Patent Pending Blog - Patents and the History of Technology

Luger Pistol

The Luger U-08 pistol is a very recognizable pistol and is usually associated with Nazi Germany and WWII.  It was patented in 1904, and is an improvement of an earlier automatic pistol, the 1893 Borchardt C-93 pistol. 

German born Hugo Borchardt emmigrated to the U.S. when he was 16, and worked in various engineering and machining positions for Pioneer Breechloading Arms, Singer, and Sharps (where he designed the Sharps-Borchardt rifle).  In 1893 , when Borchartd was 49, he moved to Hungary to accept a job with a gun manufacturer named Ludwich Lowe, and there he designed the C-93 semi-automatic pistol. 

The C-93 was made in some quantity, but was never accepted for sales to any country's military. 

Austrian born Georg Luger worked with Ferdinand von Mannlicher in designing rifles and pistols, and went to work for Ludwich Lowe, the same company the made the C-93.  Luger demonstrated the C-93 to U.S. Army representatives in 1897, and listened to the C-93 being criticized for weight, comfort of the 90 degree handle, and doubts about the small caliber bullet. Luger took those criticisms and redesigned the C-93 into the 9mm Luger U-08.  The Luger was patented in the U.S. in 1904, and is the basic form of the Luger used in WWI and WWII.

The Luger was tested for use by the U.S. Army shortly after 1900, but was beaten in the trials by the incredibly rugged Colt 1911.  The tests were particularly gruelling, and highlighted the main difference between the Colt 1911 and the Luger.  The Luger was accurate, but complicated, with very close tolerances, and very prone to malfunction when dirty.  The tests involved shooting in dirt, mud, acid and misshapen rounds, and firing several series of 6000 rounds non-stop,  and in that environment the Colt 1911 was superb by comparison. 

However the Luger was approved by the German Army, and saw service in WWI and WWII.

Colt Shoulder Stock for Revolvers

In 1859 Samuel Colt patented a shoulder stock for his revolvers which made the revolver into a carbine or short rifle. This was a way he thought might make his products attractive for military use, and the 1851 Colt Navy revolver was configured to work with these shoulder stocks.  Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War and approved the shoulder stock for  Army use 1856.  Of course Davis later became President of the Confederacy in the War of Northern Aggression (which is what Southerners call the Civil War).  The Colt Navy with the shoulder stock option was never a very popular combination, and Colt discontinued the shoulder stock option in 1866.  

Animal Trap, 1882

Thanks to Bill Heinze of IP Updates for finding this nifty use of a revolver.  I think this would totally work, if you got a rat that would push on the cheese instead of pulling on it. This was patented in 1882.   

The Colt Model 1851 Navy Revolver

In response to the need for a lighter weapon than the Walker Colt and the Patterson Colt, Samuel Colt designed a lighter revolver called the Pocket Model, a revolver of .31 caliber.  Need for a larger caliber resulted in the Colt 1851 Navy, the  most popular handgun of the early (pre-Civil War) American West.   The 1851 Navy was a .36 caliber, 6-shot revolver that weighed 2 lbs 4.5 oz, half the weight of the Walker.  This revolver, like its predecessors, used a percussion cap for ignition, and each cylinder would be individually loaded with black powder and ball, by use of a built in loading lever.  Colt Navy revolvers were not necessarily related to sales to the Navy, but were a favorite revolver in the Crimea War among Brits, and the Civil War for both North and South.   Colt Navy Revolvers were the favorite sidearms of dozens of figures in the American West, including Pony Express riders, Doc Holliday, John Singleton Mosby, Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill Cody. The Pony Express riders carried a Colt Navy and one or two  spare loaded cylinders for emergencies.

More about the Colt Navy Revolver by someone who REALLY knows what he's talking about, at Texas Ranger Magazine.  The patent below is the right basic configuration and date for the Colt Navy, but the Colt Navy had a longer barrel.

Synthetic Fuel of WWII

Hitler's capability to conquer Europe was discounted by the experts of the day at least partly because Germany had virtually no oil deposits.  It was thought that merely cutting his oil imports would starve any serious war effort.  Those experts either didn't know of, or discounted the potential of turning Germany's vast coal reserves into liquid fuel, the synthetic fuel that powered Germany's motorized Army, panzer divisions,  and the Luftwaffe.   

In the 1920s two German scientists named Frans Fischer and Hans Tropsch developed a process (the Fischer-Tropsch Method) of processing coal to produce a liquid hydrocarbon fuel by reacting the carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and methane obtained from coal.  The product was refined to create a synthetic fuel. 

In WWII, it was not unusual for German tanks to drive or be towed to the battlefield powered by flammable gas made from wood.  At the battlefield the tanks would be converted to burn synthetic fuel in battle.  The tide of war turned against Germany when the synthetic fuel plants were bombed and fuel production stopped.  In 1944 General George Patton was speeding across Germany with the objective of being the first Allied force to reach Berlin.  His forces outpaced his supply lines and his progress stopped.  Patton ordered that synthetic fuel be drained from captured or abandoned German vehicles, and some of Patton's Sherman tanks and personnel carries were converted to run on  synthetic fuel.

Colt Revolver Rifle

Besides revolver pistols, Colt made several models of revolver rifles.  Like the pistols, when they were fired, some flash and gases came out the end of the cylinder.  However with the rifles, the users arm was next to the cylinder.  Talk about hot flashes! 

Lewis and Clark's Air Rifle

When Lewis and Clark headed up the Missouri River with the Corp of Discovery in 1803, they became the best armed war party in the American West.  One gun they took with them was an air gun.  This airgun had an air tank in its stock, which would be pressurized for a number of  shots.  The rifle shot a lead ball just like the  flintlock rifles the party carried, of .463 caliber, according to Dr. Beeman.

Photos from Vintage Airguns, thanks to Mr. Peter Nolan.  Many people believe the Lewis and Clark air gun was a Girandoni airgun, with Peter's Girandoni visible here. The stock would be removed from the rifle, and be pumped with a LARGE number of strokes to pressurize the tank, and the stock could then be reattached to the rifle.  Spare stocks would be carried which could each be fully charged.  The air gun was a repeater, and would shoot multiple rounds before the balls and air had to be replenished.  It had the external appearance of a typical flintlock, but the stock was more rounded.

This air rifle became a centerpiece in the Captains' dog and pony show, and was fired at every meeting and pow wow with the Indian tribes met along the way.  The intent was to impress on the Indians the great  technology held by the  Americans,  and  to thus foster cooperation.  The gun was demonstrated in a way that hid the technology of the gun, with the Indians deliberately left with the impression that it was powered by magic. 

MUCH more information on air guns is to be found at the Henry Stuart Antique Firearms site, of the VMI Museum.

The gun was described in the journal of a traveler (Thomas Rodney) on the Ohio river who met Lewis, and saw it demonstrated. 

“Visited Captain Lewess barge. He shewed us his air gun which fired 22 times at one charge. He shewed us the mode of charging her and then loaded with 12 balls which he intended to fire one at a time; but she by some means lost the whole charge of air at the first fire. He charged her again and then she fired twice. He then found the cause and in some measure prevented the airs escaping, and then she fired seven times; but when in perfect order she fires 22 times in a minute. All the balls are put at once into a short side barrel and are then droped into the chamber of the gun one at a time by moving a spring; and when the triger is pulled just so much air escapes out of the air bag which forms the britch of the gun as serves for one ball. It is a curious peice of workmanship not easily discribed and therefore I omit attempting it.”

Animated views of the firearm and and its firing (three seperate animations) are to be found at the Animations page of the Discovering Lewis and Clark site, along with much more information about the Core of Discovery.

The air gun was described as being "of the Girandoni type", referring to an Austrian maker of similar air guns, although some believe that it was a Girandoni, sold by a U.S. dealer.   More information and illustrations on the Lewis air gun and Girandoni type air guns are on the site of Robert D. Beeman PhD. 

The Henry Repeating Rifle

The Volcanic Arms company made a lever action rifle and a lever action pistol, both called the Volcanic.  Both were based on a cartridge system, which promised to displace muzzle loading loads of power and bullet.   The company was losing money hand over fist, because the cartridge design was weak and failed too often.  The rifle was also underpowered, and just was not reliable enough. 

The assets of Volcanic were sold to its largest shareholder, Oliver H. Winchester, who had invested large sums of his personal money into the company.   Winchester renamed the company the New Haven Arms Co., and later to the Winchester Repeating Arms Co.  Hired by Winchester to make a reliable repeating rifle, gun designer B. Tyler Henry worked to improve the cartridge, and to make a rifle to use it.  He came up with a large caliber lever action rifle and a  .44 cal rimfire cartridge.  He got a patent on his design in 1860, and the Henry rifle was in production before the U.S. Civil War started. 

The Army evaluated the Henry rifle, as it was called, and bought a few of them.  However they did not buy significant numbers of the Henry.   Army brass thought the soldiers would waste a lot of ammunition by the rapid fire of the rifle, and units equiped with Henry's would be hard to keep supplied with ammunition.  Since the days of the Kentucky Rifle, the Army has favored accurate single shot fire over massive firepower, often citing the wastefulness of massive firepower, and expense of all that ammunition.  Although rejected by the Army, it was an instant success by the soldiers who used the rifle.  Some Union outfits supplied themselves with Henry rifles, either on their own or by contributions from their communities. 

A Southern general remarked that the Henry was a rifle that the Northerners could load on Sunday and fire it all week. 

The Henry rifle would get hot during firing, and did not have a wooden hand grip under the hot barrel.  It was a bit slow to load, a magazine tube being loaded from the muzzle end.  But once loaded, it easily outclassed other rifles of its day. It was only made through 1866, when improved models of Winchester repeating rifles replaced the original design.

The Henry rifle and its descendents, the Winchesters, are cited as one of the three inventions that allowed the settling of the American West, along with Gliddens barbed wire fence, and Halliday's windmill.

Other rifle articles in the archives include:
           The M1-Garrand
          The British Furgeson Breach Loader
          The 1903 Springfield
          The Krag Jorgenson
          The First Colt Revolver
          The Walker Colt
           1911 Colt 45
          The Collier Flintlock Revolver

Click on the Firearms Category to view all the firearms articles.

The M-1 Garand Rifle

May 8 is victory in Europe Day, VE Day.  A device that contributed considerably to the outcome of that war was the M-1 rifle, called the Garand after its inventor.  Canadian John Garand was hired by Springfield Armory in the aftermath of WWI to design a rifle that would replace the sturdy Springfield 1903 bolt action rifle.  Criteria were issued by the Army in 1926, and Garand had plans prepared and ready to submit for a gas operated semi-automatic rifle. 

The design of the rifle used the gas from a fired cartridge to load the next cartdige in the magazine into the firing chamber.   There a small tube that carried gas from the front of the barrel to the magazine, and the gas expelled the spent casing and reloaded the next cartridge.  Bullets were fed in by an eight cartridge clip from the underside of the rifle.  The stock was walnut, weight about 10 pounds, effective range 440 yards.  With the Garrand, called the M1, the U.S. Army entered WWII as the only Army with a semi-automatic rifle as the standard issue firearm. The British, Japanese, and the German Army were all equiped with bolt action rifles.   The Garand was adopted as the Army's main rifle in 1936, and is covered by a number of patents as it was improved.  This patent is from 1939.

 

General George Patton said of the M1, "In my opinion, the M1 Rifle is the greatest battle implement ever devised." 

General Douglas MacArthur reported on the M1 to the Ordnance Department during heavy fighting on Bataan that: "Under combat conditions it operated with no mechanical defects and when used in foxholes did not develop stoppages from dust or dirt. It has been in almost constant action for as much as a week without cleaning or lubrication."

Mauser '71, Bolt Action Rifle

One of the earliest bolt action rifles was developed by brothers Paul Mauser and Wilhelm Mauser.  At that time a U.S. patent could not be obtained if a foreign one had already been filed, so they filed a U.S. patent first, before filing in Germany.  The patent lists their home as "Oberndorf on the Necker, in the Kingdom of Wurtemburg", and was issued in 1868.  This was a single shot rifle, and shot an 11 mm bullet.  The next big improvement would be the introduction of a magazine and repeating bolt action rifles.