Why the "patent breech" design ?

[smoothshooter]

There are probably patent documents somewhere that explain in detail what they supposedly improve upon.

Get a copy ( out of print, but available used, at decent prices ) of “ The Age of Firearms “ by Robert Held.
Has good technical drawings and narrative on patent breeches. It is a good read on the history, development, civilian and military usage, of gunpowder small arms and artillery from medieval times to the development of cartridge guns and smokeless powder.
Every traditional black powder shooter with an interest in history should have a copy of this book.
Robert Held was an excellent writer. Master of tongue-in-cheek humor.
Got my first copy when I was about 14 years old many years ago. Found a second one for a spare on the internet 4 years ago.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

 

[Rudyard]

Your comments re Robert Held 's book & works in general are spot on ! He's great in my view . Re negative comments on Nocks patent breach I made dozen of guns mostly 12 bore for clay & game shooters each with the Nocks and had no complaints . He made the long barrels needless and the double gun practicle .All hail Nock in my view.
Regards Rudyard

 

[smoothshooter]

Your comments re Robert Held 's book & works in general are spot on ! He's great in my view . Re negative comments on Nocks patent breach I made dozen of guns mostly 12 bore for clay & game shooters each with the Nocks and had no complaints . He made the long barrels needless and the double gun practicle .All hail Nock in my view.
Regards Rudyard

I am not a fan of them because of the extra difficulty in field cleaning them. Requires two diameters of jags, scrapers, and brushes.

 

[doubleset]

I am not a fan of them because of the extra difficulty in field cleaning them. Requires two diameters of jags, scrapers, and brushes.

I never use a scraper since the bucket/pump-with-patched-ramrod approach seems to clean everything quite thorougly. But I do agree that getting anything into the patent breech on the .32 is particularly a real pain. And so lubing it for rust avoidance is a pain. However, I have a couple of techniques that seem to succeed in that in an okay way. With something like a .45 or .50 you should just be able to us a small caliber patch holder or something like a .30 cotton bore mop. But that does add one or two extra accessories to your cleaning tools.

 

[smoothshooter]

I never use a scraper since the bucket/pump-with-patched-ramrod approach seems to clean everything quite thorougly. But I do agree that getting anything into the patent breech on the .32 is particularly a real pain. And so lubing it for rust avoidance is a pain. However, I have a couple of techniques that seem to succeed in that in an okay way. With something like a .45 or .50 you should just be able to us a small caliber patch holder or something like a .30 cotton bore mop. But that does add one or two extra accessories to your cleaning tools.

I have always used undersized bore brushes with white 100% cotton tee shirt material wetted with water, 70% isopropyl alcohol, Ballistol, etc. wrapped around the bristles to clean the bore with. On guns with pinned in barrels it is not a good idea to remove the barrel for cleaning.

 

[Rudyard]

Field cleaning ? the devoted clay shooters ,my customers seemed not the need field cleaning and I just washed out the barrel with cold then hot & never been a problem. I made enough that where heavilly shot & no complaint reached me . One gun Number 37 of 1980 a 12 bore was made for a UK MLAIC shooter who shot ONLY flintlock he about wore the lock out , wasn't good at cleaning . I later bought it back & fitted a 58 rifle option adding a tool box. He so often quoted Lt Col Peter Hawker that ' Col Hawker' became his nick name but he shot at least twice for UK at the Worlds MLAIC champs . With the tendancey of soluable oil to get into the ante chamber his hadn't rusted nor built up ' hard cake.' So laudable as your cleaning might be, it perhaps is a bit overkill . The gun is half stocked with two keys & its false breach
Regards Rudyard

 

[Vbull]

I recently had a .451 long range muzzleloader come to me that has a history of misfires. After getting the patent breechplug out, I found it was heavily corroded in the .375" "chamber". This "chamber" had a flat bottom and not like the hemi shaped ones I see in diagrams. This breechplug is threaded 3/4"-16 X 1/2" deep. I opened the "chamber" to .457 tapering it back to .416 which cleaned up the corrosion. The minor diameter of a 3/4-16 thread is .690" and with a .416" flat bottom hole as the chamber, it leaves me with .137" wall thickness. Do I have a potential problem with "bolt thrust" on the face of the now opened breechplug? This breechplug is color case hardened. I'm much more familiar with underhammers that have no need for a patent breech.

 

[Vbull]

I've attached the before and after photos.

 

[flconch53]

I did something similar on CVA flint hawkers. I just bored the flash chamber to bore size and no more problems with cleaning or misfires

 

[smoothshooter]

Field cleaning ? the devoted clay shooters ,my customers seemed not the need field cleaning and I just washed out the barrel with cold then hot & never been a problem. I made enough that where heavilly shot & no complaint reached me . One gun Number 37 of 1980 a 12 bore was made for a UK MLAIC shooter who shot ONLY flintlock he about wore the lock out , wasn't good at cleaning . I later bought it back & fitted a 58 rifle option adding a tool box. He so often quoted Lt Col Peter Hawker that ' Col Hawker' became his nick name but he shot at least twice for UK at the Worlds MLAIC champs . With the tendancey of soluable oil to get into the ante chamber his hadn't rusted nor built up ' hard cake.' So laudable as your cleaning might be, it perhaps is a bit overkill . The gun is half stocked with two keys & its false breach
Regards Rudyard

If the gun is a half-stock with barrel keys, then detaching the barrel and doing the barrel flush and pumping thing is much easier. My smoothbore guns all have pinned- in barrels.
In years past, when I have been out shooting starlings and pigeons a quarter mile from my vehicle for 2 or three hours at a time, having the equipment along with me for flush cleaning was not practical. Swabbing with a couple of wet patches followed by a dry patch every 40 shots or so had to suffice.
I don’t think a patent breech would keep functioning for that many shots without taking another 20 minutes or more to use a smaller chamber brush with smaller patches and smaller breech plug scraper.
I am very familiar with the claimed advantages and technical varieties of patent breeches, and they are not all of the same design.
For my use, they offer up more problems than advantages.

 

[Rudyard]

If the gun is a half-stock with barrel keys, then detaching the barrel and doing the barrel flush and pumping thing is much easier. My smoothbore guns all have pinned- in barrels.
In years past, when I have been out shooting starlings and pigeons a quarter mile from my vehicle for 2 or three hours at a time, having the equipment along with me for flush cleaning was not practical. Swabbing with a couple of wet patches followed by a dry patch every 40 shots or so had to suffice.
I don’t think a patent breech would keep functioning for that many shots without taking another 20 minutes or more to use a smaller chamber brush with smaller patches and smaller breech plug scraper.
I am very familiar with the claimed advantages and technical varieties of patent breeches, and they are not all of the same design.
For my use, they offer up more problems than advantages.

Well clearly you are in the UK and your gun may had some varient Pattern breech ? Maybe none? But the UK International shooters at least at the first Quantico MLAIC World shot my guns (Of my make ) with the classic Nocks and ile say shot the poop out of them '.Col Hawker' viz Mike Brooks shot no other guns. he once shot 11 clays driven in a double percussion match IE two birds at once & to my disaprouval they would'nt allow his top score "Because it was for double cap guns !."
However this is a bit of topic ish .Is your gun of your make or has it a 'Patent breech proper IE Nocks not the machine disgorged nonesence most call it ' patent '. I did a lot of wandering UK farm land with all sorts of wierd & wonderfull old guns .cant recall much field cleaning .If I did want to wash out a pinned barrel full stock Ide either peg the vent or drink a gobfull of water angle the gun so the water pours out of the vent and thusly wash out the barrel if the rod suited a worm or jag affair . Be interesting to see what'Felt Wad' did he really put some rounds out of MLs in the UK still does I expect .
Regards Rudyard

 

[doubleset]

Sometimes you have the feeling that a long and incoherently rambling posting has some genuine germs of valuable insight and information in it. But you just can't extract them.

 

[billraby]

Dave Person is right. Patent breech works very well. Problem is that manufacturers use it in guns that don't have any real use for it. The 4 bore that I built has a patent breech. Whole idea of that sort of rifle is make it as powerful as you possibly can. With patent breech I can use enormous powder charges in a 29 inch barrel. It is great on large bore guns using big powder charges. But it seems rather pointless on a 45 caliber rifle with a long barrel.

 

[smoothshooter]

Dave Person is right. Patent breech works very well. Problem is that manufacturers use it in guns that don't have any real use for it. The 4 bore that I built has a patent breech. Whole idea of that sort of rifle is make it as powerful as you possibly can. With patent breech I can use enormous powder charges in a 29 inch barrel. It is great on large bore guns using big powder charges. But it seems rather pointless on a 45 caliber rifle with a long barrel.

My feelings exactly.

 

[smoothshooter]

Well clearly you are in the UK and your gun may had some varient Pattern breech ? Maybe none? But the UK International shooters at least at the first Quantico MLAIC World shot my guns (Of my make ) with the classic Nocks and ile say shot the poop out of them '.Col Hawker' viz Mike Brooks shot no other guns. he once shot 11 clays driven in a double percussion match IE two birds at once & to my disaprouval they would'nt allow his top score "Because it was for double cap guns !."
However this is a bit of topic ish .Is your gun of your make or has it a 'Patent breech proper IE Nocks not the machine disgorged nonesence most call it ' patent '. I did a lot of wandering UK farm land with all sorts of wierd & wonderfull old guns .cant recall much field cleaning .If I did want to wash out a pinned barrel full stock Ide either peg the vent or drink a gobfull of water angle the gun so the water pours out of the vent and thusly wash out the barrel if the rod suited a worm or jag affair . Be interesting to see what'Felt Wad' did he really put some rounds out of MLs in the UK still does I expect .
Regards Rudyard

 

[smoothshooter]

Well clearly you are in the UK and your gun may had some varient Pattern breech ? Maybe none? But the UK International shooters at least at the first Quantico MLAIC World shot my guns (Of my make ) with the classic Nocks and ile say shot the poop out of them '.Col Hawker' viz Mike Brooks shot no other guns. he once shot 11 clays driven in a double percussion match IE two birds at once & to my disaprouval they would'nt allow his top score "Because it was for double cap guns !."
However this is a bit of topic ish .Is your gun of your make or has it a 'Patent breech proper IE Nocks not the machine disgorged nonesence most call it ' patent '. I did a lot of wandering UK farm land with all sorts of wierd & wonderfull old guns .cant recall much field cleaning .If I did want to wash out a pinned barrel full stock Ide either peg the vent or drink a gobfull of water angle the gun so the water pours out of the vent and thusly wash out the barrel if the rod suited a worm or jag affair . Be interesting to see what'Felt Wad' did he really put some rounds out of MLs in the UK still does I expect .
Regards Rudyard

Well clearly you are in the UK and your gun may had some varient Pattern breech ? Maybe none? But the UK International shooters at least at the first Quantico MLAIC World shot my guns (Of my make ) with the classic Nocks and ile say shot the poop out of them '.Col Hawker' viz Mike Brooks shot no other guns. he once shot 11 clays driven in a double percussion match IE two birds at once & to my disaprouval they would'nt allow his top score "Because it was for double cap guns !."
However this is a bit of topic ish .Is your gun of your make or has it a 'Patent breech proper IE Nocks not the machine disgorged nonesence most call it ' patent '. I did a lot of wandering UK farm land with all sorts of wierd & wonderfull old guns .cant recall much field cleaning .If I did want to wash out a pinned barrel full stock Ide either peg the vent or drink a gobfull of water angle the gun so the water pours out of the vent and thusly wash out the barrel if the rod suited a worm or jag affair . Be interesting to see what'Felt Wad' did he really put some rounds out of MLs in the UK still does I expect .
Regards Rudyard

Actually, I am from the midwestern U.S.
I have had a couple of reproduction guns with patent breeches. One worked fairly well and was not too difficult to clean. The other was a real pain about half the time.
The original designs were probably better than modern versions, but the performance of guns with standard breeches was always satisfactory to me, and were easier to clean.
I am aware of the original claims of higher velocities with heavier loads, and do not doubt most of the claimed advantages.

 

[DuncNZ]

My Uberti Hawken had a patent breach , I fired thousands of shots with that rifle over the 30 + years I owned it , I wiped between shots and I never once had a misfire , I have never seen any one shooting a rifle with a patent breach have problems , maybe it is a caliber thing and the patent breaches on small caliber rifles are too small to work effectively and too hard to clean .
I have put this on this forum before :.

I believe the purpose of a patent breach , other than allowing the barrels to be detached easily for cleaning and storage, is to provide a small thick walled combustion chamber to withstand higher pressures and give better ignition with smaller charges of powder .
Cohorn mortars have a small combustion chamber in the breach using a small charge to fire a very larger projectile up and over defensive walls etc ., My mate has several he has made ,one of which has chamber the size of a old type film canister will launch a concrete filled beer can from a barrel only 1 inch longer than the can , about 250 feet in the air and 300 yards down range ,Depending on the way it is slanted to aim , it uses fg or ffg powder.

This is a patent breach for a .54 Uberti Hawken .I intend to get another barrel in .45 and fit this breach so I could change calibers with ease , somehow that never happened , the chamber is 1.25" deep and 0.4" wide . I made up wood screw to act as a jag for cleaning the breach and soldered it to a rod so I could screw it back and forth to clean it completely . . I wadded up piece of cloth extending past the end of the screw , it was easy to clean this way , brushes never worked as well . The chamber holds 35 grains of fffg Goex , more if rammed home .
One thing I did not show is there is a screw on the left hand side of the breach where they manufacturer has drilled through to meet up with the bottom of the nipple , and used a screw , not a cleanout screw, to block the hole. I would not advise using a " clean out screw" as it may wear and end up as a projectile . The powder goes to the bottom of the nipple then burns at right angles to the main charge before igniting it .
PS The chamber is good for the primary load when loading duplex loads .

 

[DuncNZ]

This is the patent breach on my H Nock 14 ga It started life as a flintlock but was converted to percussion cap some time in the 19 centaury .
It is called a Patent Breach because it was a new idea in gun making and so was patented to protect the idea .
The other picture is a Beckwith patent drawing , I suppose it was to get around Nock's patent , How it was cleaned I have no idea .
Those of you who say patent breaches with small powder chambers are hard to clean must remember this is a British invention and the original owners would have had their Ghillie or gunsmith clean it for them.

 

[Snake Pleskin]

Hi,
Hook breeches and tangs go back well before Nock was even in diapers. English rifles and fowlers used them as early as the 1730s. Hook breeches, more traditionally called "false", "break off", and "standing" breeches were designed along with barrel keys, rather than pins, to allow the barrel to be removed easily for cleaning. ,

dave

The hooked breech and barrel keys are the two best things ever invented for a ML, IMHO!!!

 

[Secesh]

There is a short but excellent article in Research Press on how the patent breech is used in long range ML target matches shooting fast twist rifled barrels and conical projectiles.