Where did bullpup begin
Thornycroft rifle, first model 1902 Steel, walnut. Dimensions: barrel length 740 mm, total length 1 mm, total weight 020 kg Royal Arsenal, Leeds
has a beginning as well as an end,
and the ending is obvious.
Ezra 9: 5
History firearms weapons. And it so happened that the first samples of such a weapon, that is, with a magazine in the butt, appeared a very long time ago. William Joseph Curtis proposed his design in 1866, Samuel McClean in 1896.
Diagram from US patent # 723706 for the 1903 McClean rifle. It is clearly seen that in this rifle the magazine was located in front of the trigger and its bracket, and the bolt is controlled by a sliding wooden clutch connected to it by a lever!
In 1901, the English inventor James Byrd Thornycroft (1851-1918), who was born in Wolverhampton in April 1851, contributed to the creation of the bullpup weapon. Thornycroft worked with metal all his life and even received the honor of becoming Lord Lieutenant of Ayrshire and Arran in Scotland. And he also developed the first real bullpup rifle, which competed on an equal footing in the competition for the best rifle for the British army.
He began working on his brainchild shortly after the outbreak of the Boer War, when newspapers began to print stories of its participants that the Lee-Metford and even Lee-Enfield rifles (which replaced Lee-Metford) were too long and therefore inconvenient in the trenches but even more uncomfortable for riders.
And Thornycroft came up with a happy idea ... to shorten the rifle, but not by changing the barrel length, but by rearranging it. And in 1901 he already received a patent No. 14622 dated July 18, 1901 for it.
It was a bolt-action rifle, but its bolt moved back through the butt almost to its entire length, which made it possible to reduce its size as much as possible, while maintaining the same barrel length. The rifle was chambered for the standard .303 British cartridge (7,7 mm) and had a five-round Lee system magazine.
The so-called Lee-Enfield Mk I short rifle, model 1903. Army Museum, Stockholm
The Thornycroft rifle was 7,5 inches (190 mm) shorter and 10% lighter than the Lee Enfield rifle. But during the tests at Hite, its impact was considered excessive: the ergonomics were assessed as unsatisfactory.
As a result, it was not accepted into service.
Rifle Thornycroft "second sample" had similar data and even outwardly resembled the first sample, which the military rejected. Barrel length - 635 mm, total length - 970 mm, total weight - 3,46 kg. The designer, however, understood that he had to do something with the rifle, improve it, going towards the military and ...
A second sample was created. All parts of the new rifle were covered with wood, while its entire front part was almost identical to the Lee-Enfield rifle.
On the right side of the box was a lever that compressed the spring of the magazine, lowering its pusher and any loaded cartridges below the level of the bolt, that is, it acted as a cutoff of the magazine. The rotary bolt had two locking lugs and was controlled by a handle bent downwards. The extractor was located on the underside of the shutter. Bayonet - standard, British, army model of 1888. For its installation, the appropriate fastening parts were provided.
On the third sample of his rifle, the inventor worked not alone, but together with Mubray Horus Farquhar and Arthur Henry Hill. Moreover, Thornycroft lived in Mauchlin, Ayrshire, Farquhar - in Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and Hill lived in Birmingham, Warwickshire, in England.
In fact, this rifle "started from scratch", that is, it was redesigned in the most radical way. The bolt looked different, with a straight grip, and the shape of the butt also changed very much. The bolt could now be removed by pressing a button on the upper surface of the butt. The combat platoon was abandoned in favor of an internal trigger with a roller bearing, which made it possible to install a wooden "cheek" over the bolt.
The barrel was redesigned: the ears were taller to protect the sight, and the barrel tape was moved forward to cover the nose protrusion.
It is curious that for some reason the rifle did not have (in any case, it is not on the surviving rifles) a corresponding eyelet for attaching a bayonet. A new butt plate was installed, modeled on the SMLE rifle.
Thornycroft also developed his own new scope design, patented by him about three years earlier, and graduated for shooting at distances from 200 to 2 yards, and adjustable in both height and horizontal plane.
The rifle did not have a conventional fuse, but an original vertical lever was provided, located next to the chamber and the bolt handle, which could be folded back and thus the bolt was locked. The ejector was plunger at the end of the bolt.
Thornycroft rifle, "third model" model 1907. Barrel length - 676 mm, total length - 1 003 mm, weight - 3,39 kg
It should be emphasized that the Thornycroft rifle (interestingly, the name of its co-authors was forgotten, and it was never called, for example, the "Thornycroft-Farquhar rifle") was not just a modified version of Lee-Enfield, but became his original brainchild from start to finish.
Lineup of Thornycroft rifles. 1902, 1903, 1906, and 1907 prototype models, documented starting July 18, 1901
The barrel of the rifle was almost entirely covered from above with a wooden lining, and from the bottom by a stock, so it was impossible to get burned on it in the event of prolonged shooting. A separate metal frontal ("bow") part of the box was combined with a projection for a bayonet. And there was also an adjustable platform with a triangular front sight and curved side flaps. As was customary on army rifles, a folding "salvo" sight was provided on the left on the stock.
A curved wooden cover was attached over the cylindrical "bolt" bolt with two lugs, serving simultaneously as a "protrusion" under the shooter's cheek. It also served as a limiter for the linear sliding stroke of the bolt during reloading, resting against a metal protrusion in the rear of the butt.
Rifle "Thornycroft" М1907. Close-up view of the shutter. The funnel-shaped recess on the wooden cladding under the safety lever is clearly visible
The role of the safety catch was played by a hinged hinged lever located in a hemispherical "recess" next to the bolt handle, so that it would be more convenient to hook it with a finger. In this version, the rifle turned out to be quite convenient, but its reloading forced the shooter to raise his head in order to be able to freely move the bolt.
The built-in five-round magazine system was also not compatible with clips, despite the usual top-down loading. Which, of course, the military considered a serious drawback.
Compared to the rifles in service, Thornycroft's weapons were 19 cm shorter and 10% lighter (3,36 kg) than their competitors.
The entire model range did not go through the full cycle of tests, which were carried out from mid-1902, and gave way to the shortened SMLE-versions of Lee-Enfield rifles, which were already in service with the British army. Nevertheless, it was one of the real steps towards the creation of modern bullpup automatic rifles.
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