Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse (November 20, 1787 – December 9, 1867) was a German inventor and maker of firearms. He is best known for presenting the Dreyse needle gun to the Prussian army in 1836. The army chose to use this rifle in December 1840, naming it the Leichte Perkussions-Gewehr M 1841. This name was chosen to hide the true design of the rifle. In 1855, the rifle was renamed Zündnadelgewehr M 1841.

Biography

Johann Nicolaus Dreyse was born in Sömmerda, which was then ruled by the Archbishop of Mainz. He was the son of a locksmith. From 1809 to 1814, Dreyse worked at a gun factory in Paris owned by Jean-Samuel Pauly, a Swiss inventor who created experimental breech-loading rifles. After returning to Sömmerda in 1814, Dreyse started a company to make percussion caps. It was there that he invented the needle rifle.

Although some people believe the Dreyse rifle was the first bolt-action rifle, it is not similar to modern bolt-action rifles except for the way the bolt closes the breech. The Dreyse rifle used paper cartridges that held the bullet and a soft material called a sabot. A long metal needle pierced the paper to ignite the black powder inside. The rifle’s simple design made it easy to clean and maintain. For example, worn needles could be replaced quickly without taking apart the bolt. The Dreyse rifle was an important improvement for its time because it allowed soldiers to fire much faster than the muzzle-loading rifled muskets used by armies worldwide until the mid-1860s. It also let riflemen reload while staying hidden from enemy fire.

The Dreyse rifle was used by Prussian forces during the Second Schleswig War, Austro-Prussian War, and Franco-Prussian War. By this time, the rifle was becoming outdated and was outperformed by newer weapons like the French Mle 1866 Chassepot rifle. Other countries also developed bolt-action rifles. For example, Switzerland adopted the Vetterli rifle in 1869, which used a tube magazine and metallic cartridges. France later improved the Chassepot into the Mle 1874 Gras rifle. Germany had already switched to the Mauser Model 1871 rifle, which used an 11mm metallic cartridge. In Britain and the United States, soldiers moved from muzzle-loaders to breech-loading rifles that used metallic cartridges, but these systems did not use bolt action.

There is still some uncertainty about what Dreyse did after inventing the needle rifle. He appears to have stopped using the name "Johann" and was later known as Nikolaus von Dreyse.