Jennings' Unique Twelve Shotgun

The gun Isaac Jennings, designed them in 1821 year. Unlike those single-shot rifles of those times, it could shoot 12 times in a row - there were a dozen independent powder chambers in it.

Jennings 12 Charging Gun, a prototype of Isaac Jennings, is a 12-charging silicon rifle with an engraved brass frame with an engraved serial number “No. 1 ”on the upper flat surface of the barrel. This model is based on the earlier Jennings single-charge model of state-owned loading, which was produced from the 1818 of the year, but includes many new features unique to this weapons.

The frame is engraved with decorative curls of leaves and a cornucopia, and the frame ends with a simple plank in the shape of a walnut. The stock is made of yellow copper and initially contained an oval butt bed also in the form of a walnut. On the inside plane of the butt, the letters “JBB Vignie” are engraved in Romanesque without spaces.

Note: It is assumed that the configuration of the frame and the butt was used only in firearms made under the patents of Isaac Jennings, which is rare for collections of American weapons.

After publishing the 22 patent in September of 1821, Jennings and his partner, Ruben Ellis, studied the possibility of supplying the US government with multi-shot rifles. Their modified weapon was the usual form using a traditional wooden butt. Five hundred and twenty such rifles of larger caliber were made for the government by entrepreneurs R. Johnson and J. Johnson from Middletown, Connecticut in 1829. After production, they were checked by federal inspectors and then sent to the New York State militia, possibly for field testing. Four and ten-shot variants are known and they officially received the name - the Ellis-Jennings multiply-charged silicon gun.

Comments

[alex56]

The article is very entertaining. It is always interesting to learn about non-trivial ideas of gunsmiths))

[ramsi]

cool, but after all all the subsequent soft lead bullets, probably, were flattened ...

[dustycat]

And all one equipment was made with a hammer.
Well, the bullet is flattened a bit.
But it will reliably seal against ignition of the next charge and reduce the breakthrough of gases from under the bullet.

[avt]

Quote: ramsi

cool

Yes, an interesting example, but how many of these we have. Even in Soviet times, he was in the Armory, very impressed with the pre-Petrine, Russian specimens of breech-loading and rifled.

[Gagarin]

The idea is valuable at least for its originality!

[Obscurantism]

And what prevented the detonation of several cameras?
And a little annoying recharge.

[bazilio]

Quote: obscurantist_Mrak_

And what prevented the detonation of several cameras?

there are probably some kind of partitions in the design

[ramsi]

most likely, the powder chambers are on the side, and the bullets go through the wad, so it will turn out more or less monotonous; then charging should start with bullets

[anomalocaris]

On the side, there’s just ramsi (however, as always), and this gun was charged, like all others like it, according to the scheme charge-by-charge. A special wad was installed under the bullet. In some systems, in addition to wad, wooden pallets were also used. The only original feature of this device is the quick-release trunk. Although it was also.
A similar scheme of multiply charged weapons appeared three hundred years before this unit was released. They periodically return to it, and at the moment it is the well-known Australian "Metal Storm"

[ramsi]

Wow, did you calm down? Then we can return to the scheme with balanced automation ... Not that I'm very interested, I won’t get into books anyway, but I’m curious where they let me down

[anomalocaris]

Baby, go read the textbooks. Maybe then it will reach you how this automation works. Until I see a militant amateur in front of me, who has heard something somewhere out of the corner of my ear, and then, to the best of my ignorance, I have supplemented the missing with my own fabrications.

[alex-cn]

Author! Please, give at least minimal information on the mechanism of the gun, it is completely incomprehensible to me.

[bazilio]

Quote: alex-cn

he is completely incomprehensible to me.

I roughly realized, but without specifics, 12 successively arranged chambers. the percussion mechanism moves in the direction from the barrel to the butt, in the right position at each chamber it is fixed with the help of a rail with cutouts located in the lower part .... hmm .. receiver. the trigger, as I understand it, has a long traction with 12 cutouts for clutching with a sear in each of the 12 positions.
But questions arise - how are the cameras charged? from the treasury or through the trunk? Judging by the size, the chambers are designed only for a powder charge, therefore, for each shot you need to put a bullet.

[alex-cn]

The bullet should be, without it all the charges will be torn at once, the bullet is like the wad between them. If I am not mistaken, then the master Vishnevsky had a double-barreled 4-charging choke, the charges were through the bullet.

[mirag2]

Yeah ... ah ... got it ...
And then he couldn’t enter, could the castle move, well, yes, of course it moves, but how else?

[anomalocaris]

You absolutely correctly understood. The trunks were charged with the trunk open. Long, thorough and boring. Moreover, any mistake, and not only a mistake, could lead to the ignition of all the underlying charges ...

[dustycat]

What's so obscure?
A series of charges stuffed one after the other into one barrel so that each gunpowder is opposite its ignition channel.
Sealing with buckskin or cartouche waxed paper is a unitary charge from a canopy of gunpowder and a bullet in a common shell.
Since loading all one was carried out with the help of a hammer, everything was compacted into a completely rigid crush-resistant packing.
The same seal protects against ignition of the subsequent charge from the previous one.
With each cocking trigger trigger trigger moves back on charge.

By the way. This gun has an interesting feature - to simplify loading, the barrel is detachable from the breech - as on modern machine guns - a long ramrod is needed only to clean the barrel and can be made thin and light with a rod. Usually the ramrod of guns of that time was 0,7-0,8 caliber thick.

[Mikhail3]

What a butt! To hold ... An interesting thing.

[Evgen_Vasilich]

People, and mattress_niks shout that the "MetalStorm" system is an advanced newest development, I can't! Respect for the author of the article and the author of Ruzhbaiki, but about loading - you see the shit in front of the barrel, but after the "receiver" (block of charging chambers), most likely in this place the whole system (barrel and "receiver") is separated for ease of charging IMHO.

[anomalocaris]

This idea is about a thousand years old.

[Ilya Mikhalych]

Not a bad idea (for that time), but what kind of performance is beauty. True, if it is improperly charged, it will explode. Article +

[Uzer 13.]

In addition to the original design and good performance in metal (and this is in the era of flintlock) there is nothing more to boast of.
When firing, the entire column of charges mounted on top of each other will inevitably be deformed and the seed hole may not be compatible with the charge of gunpowder. It is no accident that in subsequent modifications of hunting rifles made on the same principle, there were only two charges, between which there was a seal made of special paper. the guns were reliable and safe and were made by gunsmiths even at the beginning of the 20th century. It was usually a capsule muzzle-loading rifle.

[sub307]

For the early 19th century, a completely "futuristic" design.