Dear Friends of The Lefaucheux Museum,
We’ve just published a new video examining an original copy of the March 1835 Bulletin de la Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale, one of the most important contemporary documents in the history of early breech-loading firearms.
The report, prepared by the Society’s Comité des arts mécaniques, evaluates a series of firearms submitted by Casimir Lefaucheux and documents both their mechanical construction and their performance under firing trials. Rather than presenting a single invention, the committee traces the practical problems that limited earlier breech-loading systems, particularly gas leakage at the breech, fouling, and the rapid deterioration of precision metal-to-metal sealing surfaces exposed to black-powder combustion.
A central focus of the report is Lefaucheux’s solution to obturation. The document describes the use of a thin copper cartridge base, or culot, which expands under firing pressure to seal the chamber. The committee explicitly compares this behavior to the sealing principle of a hydraulic press and regards the obturating cartridge as one of the most useful improvements made to breech-loading arms in many years, noting that it eliminates gas escape and reduces reliance on extremely precise mechanical closures.
In a later section of the same publication, the report extends this cartridge architecture to ignition. The cartridge now carries its own primer, actuated by a transverse pin struck by the hammer. Illustrated on the accompanying plate, this represents the first published illustration of a pinfire cartridge. Together, these developments document the point at which both sealing and firing become integrated functions of the cartridge itself, establishing a foundation for the modern metallic cartridge.
You can watch the full video here:
Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo1BwfGhvwo
We’ll be sharing more source-driven videos like this on our YouTube channel, focusing on original documents, technical plates, and objects from the collection. Subscribing is the best way to be notified when new videos are released.
Thank you for your continued interest and support.
— The Lefaucheux Museum