[QUOTE=chieffool;7413055]
Quote Originally Posted by micky2 View Post

I've just had a 'full circle' moment - because while chatting through another thread:
http://www.airgunbbs.com/showthread....e-from-and-Why
SEE post #19

...I've just realised that the Bedford (Walker?) Eureka referred to in my original question at the start,
is the 'Eureka Air pistol' patented by Mr Henry Quackenbush June 6th, 1871.

I just find it so odd that Mr Q would choose to call his patent 'Eureka' - and all that word implies when applied to the concept of original thought.

Was this so radical?
Wooooaah - steady boy: need to correct myself.
Just read one of the amazing JimmieDee articles on this:
http://www.jimmiedeesairguns.com/pis...nd-george-a-wa

Hopefully I've gor this right now, so i should say (more accurately) The Bedford Walker Eureka is a development from Mr Q's patent with (amongst other improvements) the introduction by Bedford of the earliest transfer port, as well as better trigger (double lever) and the pushrod working on a 'reversed' principle to the Quackenbush patent from 1871. And Mr Walker's input is the innovative 'bolt action breech' for airgun.[/INDENT]


Which leads me to my next question relating to the term EUREKA:

Quackenbush's patent is 1871.
The Bedford Walker patents appear c. 1876.

I'd originally thought Quackenbush derived the term "Eureka" as a name for his 1871 patent - perhaps representing an Archimedian exclamation...
...but now find from jimmieDee that EUREKA (as applied to the Bedford Walker designs from 1876 onwards) is also the NAME of the company Bedford established in 1867 called The Eureka Manufacturing Company. So the name now seems entirely logical.

Thank heavens there are people out there who have the time and commitment to find this stuff out.
I need a drink.... there is LOTs of lovely reading i need to do courtesy of Mr Dee.