Shoulder-Fired Grenade Launcher

LouG.

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Joined
Jun 27, 2021
In August of 1864 Ralph Graham of Brooklyn, N.Y., patented this "...new and useful Improvement in Firearms for Projecting Grenades or Small Bomb-Shells." Graham applied for his patent in October of 1863, and why it took the Patent Office nearly a year to issue the final paperwork is uncertain. The basic principle was not new---British Brown Bess flintlock muskets with detachable muzzle cups predate 1750---but (based on the text of his patent) Graham's embodiment was handier and easier to use. Were any built beyond the prototype stage? Who knows?

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Flintlock grenade launchers (or 'hand mortars') were popular in the late 17th / mid 18th centuries.
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_469453
At the time of the Great Northern War, the Russian artillery of Peter the Great, Czar of Russia, had some troops armed with flintlock hand mortars and a sort of pole axe. The axe was used as a sort of "monopod" and the bell-shaped muzzle of the flintlock launcher nestled into an upper part of the blade between the toe and the eye as a support. For hand-to-hand fighting, the axe was used as a battle axe or pole axe...
 
Never seen anything like it. Took me awhile to study the drawing before I realized most of the gun is the stock---only has a short "barrel".
 
I spring loaded launcher, or even a simple throwing stick would be much lighter and less likely to fail.
 
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