A lot can be learned from a craft's nomenclature.
I would be very interested in learning some of the special terms used to describe doubleguns.

For example what do you call the rearmost pointy part of the forearm iron?

What do you call a trigger that has verticle lines carved into its front face.

What is the "water table"

What do you call the part of the barrel that attaches to the forearm?

Thank you
Lou

Start here................

http://www.hallowellco.com/abbrevia.htm

knuckle, serrated, action flats, forend lug

Thank you

Especially for the knuckle, which is not on the Hallowell list

Is that what that part is called! I always just called it the forend metal.

OK then
My Hollis has rebounding hammers, what does that mean
I looked in Bill Greeners book and couldn`t find it

Percussion gun hammers stayed down on the cap after firing. It kept the cap from flying back in the shooters face. These are non-rebounding locks.
When center fire guns arrived, gunmakers used existing locks. They quickly discovered that, in a center fire gun, non-rebounding locks had to be put on half-cock before closing the gun with live rounds. If you forget half-cock, you are closing the gun on "fixed" firing pins. It will go off. Not very safe.
Rebounding locks solved the problem. After firing the hammers bounce back a little and catch just enough to allow the firing pins some movement back into the action face.
I tend to stay away from non-rebounders. They are for the more advanced vintage shooter.

Joe

Thanks, That makes sense, Much appreciated

I think more definition is needed.

The receiver has a concave surface that engages the convex surface of the forearm iron. The forearm iron has a rearmost edge

What is the "knuckle"

What are the other parts called?

In my terminology which may not be strictly correct but serves its purpose, the entire joint of the forend iron's concave and action's convex surface is the 'knuckle'. Both parts form part of the knuckle so I would refer to them as the 'action knuckle' and the 'forend knuckle' meaning the metal in the immediate vicinity of that joint.
I am sure there is a more precise terminology but until someone publishes a definitive book on the subject....!
The London and Birmingham trade have different names for just about everything which is further complicated by the larger gunmaker's having their own peculiar terms.
All good clean fun!

Gun terminology is impressionistic, anthropomorphic, analogic. The entire inny-outy bit of the frame and the mirror image on the iron (as Toby says, Hello Toby) could be called a knuckle because? -----it looks like a knuckle joint in bone. Also looks like a "rule" joint in either a folding rule, or how bout the gate leg of a gate leg table (which is articulated by what could be termed a "piano hinge" in wood) and of course the keybd. cover there names its hinge. You can call it Al; you can call it Sal; when you call it the "detonating", we know from whence you came! Back awhile, someone asked about the little "brush deflector" in a trigger guard. I call it a "quirk" cause I can but S. D. Hughes calls it the "return" (a common enuf term in carpentry, architectural millwork). It's all good as Owleye used to say, but balls ain't fences!

Wait for the next round of "water table" exegesis, Lou. You'll luvit.

jack

I am looking for a term for the rearmost edge of the forearm iron on one of my guns because it scratches the receiver when the gun is fully open and I want to tell the smith to polish that location

I believe that's the bedight in some camps; the tissel in others. Only kidding. I got a word for knife-edged things that get bent and scratch other things and I'll bet you do too. Use that one.

jack

Now about that receiver . . .? A term not honoured in the breech, so to speak.

jack

Bushmaster...

Not that you are not getting good advice here... but David Tervallion and Mike McIntosh wrote a book called "Shotgun Technicana." While it can be difficult to find and sometimes a bit pricey, I think it is EXACTLY what you are looking for... explains in nearly endless detail the differences and function of almost all things double barrel shotguns as well as the history of how each improved on the previous, etc...

(the book can be found for around $50... I would not personally buy the first one that you find for $200)

Contrare to Joe (who is a very good friend), I have no issue with non-rebounding hammers. Usually, IME, they need to be returned to half cock to be opened as the firing pins will block passage of the extractors. Opening before recocking to half cock is a first class way to break a firing pin tip. The one hazzard I see is letting the hammers all the way down on loaded cartridges. Frankly, considering that hammerless guns actually have their hammers cocked all the time, I don't find any versions of hammer guns any less safe. There are a lot of ways to hurt yourself or someone else with any gun.

Lou, you didn't take the bait on the receiver gag, so I'll engage in a bit of pedantry and point out what I think is an important distinction between guns which have receivers and those which don't. Most all guns with receivers are self-loaders--machine guns, auto pistols--or self-loaders with an Armstrong assist--lever (with the exception of falling blocks) and turnbolt rifles, pumpguns. All have an antechamber, so to speak, place where the shell or cartridge is introduced right before it's chambered. The introduction of the shell is from your box or tubular magazine or your en bloc clip, belt, drum or whatever via the action of springs and levers and it is never touched in the actual process of chambering. I know there are special cases; at 16 yd trap, I drop a shell in the chamber of a model 12 or an autoloader and bypass both the receiver function as well as the rammer function of the bolt. Used or not, a receiver is a receiver. Break open guns are not operated like a gun with a receiver, don't have a receiver, and what they do have behind the barrels isn't called a receiver except by those of us who grew up with repeater terminology or don't care one way or the other. Frame or action bar are the accepted terms for the chunk of steel behind the barrels of a break action gun.

jack

For Joe in Charlotte, you don't happen to have one of those nasty old Fox shotguns with non rebounding hammers do you. I will be happy to take any such 20 or 16 ga off your hands for your safety.

Jerry,

I am not the guy for domestic boxlocks. I only own one American double, a field grade LC Smith that my wife's grandfather bought in the 20s.
The rest of my stuff is English at the moment. I do have some non-rebounders, a couple of 14 gauge doubles and some early Boswells.

Joe