Tube Lock
In the early 19th century Manton invented the tube (or pill) lock, an improvement over Alexander Forsyth's scent-bottle lock. Rather than storing a reserve of fulminate in a container they were now single-use pellets.
The hammer of the gun was sharpened; when it fell it crushed the tube, causing the fulminates to detonate. This was more reliable than Forsyth's design and was adopted by the Austrian army and many sportsmen during the Regency period. However it was overshadowed by the invention of the percussion cap which was adopted by the armies of Britain, France, Russia and America to replace the flintlock.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Manton
Famous quotes containing the words tube and/or lock:
“One of the great natural phenomena is the way in which a tube of toothpaste suddenly empties itself when it hears that you are planning a trip, so that when you come to pack it is just a twisted shell of its former self, with not even a cubic millimeter left to be squeezed out.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“As soon as you are in a social setting, you better take away the key to the lock of your heart and pocket it; those who leave the key in the lock are fools.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)