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Also by “first gun” I do mean first model. I can't imagine that too too many were made though.


How this gun came to be helps describe why this exists. I have an article on the pistol pictured which focuses on it, but it is essentially the exact same story for the shotgun as well:
https://aaronnewcomer.com/casimir-lefaucheux-first-pistol-and-the-death-of-paulys-cartridge-system/

Jean Samuel Pauly patented a breech-loading gun that took fully-self-contained cartridges in 1812.



The shotshells would have a long paper cartridge that screwed into these bases (they called them rosettes.) And the pistol would take the full-length cartridge here with a round ball on the end. I assume you could also stick that in the shotgun too; it fits fine. The indentation by the flash hole on the base of the cartridge would hold a percussion compound that Pauly made (essentially Forsyth's general recipe.) and be covered in tallow or tape to hold it in.



The gun had "hammers" that cocked an internal hammer that hit the piston that hit the cartridge. Eventually I will take better pictures of this gun which I also just got in. I need to get it cleaned real well and fix a couple things. It does not have the same condition as the Lefaucheux one and another I have, but is one of the earliest examples made while Pauly still owned the company for the first 3 years.

Some years later, in 1823, the successor of the company, Henri Roux, modified the gun to accept a cartridge with a nipple on the end to take advantage of a new technology that was gaining popularity, percussion caps. He was able to modify existing guns by taking a chunk of the metal out: (left original, right new modification):





Then in the end of 1824 Eugene Picherau would take over the company and quickly makes an addition moving it completely to a breech-loading percussion system with external nipple and percussion caps.


(From a Hotel Drouot Auction)

Picherau adds his special nipple to the patent:



and what is known as a "blind rosette" which is essentially the same rosette, just without the flash hole that would still screw into the cartridge and help seal the breech:



Then in 1827 Lefaucheux takes over and adds his addition that simplifies the action a bit and keeps it a percussion system that still takes the blind rosettes or also his cartridge capsules that he would begin to develop which started as just a base to hold the paper cartridge and seal the breech:





And that is the gun I showed in the first post!

His next patent would be in 1833 and would be his break-open breech-loading design.