content_output-016_4 (Q5473): Difference between revisions

We are aware that Mr. Pape, of Newcastle, considers himself the inventor of choke boring, and has been awarded a Cup as such by a committee. We do not agree with that award. That his patent proves him to have had some idea in May, 1866, that he thought might be worth protecting, is a fact. But although he described the method in a patent having to do with mechanisms of the actions of breech-loader fastenings, he made no claim in the patent for the invention of the method of boring he describes. We believe that (whether he knew or did not know what was possible from choke boring) he did not work the principle foreshadowed in his patent, or if he did, he did not work it in the modern successful method. We are of this opinion, because we happen to know that when asked in '73 or '74 to do his best by way of pattern, he sent out a weapon that could not put 100 No. 6 shot in the 30-inch circle at 40 yards. And having regard to the extreme care with which the cartridges sent to try the gun were loaded, we have every reason to believe that he was doing his best. Good shooting guns at that time were accidents to a great extent; with such an accident Mr. Pape had won at a public trial with a pattern of less than 130. That is our opinion of the matter, and moreover, no English maker could guarantee any such pattern as 130 until Mr. Greener showed the way in 1874. We speak from the results of our own trials with the guns of many of them, including Mr. Pape's. The information we are able