Need better pictures of the barrel breech. From what I see of the breech when enlarging the top photo, the nipples are merely positioned to inject fire into the center of the breech instead of the upper quadrant like most percussion guns.
What he may call "centerfire" in his patent may be nothing like what we envision as centerfire today For over a century American made percussion caps were labeled as "Center Fire" or Central Fire". An old gunsmith explained to me years ago, that they were called centerfire because the ignition fire goes through a hole in the center of the nipple. Whether that is true, who knows. Some of the early percussion guns used brass plungers with an end coated with fulminate, that struck an internal anvil another percussion system used a tiny folded envelope of fulminate with a tube attacked. the tube was to be placed through a touch hole and when struck, the fire from the envelope was to be forced through the tube in the touch hole to ignite the powder. Then there was the Draper Cartridge which was a centerfire, percussion breech loading cartridge. It had a heavy base with a percussion nipple and a cap would be placed on that nipple and struck by a centerfire rifle firing pin to ignite. Morris primed cartridges had a washer with holes in it preed into the inside of the thin balloon head cartridge. The cartridge could be ignited either by a rim fire striker or a center fire striker.
What was the date of the patent? What about it made it centerfire? If it was merely the placement of the nipples, Colt's revolvers also did that.
More information please.
