5th Annual Double Gun Classic
- Thread starter VictoryXC
- Start date
2019 Best Gun
Congratulations Pinfire!
The gun is a Charles William Lancaster 12-gauge under-lever centre-fire gun, built to use the early Pottet/Boxer or Schneider/Daw centre-fire cartridges. The Lancaster order book simply records it as a '12-bore under-lever centre-fire', built in 1864 for Colonel Sir Thales Pease KCB. It would have sold for 65 guineas, as Lancaster was the highest-priced of the top London makers. The action is Lancaster’s 'slide-and-tilt' type, where rotating the underlever moves the barrels forward before they can swing on the hinge. The action face is not at the normal 90 degree angle to the flats, instead it is at an acute angle, making for a very strong closure. It was the first British game gun to have extractors, an important first step towards the later ejectors. Using nose-less hammers was a design flourish that Lancaster favoured, and the locks are non-rebounding. It has 2 1/2" chambers, and the damascus barrels, marked as having been made by Charles Lancaster himself, have been nitro-proofed for 1 1/8 oz loads at some point in the recent past. As it was built before the days of choke, it is cylinder bore.
As to the action design, there is much history there. Albert Henry Marie Renette of Paris obtained two French patents for exterior-primed (capping breech-loader) guns with slide-and-tilt actions in 1820, or seven years before Casimir Lefaucheux patented his hinge-action capping breech-loading gun in 1827, the first step towards his pinfire invention of 1834. In 1853 Renette's son in law and partner, Louis Julien Gastinne, obtained French patent No. 9058 for this slide-and-tilt breech action on a hammer gun, intended to use the new internally-primed center-fire cartridges. The prolific British patent agent Auguste Edouard Loradoux Bellford patented the design in Great Britain, patent No. 2778 of 1853. This is the patent that was later assigned to Charles Lancaster and used as the design used for his base-fire cartridge, and the story behind ‘Charles Lancaster’s Patent’ being marked on the gun – though the patent was never taken out in his name.
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Congratulations Pinfire!
The gun is a Charles William Lancaster 12-gauge under-lever centre-fire gun, built to use the early Pottet/Boxer or Schneider/Daw centre-fire cartridges. The Lancaster order book simply records it as a '12-bore under-lever centre-fire', built in 1864 for Colonel Sir Thales Pease KCB. It would have sold for 65 guineas, as Lancaster was the highest-priced of the top London makers. The action is Lancaster’s 'slide-and-tilt' type, where rotating the underlever moves the barrels forward before they can swing on the hinge. The action face is not at the normal 90 degree angle to the flats, instead it is at an acute angle, making for a very strong closure. It was the first British game gun to have extractors, an important first step towards the later ejectors. Using nose-less hammers was a design flourish that Lancaster favoured, and the locks are non-rebounding. It has 2 1/2" chambers, and the damascus barrels, marked as having been made by Charles Lancaster himself, have been nitro-proofed for 1 1/8 oz loads at some point in the recent past. As it was built before the days of choke, it is cylinder bore.
As to the action design, there is much history there. Albert Henry Marie Renette of Paris obtained two French patents for exterior-primed (capping breech-loader) guns with slide-and-tilt actions in 1820, or seven years before Casimir Lefaucheux patented his hinge-action capping breech-loading gun in 1827, the first step towards his pinfire invention of 1834. In 1853 Renette's son in law and partner, Louis Julien Gastinne, obtained French patent No. 9058 for this slide-and-tilt breech action on a hammer gun, intended to use the new internally-primed center-fire cartridges. The prolific British patent agent Auguste Edouard Loradoux Bellford patented the design in Great Britain, patent No. 2778 of 1853. This is the patent that was later assigned to Charles Lancaster and used as the design used for his base-fire cartridge, and the story behind ‘Charles Lancaster’s Patent’ being marked on the gun – though the patent was never taken out in his name.
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^^^ What a great old gun, congratulations to the owner.
I recently got ahold of the first volume of IM Crudgington's hardcover historical series 'The British Shotgun,' and some of the 19th century attempts to produce a workable action on DBBLs were really interesting, if not nearly as successful as this one. The chapter on "bizarre actions" was quite entertaining
I recently got ahold of the first volume of IM Crudgington's hardcover historical series 'The British Shotgun,' and some of the 19th century attempts to produce a workable action on DBBLs were really interesting, if not nearly as successful as this one. The chapter on "bizarre actions" was quite entertaining
I should also say a thank you to everyone who stopped by to have a look and handle the old post-war pinfires (the Crimean war, that is). The Annual Double Gun Classic is a great venue to have a ‘tactile museum display’ to experience the creativity and craftsmanship of double guns and appreciate these artifacts of social and cultural history.
For the briefest of moments in gunmaking evolution, the British pinfire was the finest and most sought-after gun in the shooting world, and it appeared at the end of the mostly hand-made, small-scale approach to gunmaking (even the largest, most prestigious makers made less than 90 pinfire guns a year). The myriad inventions of the pinfire decade paved the way to the modern double gun, which benefited from cherry-picking the best ideas, designs and building techniques. The craftsmen and their apprentices earned their experience on the pinfire, and went on to develop the modern breech-loader, for which there were so many fabulous examples on display on Saturday.
There were a number of stand-out examples. I have a bias towards British guns, so these are the ones I usually remember. However, there was a breathtaking Austrian triple-barrelled gun of remarkable engineering and with stunning relief engraving, and the French Idéal, a gun too clever to have been made by anyone else. Of the British examples, I noted a cased Henry Atkin sidelever of impeccable best-gun quality (my favourite gun of the day), two beautiful Purdeys for which adjectives are insufficient, a lovely sidelever from Thomas Horsley of York, a superb gun from Thomas Page-Wood of Bristol in original condition, another offering from Londoner Charles Lancaster, a spring-cocking assisted-opener known as the “wrist-breaker”, and a gun I would love to shoot, a single by James and William Tolley of Birmingham. There were other European and American examples of guns, far nicer than you would ever hope to see in a ‘gun show’, on which I know very little.
I am already looking forward to next year. I will, of course, bring along another selection of pinfires.
For the briefest of moments in gunmaking evolution, the British pinfire was the finest and most sought-after gun in the shooting world, and it appeared at the end of the mostly hand-made, small-scale approach to gunmaking (even the largest, most prestigious makers made less than 90 pinfire guns a year). The myriad inventions of the pinfire decade paved the way to the modern double gun, which benefited from cherry-picking the best ideas, designs and building techniques. The craftsmen and their apprentices earned their experience on the pinfire, and went on to develop the modern breech-loader, for which there were so many fabulous examples on display on Saturday.
There were a number of stand-out examples. I have a bias towards British guns, so these are the ones I usually remember. However, there was a breathtaking Austrian triple-barrelled gun of remarkable engineering and with stunning relief engraving, and the French Idéal, a gun too clever to have been made by anyone else. Of the British examples, I noted a cased Henry Atkin sidelever of impeccable best-gun quality (my favourite gun of the day), two beautiful Purdeys for which adjectives are insufficient, a lovely sidelever from Thomas Horsley of York, a superb gun from Thomas Page-Wood of Bristol in original condition, another offering from Londoner Charles Lancaster, a spring-cocking assisted-opener known as the “wrist-breaker”, and a gun I would love to shoot, a single by James and William Tolley of Birmingham. There were other European and American examples of guns, far nicer than you would ever hope to see in a ‘gun show’, on which I know very little.
I am already looking forward to next year. I will, of course, bring along another selection of pinfires.
ninepointer
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Central Ontario
Found last year's thread... 
