Lindner’s Improbable Tube-Fed Striker-Fired Caseless Ammo Revolving Rifle

[Bob Riebe]

Edward Lindner was a Bavarian-born gunsmith who spent much of his professional life in the United States. He was granted no less than 13 firearms patents, and was involved in some very forward-thinking designs. Among other things, he has the earliest patent I am aware of which uses the term “striker” (1865) and also the first patent I am aware of for a gas-operated action (1856). He is best known for some of his simplest work; conversions of muzzle loaders to breechloading – but he also designed this much more complex revolver system.

This is a proof-of-concept model of a fantastic revolver that used a tubular magazine and paper cartridges with separate primers. It used a roughly .48 caliber pistol cartridge, feeding from a tubular magazine under the barrel.With each cycling of the action, a new cartridge was fed into the bottom chamber of the cylinder, and the cylinder indexed one position and fired. Priming was done from a separate magazine of percussion caps, with the striker stripping one out, seating it, and immediately firing – essentially an open-bolt mechanism in a percussion revolver.

Only two examples of this system appear to have been made; this one and a slightly more refined proof of concept model.