Casimir Lefaucheux

Lefaucheux, c. 1830.

Casimir Lefaucheux (born 26 January 1802, in Bonnétable; died 9 August 1852, in Paris) was a French gunsmith, who is probably best known as the man who invented the pinfire cartridge..

Casimir Lefaucheux obtained his first patent in 1827. In 1832, he completed a drop-barrel sporting gun with paper-cased cartridges.

Casimir Lefaucheux is credited with the invention of one of the first efficient self-contained cartridge systems in 1836, featuring the pinfire mechanism. This followed the pioneering work of Jean Samuel Pauly (under whom Lefaucheux apprenticed) in 1808-1812. The Lefaucheux cartridge had a conical bullet, a cardboard powder tube, and a copper base that incorporated a primer pellet. Lefaucheux thus proposed one of the first practical breech-loading weapons.

In 1846, the Lefaucheux system would be improved upon by M. Houiller, who introduced an entirely metallic cartridge of copper brass.

In 1858, the Lefaucheux pistolet-revolver became the first metallic-cartridge revolver to be adopted by a national government.

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