Ignition source

Robert Morgan on the work of Rev Alexander Forsyth, ‘father of the modern shotgun’

- Robert Morgan

Last month we talked about the famous English gun collector W Keith Neal and how different it was in his day when it came to acquiring new pieces for his collection.

If Keith Neal’s collection had a particular theme it could probably be best summed up as: ‘best guns by top makers’ and ‘unusual ignition methods’. One maker encompassed both these ideals: Reverend Alexander Forsyth. Born in Belhelvie, Aberdeenshire, in 1769, he was one of a group of people that Great Britain used to produce a lot of in those days: a genius inventor.

The good reverend was the first person to come up with the idea of using a controlled explosive charge to ignite powder. It is easy to forget but up until the beginning of the 19th century all forms of powder ignition in firearms had used powder to ignite powder, and that powder was simply placed in a small trough or pan. The pan itself led to all sorts of secondary problems, from not being weatherproof to simply blowing away in the wind. It also was slow to ignite. This in turn reduced the power or efficiency of any given charge as it burned slowly (in scientific terms at any rate) from the back to the front. Forsyth realised this and set about to make fundamental changes.

Compounds