Читать книгу The Complete English Wing Shot онлайн

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The idea of a single trigger to double guns cannot be said to have occurred to anyone as an original conception, since it was natural that at the first attempt to build those toys (as Colonel Thornton considered double guns, when he was upon his celebrated Highland tour), the inventor must have exercised some ingenuity to supply these first double guns with two triggers. It was as natural to attempt to make double barrels with one trigger as for a duck to swim. First, because single barrels were the fashion, and second, because single-trigger double pistols were made and were successful. It was, however, at once discovered that the action of the double pistol would not do; it let off both the shoulder gun’s barrels apparently as one. For a century afterwards repeated attempts were made to overcome this double discharge, and many patents were taken out on the strength of the inventor having discovered “the real, true cause” of the involuntary discharge of the second barrel, by the pull off that was intended to actuate only the first. However, the problem remained commercially unsolved until Mr. Robertson, of Boss & Co., of St. James’s Street, overcame the difficulty, and took out a patent, about 1894, for an action that prevented the unintentional double discharge. The great success of this action led to some hundred patents being taken out between that year and 1902. But most of them were afterwards dropped, and found not to effect the prevention of the double discharge for which they were designed. As a matter of fact, the reason of the involuntary discharge of the second barrel was not understood, not even by Mr. Robertson, who had, by trial and error, arrived at a perfect system of overcoming the difficulty, without being aware of what really occurred.