doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Help needed with William Evans forend

Well, I'll cut to the chase This problem started at around 1:00 this morning and becasue of a damned thick skull lasted until 2:30, at which time I went to bed, problem unresolved.

Took my recently acquired William Evans out of its case post midnight and put it together for the first time.
I'd been cleaning and fooling with other guns and instead of just going upstairs caught sight of that old leather and wood case and just had to get a look first.

The rest is a blur. I took the gorgeous 30" damascus barrels out of the case and released the attached forend, assembled the gun.... You know the rest. Looked great, fit me wonderfully, ejectors shot the snap caps like rockets....Just great. OK, take it down and get to bed.

Couldn't get the forend back on the barrels. Wha? NEVER ran into this problem with any other double in the past 18 + years.
The ONLY way I could is if I pushed the Ejector hammers down (laterally) which then pushed the exracters out. THEN the forend snapped into place perfectly. But the extractors were frozen in the "out" position.

Although I thought I'd taken the gun down uncocked, I looked at the frame and saw that I hadn't. Somehow after firing the triggers I somehow must have cocked the gun when taking it down. Again, never experienced before. I put the wood to the pins and "fired". There was the proof.

So now I'm wondering if the ejector hammers are in the cocked position(?) They are acting as one; that isthe tgwo hammers are one single unit. So, I thought, get the barrels back on the frame, get the forend back on tghe barrels and....Flawed thinking past at 2:30 in the morning, and of course in the attempt everything went to hell, the upshot being there's now a small but fairly deep gash in the wood which resembles in a way the Egyptian symbol for Horus.

So that's par for the course. Can't leave it alone until something else gets messed a bit. The good result is that now I won't be timid about hunting in the bushes and brambles come October

That is, if I can get the damned thing put together!

It's got to be a simple problem. I haven't picked it up again since I woke up at 7:30 and I'm waiting for the cafeine to do it's thing, but more importantly, hoping that one of you guys out there can tell me what went wrong and tell me HOW to right it. Many Thanks and deep gratitude in advance to any and all who can - Marc

Uh O

The ejector mechanism cocks ON CLOSING. When you opened the gun to eject the snap caps you needed to close the gun to cock the ejectors, then take the gun down. Hang the barrels on the hinge, replace the forend with the gun open. It should go on if care is taken. Then close the gun to cock the ejectors and hopefully all is well.

Many Thanks, Hammer - It makews sense and it's how I take down all my doubles. Why I didn't do it last night can only be explained by a mix of fatigue and inattention. I was a foolish guy in a hurry. Wish me luck

It's not gonna work. Aside from being an insane juggling act, the forend just won't snap into place wthout the extractors pulled forwqard of the chambers, and there goes the barrels hanging solid on the frame. Gra vity takes over.

Man I can't believe it. At least it happened to the most expensive gun I've got, right? F... me.

I'll try again when the air conditioning has cooled down the house.

Just in case.....Does anyone have Mike Orlen's most recent number? He is, or at least was, a 25 minute drive away. I bought my first Brittany from him years ago.

I don't know much about English guns, but do these have the Southgate type ejectors? If so, take the for-end and place the ejector kickers on the end of a wooden workbench so that the shoe end is off the bench, push down until the ejector kicker falls into the notch on the sear.
If the hammers are still down, replace for-end on gun close and they should be re-cocked also.
I have a Spanish gun with the Southgate style ejectors and taking the wood from the for-end you can see how it works. Also like Hammergun stated these guns recock the ejector and hammers upn closing, which makes them hard to close.

Sorry you couldn't get the forend on. As JDW says, the next step is to manually cock the ejector hammer by putting pressure on the hammers themselves. It's not hard, but it is easy to slip and damage the wood. If you're not comfortable doing it yourself, take it to someone who knows how.

Thanks very much....I'll see if there's a possibility of doing this, but if I can't do it I won't. I could take the loss of money a lot easier than messing up and damaging the forend. I'll check it out and again, many thanks. for the help.

There are 2 seperate ejector kickers, of course, seperated by a thin gap. Shouldn't each be cocked seperate from the other? I'm going to try laying the forend flat with the kickers up and try striking or putting pressure on each with something that won't damage anything. What's the consensus on this?

If you are worried about the wood (and I would be on that gun), take the wood from the metal. and re-cock them. Put a soft piece of pine on a table, let the shoe end hand over the table, the ejector "kickers" are on the pine, push down hard until you hear them click into the notches,. Doing one at a time will be hard.
They can be cocked at the same time, just like if you had fired both barrels.

I don't know how strong your ejector springs are, but I imagine the ones on my Spanish gun are a copy of yours, throw an aluminim AZoom quite a distance, and now only use the plastic ones in it. Don't stand behind me when I open it. I'm used to catching my empties when I open my other guns, can't do it with this gun.

Thanks, JDW - Yes, I've made up my mind that one at a time is next to impossibble, so I'm going to try both.

I'm more calmed down than last night, or rather , this morning at 2:30. Not only couldn't I get it right, but my tired efforts resulted in a small gash smack on the stock.

Things are more in perspective now. If I can do it, and I'm going to really try, then great! If I have to hand it over to someone else with experience in these matters, so be it.

One way or the other it will be fixed, and certainly before bird season in October! Actually I'll need it sooner than that to pattern it. See, I definitely plan on using this sweet thing when I chase birds with my dog. It's bound to pick up a lot more scratches and things I'd rather not have but - it's the nature of the beast. After all, we choose to use fine doubles, and just because this is such a superb shotgun in unbelieveably good original condition is all the more reason to take it into the woods and use it!

But I'm rambling. I know I still have to fix the damn ejector kickers first! I am retiring to my bed at a decent hour tonight. Maybe I'll check out the .......NO WAY! Good night JD

There is an relatively easy solution, and it generally works with most double guns. Lock it away in you Double Gun Memory and you may get someone in distress to buy a drink... Take the barrels off the action(not called a receiver), push the extractors all the way out, take the forend and put it in place on the barrels and latch it. Now take a piece of wood, or even the brass of a shell and one at a time push the extractors back into their recess in the barrels. This should recock the ejector tumblers. You should be able to take the forend off and re-assemble the gun. This can happen on a lot of guns, and some even let the ejector tumblers fire with the barrels off the gun.

Dennis - This sounds almost too good to be true. I've been trying to push each tumbler back with the forend on a towel, tumbler side up and trying to force each one back. I can see this way working, but i think my problem is a combination of not having the right "dowel" (anything made of wood so as not to REALLY muck things up) and an inate reluctance to use all the force I can. The method you mention sounds like it definitely could work, but at the same time it seems like....something will bust! But the mechanical advantage you'de have pushing on the extractor would be much more than the way I'm going at it. Well, it's after midnight now, and I learned the hard way not to start fooling with things when you should be sleeping. I just might try this tomorrow. It DOES seem like an easier fix. Oh, rather than wood or brass, couldn't yo just use pressure from your thumb? Seems like there'd be more control somehow.