Who invented the henry repeating rifle

Some versions, like the Chinese 3-Barrel Pole Cannon , required shorter barrels to give them less weight; however this did force the guns to sacrifice range for their rate-of-fire. Revolver mechanisms have existed since the late s believed to have originated in modern day Germany ; but most designs were prototypes that were too expensive, unreliable, complicated or dangerous to be used effectively. The Kalthoff Repeater was one of the first examples of a lever-action gun.

This musket uses two lever powered belt mechanisms to deposit the powder and musketball. However the complexity of the mechanism was too expensive to be mass produced for the common soldier. It also was delicate and jammed frequently, as the buildup of gunpowder residue would jam the belt mechanism. Another prototype design for a crank-action or lever-action gun was the Cookson Repeater.

It had two magazines one for powder, the other for the musketballs and would use the crank-action or lever-action to rotate the two cavities into the barrel; depositing the powder and musketball together. This mechanism has several flaws however; as it jammed frequently.

The most dangerous issue however was that embers could linger within the cavities; which meant that this musket could frequently explode without warning if any embers leaked into the gunpowder chamber. It had a metal horizontal magazine that could be moved left or right to load new rounds. This expensive magazine design made the weight of the gun uneven, making its precision unreliable.

In the Colt Paterson, one of the first modern revolvers made was produced. In the area of firearms development, one name that must be included on that honored roster is Benjamin Tyler Henry. His invention: The Henry Rifle. It was Mr. Unfortunately, it was not to last. Wesson left eight months later.

For his part, Winchester forced the company into insolvency in late , took the company over, moved it to New Haven, Connecticut , and transformed it into the New Haven Arms Company — which later became the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Henry was hired as the plant superintendent by Winchester because he was deeply trusted by all the principals of the company.

Henry had to work hard and doggedly to get a design that would work as intended. Finally, the hard work paid off. On October 16, , Henry received a patent for the Henry. The repeating rifle quickly demonstrated its superiority to the muzzle-loaded rifle when it was rolled out onto the battlefield in It effectively gave a single man the firepower of a dozen men.

While a highly skilled rifleman could fire off a few rounds in a minute from his muzzleloader, the Henry repeating rifle allowed for 16 shots to be fired without any reloading at all. Examples include the successes of two Henry-armed Union regiments at the Battle of Franklin against large Confederate attacks, as well as the Henry-armed Sioux and Cheyenne's destruction of the 7th Cavalry at Little Big Horn.

The Henry rifle used a. The lever action, on the down-stroke, ejected the spent cartridge from the chamber and cocked the hammer. A spring in the magazine forced the next round into the chamber; locking the lever back into position sealed the rifle back up into firing position.

As it was designed, the rifle was not a very safe weapon. A Henry rifle, when not in use, would either have the hammer cocked or resting on the rim of the cartridge. In the first case, the rifle had no safety and was in firing position. In the second, an impact on the back of the exposed hammer could cause a chambered round to fire. In , Louis Imperato bought the firearms company of Iver Johnson and began making commercial versions of the M1 carbine. In , Imperato started a factory in his native Brooklyn to manufacture.

The current company has no actual association with either the New Haven Arms Company , which manufactured the original Henry rifles and was later renamed the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in , or to Benjamin Tyler Henry, its inventor, and not to be confused with the original Henry rifles, [4] does not produce the Civil War period firearm that this article defines at this time, but will be releasing a tribute rifle that is almost exactly like the original Henry, chambered in.