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Henry Nock (1741–1804) was a British inventor and engineer of the Napoleonic period, best known as a gunsmith. Nock produced many innovative weapons including the screwless lock and the seven-barrelled volley gun, although he did not invent the latter despite it commonly being known as the Nock gun. He was a major supplier to the military during the Napoleonic wars. His high quality duelling pistols and double-barrelled shotguns were much sought after and it is largely through Nock that the latter became the weapon of choice for hunters. As well as supplying the military and civilian markets, Nock made expensive pieces for the aristocracy and royalty and was an appointed gunmaker to the king. Nock's business eventually became Wilkinson Sword, a company which today makes razor blades and other shaving equipment, and, until very recently, made ceremonial officer's swords for the British Army. ==Guns== Nock produced many innovative weapons. In 1793 he made a double-barrelled pistol with a removable stock for the Royal Horse Artillery. However, this weapon was impractical with the stock removed and was usually used as a carbine. In 1797 Nock put into production a 9-inch pistol (pattern 1796) for heavy dragoons with a calibre matching their carbines. Some of these pistols had a novel lock designed by Nock, originally intended for an abandoned musket design requested by the Duke of Richmond in 1786 while serving as Master-General of the Ordnance. The new lock could be dismantled by removable pins rather than the previous more cumbersome and time-consuming screws. The pattern 1796 had no butt-plate and the ramrod was stored in the holster rather than attached to the barrel. This feature made it unpopular with users and many guns were modified to take a conventional swivel ramrod.〔Kinard and Tucker, page 42〕〔Haythornthwaite, pages 29–30〕 The name of Nock is perhaps best known today for the multi-barrelled Nock gun due to it being featured in several films. These include uses of this volley gun by the characters Patrick Harper in ''Sharpe''〔("Harper's Nock volley gun" ), ''The Sharpe Appreciation Society'', accessed and (archived ) 31 August 2012.〕 and Jim Bowie in ''The Alamo''.〔Philip Schreier, "The Petersen collection", ''Gun Digest 2013'', page 17, Gun Digest Books, 2012 ISBN 1440229260.〕 Nock was the manufacturer, but not the inventor, of this weapon.〔Wainright, page 1〕 Despite its portrayal in film, this weapon was not very practical as a hand weapon due its very severe recoil, often causing injuries, and the time needed to reload the seven barrels. It was necessary to abandon the rifling of the early prototypes and reduce the charge to keep this problem manageable.〔Wainright, page 2〕 Intended as a naval weapon fired from the rigging to repel boarders on the deck, it was retired by the Royal Navy in 1804. Nock also produced some experimental rotating multi-barrelled guns to fire one barrel at a time.〔Wainright, page 3〕 In his own day, Nock was most well known for his double-barrelled shotguns. He was not the first to make weapons in such a format, but their high quality and Nock's many innovations led to shotguns becoming highly popular as a hunting gun, especially after Nock became gun maker to the king.〔Sawyer, pages 206–207〕 Nock was also well known for his duelling pistols.〔Sawyer, page 193〕 Nock made weapons covering the whole field from pistols to muskets. The great variety is perhaps illustrated by his coach blunderbuss which, like naval pistols, had a more corrosion resistant brass barrel. Such weapons were intended to be used at short range and did not take a large enough charge to require iron barrels.〔Wainright, page 8〕 Nock continued to innovate until his death – late in life he was making breech loading muskets.〔Wainright, page 9〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Henry Nock」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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