A. Lancaster muzzleloader

bgcameron

bgcameron

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Hello, this is my first post in this forum. I am looking for any info on this piece that was given to me. It is marked "A Lancaster 27 Audley street Grosvenor Sq. London" between the barrels. Unfortunately it has a broken hammer and trigger. It came with one hammer spring that appears to fit the good side. The other side has no spring. The gun is mostly rust free. Externally, there is a pea-sized spot of pitting on one of the barrels. It looks like the insides of the barrels could be pitted, but I havent cleaned them out.

Is it possible to fix this old gal up to firing condition or should I keep it as a wall hanger? What is one of these things worth in its current condition?

Thanks!


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A good cleaning and there a borelight camera inspection would be required to ensure no barrel explosions upon firing.

I think this may have been demascus steel which is not incredibly strong.

Blackpowder smoothbore loads only generate around 10,000 PSI I think so as long as there are no cracks or fractures on the inside or outside of the barrel and you use the correct shot and powder it should be good to go.

Track of the wolf has a great selection of hammers triggers and nipples for such a percussion gun.

A new hammer might be 15$ or so
 
It was a nice old gun in its day. Nice engraving and I see it has patinum blow out plugs. It is impossible to tell by pics if it is in safe shooting condition. It all depends on how badly pitted the bores are, how thick the barrel walls are and what it's like in the area of the breech plug. It needs to be checked out by a competent smith who knows old double barrels and has the equipment for checking it. This involves a bore camera, a bore measuring gauge and a wall thickness gauge. Visual appearance alone can not guarantee safety. Only low pressure black powder loads should be used in it if it is safe. Presently it's worth roughly in the area of $200.00.
 
bgcameron said:
Thanks for the info already guys! Breech plug is a new term to me, and I understand what the do now. Can they be removed from the barrels on this?
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Breech plugs should only be removed if absolutely necessary by someone qualified to do so. You can almost bet that the breech plugs will be a bugger to remove in a gun this old.
 
Google Lancaster, English gun maker for some history. Audley Street is in London England (Purdy was on Audley Street for many years) and Lancaster was a maker of good quality guns. Not really a practical plan to remove the breech plugs from an old shotgun but there are other ways to test soundness of the barrels if you want to shoot it. Regardless of test results, nothing will be guaranteed and you might blow up a nice gun anyway. Truly unfortunate to see the broken left hammer because that will cost mucho dinaro to match up with the right one. Replacing the trigger and missing spring will be less costly but still not cheap if you can't do the work yourself. Regardless, once cleaned up it will be a beautiful specimen of a fine English double barrelled shotgun of mid-late 1880's for a wall-hanger. Congratulations!
 
You need to remove the barrels from the stock to check out the proof marks. It may not be an English made gun at all. A lot of Belgian guns were made and marked with names that were close to those of English makers. I had a Cape Gun that was marked "Manton" but it sure wasn't made by the famous English gun Maker of that name.

The Lancaster who made really top quality English guns was Charles Lancaster of New Bond Street, London.
 
Greetings-A really nice piece in it's day. Track is one source for the hammer and it wont have the engraving but you should be able to get the right pattern using the right side. Triggers -ditto. Springs are no big deal again Track or Dixie will have blanks to match the one you have. Breech plugs are not that difficult to remove however before doing that suggest really good cleaning and a good look with a bore light. It may surprise you in condition. Shooting these with a light charge and maybe an ounce of shot should not hurt her and give you a good lot of fun.
 
That is a quality gun.
It may or may not be a shooter.
Removing breechplugs from a double without doing harm can be very difficult.
Do you have a small diameter flashlight? Clean the bores, then drop the flashlight down, aimed back up toward the muzzles. You will be able to see most of the bores.
The trigger is not a problem. Not really a problem to get a replacement hammer; getting one that will closely match the right hammer might be a challenge. Getting an identical replacement will be expensive.
The locks on this gun are high quality. The springs are going to be quite sophisticated. Hopefully, it might be possible to get an unfinished spring that can be fitted. But, it might be necessary to make one.
Be gentle if you work on the gun. This includes cleaning.
 
From the looks of the engraving, which would all have been done by hand back in those days, and the fitting of the parts into the wood this is obviously a higher quality arm by any standards.

I would not sweat not being able to remove the breech plugs. As noted it would be a huge job anyway since I'd guess that the barrels are screwed on and then the ribs are soldered into place. So it's pretty much a major job to take it apart. Instead I'd start with cleaning the bores using bore brushes and a cleaning rod that allows you to work them with a hand drill. Once cleaned out you can try that backwards flashlight or a white LED soldered to a long stiff wire as a bore inspection light. From that point there's options for cleaning up minor to moderate pitting that would not overly alter the gauge by removing too much metal.

The wood is obviously LOOOOONG overdue for a feeder coat of linseed oil as part of this overall cleaning and general maintenance work. It's obviously an oil finish. And an oil finish is never finished. The wood is supposed to be wiped down with a cleaner and be given a light application of the oil which is then buffed off right away about once a year or when the old finish does not repel water any longer. For wall hangers this could be extended to once every two or three years but regardless any old wood pieces with oil finishes are supposed to be maintained with regular wipe downs with the original style of oil at times.

It would not be out of the question at all for someone with some degree of metal working skill to make an identical hammer from steel stock. We're talking some use of power tools and then switch to hand files to match the shapes. At that point you could consider the cost for engraving, which is a far more skilled talent. But making a new hammer to match the old would only be a couple of hours worth of a smith's time. And then it would match. The making of a new mainspring is a far more challenging matter.
 
Another option ,if you don't mind them not being exact duplicates, would be to order a matched pair from the place below in the UK. They have hammers from various countries. You might find one that is pretty close and they are already engraved I believe. They may also have main springs. I have ordered from them in the past with no problems.
http://www.blackleyandson.com/acatalog/Hammers.html
 
I am almost overwhelmed with info here. Thankyou everyone!

I have already oiled the wood (since the pictures) and it has made a nice improvement.

gunsaholic, thanks for that link. A matched pait of hammers might be the best option for this.
 
BCRider said:
It would not be out of the question at all for someone with some degree of metal working skill to make an identical hammer from steel stock.
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You would be far better to either buy a replacement hammer from somewhere like Track and fit that or buy the hammer and use it as a donor to silver solder the missing portion on to the original base. A commercial gunsmith will be charging out at $25 to far more for their time and it takes a lot of time to make a hammer from scratch (I have made 2 or 3) and particularly to make a close match that looks good. If you go back through some of my recent posts, you will find one on spring making should you chose to make one. As Tiriaq mentioned, you can buy pre made springs which I think come pre tempered and only need fitting to your lock. Most of the fitting is locating the little pin on the upper leg of the spring and goes into a hole on the lock plate. A blank spring will have a tab or bar left in that area and you mark the location of the pin and grind and file away the rest of the metal. Buy 2 springs because that way you have a spare if you screw up the first time :>)

cheers mooncoon
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