Pin-fire ammunition, though quicker than muzzle loading, was imperfect and the quest to improve upon it was quickly underway. While this step-change in technology was instigated by a London gun maker developing a continental idea, Birmingham firms, including Westley Richards, were at the forefront of perfecting new concepts and devising better operating mechanisms. The idea stuck and breech-loading pin-fires were to dominate for the next fifteen years. Lang’s gun is credited as the first in Britain that successfully combined pin-fire cartridges with a forward facing, under-lever and barrels that drop in a hinge. Legend has it that Edwin Hodges, a multi-talented ‘gunmaker to the trade’, made an adaptation of the gun for Joseph Lang. The breech loader got its real introduction to England in 1851, when Lefaucheux exhibited his breech-loading pin-fire at the Great Exhibition.
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