar that interlocked with the bites on the barrel. The oversized, heavy material of the bolt resulted in perfect closure, and remains the mechanism used to this day. In 1873 William Greener in London was the first to apply a triple bolting system. Under the barrels, two projections had slots cut through them. A holding bolt through each one of these slots holds the barrels and prevents them from pivoting when locked. In addition, the top of the barrel also has a projection with a hole through it. When the barrel is locked into place, a cross bolt is pushed through this hole to hold it in place. The combination of all three bolts together makes the action very strong. This had become the most widely used type of locking system, the so-called Greener’s treble-wedge fast.23 Later even quadruple bolts were used on over-and-under (Bock) barrels. These bolting mechanisms, invented in the final quarter of the 19th century, could be used

20 Akehurt, p. 87; Zoltán, pp. 16, 23.

21 Szabolcs Haimágyi and Lóránt Riedel, Régi fegyverekről (Budapest, 1986), pp. 87-88.

22 The original Hungarian equivalent term for the damask, band steel, is largely forgotten. József Hardy, Vadászfegyverekről a vadászoknak (Budapest, 1969), pp. lb-19.

23 Akehurt, pp. 97-99.; Szabolcs Simon, “A vadászfegyvetrek zárszerkezete 3.", Nimród (2002:2) p. 39.