Bio: Pitcher, Dr. H. A. (Invention - 1891)

Contact: Ken Wood   

Email: ken@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Pitcher, Ingersoll

----Source: Marshfield News  Thursday 17 Sept. 1891  P. 1 C 3

Pitcher, Dr. H. A. (Invention - 1891)

A Neillsville Man's Great Invention

Dr. H. A, Pitcher, of Neillsville, 1st the inventor of an automatic gun which bids fair to revolutionize both land and naval warfare, says a dispatch from Chicago.  The gun becomes automatic by the utilization of the gas produced by the combustion of the first cartridge fired.  The gas escapes into a gas chamber and acts on a piston that is set against a spiral spring, the recoil of which propels the piston back against a rod that sets the mechanism of the gun in motion, the empty cartridge being removed and replaced by a loaded one, also cocking the gun.  This is done with such rapidity that by pressing against the trigger the gun will discharge the nine cartridges that are required to fill its magazine in two seconds.

Lieut. Royall R. Ingersoll, chief ordinance officer and instructor in mathematics and gunnery at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, is considered high authority on firearms.  He is enthusiastic in his commendation of the mechanism of the gun and is satisfied that it will do all that is claimed for it.  It is intended to apply the principle to heavy guns for use in naval warfare in repelling torpedoes and as a machine gun.  The Army Board will investigate the merits of the gun at its meeting in New York next month.