Well, David this will be fun... another place to hang out...(chuckle)...
 
I think I will start this out with a discussion and questions concerning the K.H. Cornish-Enfield Rifle. It was one of the Enfield conversions that was contemorary with the Snider-Enfield conversion...
 
The only one of these neat Cornish arms I'm aware of is owned by Luc deVos, it is a real beauty and is pictured below. There is so little out there on this conversion and an extensive patent search has turned up nothing in the US. David found a reproduction of one patent style drawing with a brief description and the #1828 that may be a GB patent number and the date July 12 1866. Searching anything British that is older than last week, on line, is impossible.  I'd love to see the complete patent...  
 
I'm attempting to reproduce this action using measured pictures I've recieved from Luc... It is a beautiful piece of engineering simplicity for sure...(chuckle)...  
 
Anyone in Britain, with access to the GB Patent Office, up to the task?... (chuckle)...
 

 
Coyot�

Ryan,
 
It is truely a neat and simple breech arrangement and is equal to, or maybe a bit stronger than the Snider primarily due to its robust compactness... At first gance it looks like a French Tabatier�, but on deeper investigation, it is better engineered and is much stronger.   Its' only problem is the extreme angle at which the firing pin strikes the cartridge primer... According to Luc it doesn't always fire the cartridge, even with cases that have the larger diameter Berdan primers... The drawing that David sent over illustrates a second firing pin arrangement that solves this problem, but it smacks of a "Reub Goldberg" and looks a bit flimsy. You can see this change in fig.9x below...
 
 
 
I've made the needed alterations to the original design to elliminate the problem and have already started twirling the steel, we'll see what turns out...

David,
 
As you can probably tell, I am much enamoured with this action design, and will plunk down the funds for the search.
 
That is very coincidental... Mommote works for the local patent law firm here... Maintains the firms web site and coordinates client info... among other things... http://www.patents.com is the URL... Lots of interesting stuff there for sure, they have many over-seas clients, several in Britain as a matter of fact... I wonder if the ladies have unwittingly bumped into one another in their daily dealings... Hmmm...(chuckle)...

James,
 
There is a reference and a photo of a Cornish carbine in the 1972 edition of Guns of the world...  
 
There are two other designers that produced actions with very similar axial side pivot designs... one was made by Webley called the Wyley Breeched Rifle, the other was the Whitney Phoenix.  Both of these had a central hammer similar to a rolling-block however, and were not conversion arms... The Phoenix looks to be the strongest, but the Cornish runs a very close second... The Wyley looks weak to me...it had Ratchet Rifling which dates it to about 1885 or so... It looks pretty... but weak, when the breech is open it sections out a substantial chunk of the rifles breech area... not much support at all from the photos I've seen...

Ross,
 
Most of the parallel pivot actions are found at CCL/42/32... The Snider is PN/69941. This is not the only CCL where they may be found however... subtle changes in the hammer or striker design or how they extract or how the breech is locked may put them into another CCL or several CCLs... So you may want to print out a Class Sub-classification Schedual for CCL/42 which is firearms... That will give you all of the sub-classifications. Click on the link below, then print it out... you will find it useful... www.uspto.gov/web/patents/classification/uspc042/sched042.htm
At the bottom you will find a link to class-related foriegn documents as well... You might want to print that too...(chuckle)...

Having just posted the last message, and complained to a colleage about the difficulties of finding old patents, she told me no problem.  It appears that #1828 is probably the right patent number for a UK patent around the July 1866 time period.  She has ordered a copy of the patent which I will post as soon as it comes in.
 
Jim
p.s Always hire people smarter than you are...and then use their brains.

Thanks to Jim, the full patent of A.D.1866, 12 July, No. 1828 is now available.
 
Select the following link to download the patent as a 540kb PDF file.  
 
Letters Patent to Kenneth Henry Cornish  for "Improvements in Breech-Loading Fire-arms"
 
David

This looks like a "Cornish" type action, but with a more traditional Snider extractor.  No idea why the block is scalloped out.  Anyone any ideas?
Jim
 
http://www.auctionarms.com/search/displayitem.cfm?itemnum=6541784