Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse (November 20, 1787 – December 9, 1867) was a German firearms inventor and manufacturer. He is most famous for submitting the "Dreyse needle gun" in 1836 to the Prussian army, which was adopted for service in December 1840 as the Leichte Perscussions-Gewehr M 1841—a name deliberately chosen to mislead about the rifle's mechanism— later renamed Zündnadelgewehr M 1841 in 1855. There remains some ambiguity about the activities of von Dreyse after he created the needle-gun, as he seems to have dropped the "Johann" part of his name and was known as Nikolaus von Dreyse.