William Chamberlain 1880 rotary valve airgun patent

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

An interesting patent from the archives.

My invention consists of the stock of the arm, hollow or partly hollow, receiving air under pressure and communicating with the barrel, in combination with an intermediate cook or rotary plug, which, when properly operated by the finger-piece attached to it without the striking or snapping noise incident to other air guns and pistols, opens the communication between the stock and barrel, whereby the air is directed against the projectile in the barrel and forcibly discharges the same.

The cook or plug is securely held, when closed, by mechanism controlled by the trigger, and by operating the latter said mechanism is released, and by the action of a spring the cook or plug is swiftly rotated and opened.

As the valve stays open after firing, it appears there is a secondary firing chamber that is manually refilled before every shot.  It also seems to be fitted with an on-board pump.

Amazingly, there is a prototype that has been preserved as part of the Henrry Stewart Collection

[45flint]

Crazy high sighting angle!!

[Motorhead]

Now that is a real oddball for sure !!!

[oldair]

William Chamberlain appears to have been a real airgun geek - in addition to the above US229868, I managed to find several other patents of his in the 1880's, relating to another type of rifle and air cartridges: US279538, US312706, US312971

All can be seen via Google patent search by number.

Don R.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

William Chamberlain appears to have been a real airgun geek - in addition to the above US229868, I managed to find several other patents of his in the 1880's, relating to another type of rifle and air cartridges: US279538, US312706, US312971

Good finds!  The screw-based ones don't look like they would open nearly as fast as would be required but the first one using a frangible disk to retain the air would have certainly been feasible.

[Madd Hatter]

And I bet it was a heck of a lot more reliable than the Aspen!