The top lever of my Atkin 12 has a 'hitch' as it's pushed to open. I've also noticed that the gun closes tight with the lever right of center, but the lever continues to travel to left of center about half of the time.

Tonight, I noticed that the lever moved a little before the screw began to turn, so I tried tightening it. It's very tight, but the lever still turns slightly before the screw, and there is still a point of resistance as the lever crosses the midline.

Any ideas what's going on with this or how best to address it? (Other than, 'put it in a box and ship it off to a gunsmith'?)

[video:google]https://photos.app.goo.gl/i9fhNLtxAWvfGj1A8[/video]

Difficult to explain but here goes.

Your top lever is attached to the spindle by a broached square hole in the top lever and a square axle at the end of the spindle.

The axle or top lever is worn - the sloppy fit allowing the top lever to wobble. The screw only clamps the top lever down and prevents it from coming off the square axle - the axle or broached hole must be worn and the pin head is bottoming out on the axle, not providing downward force on the toplever - first off i would remove a tiny amount with fine files from the top of the spindle.

If this doesn't solve it the axle is well worn a small amount of weld ( very small ) could build up the square of the spindle axle to remove some of the play between the broached square hole and the axle.

The hitch could be a number of things, ive found this when the lumps have been knocked about with to make the lever sit left of center - its exceptionally common and often you cant tell its been done to make the gun "feel" tighter, what usually happens is the peened metal just "bites" into the underbolt, smoothing off the underbolt and bites with some fine stones may help.

That makes sense. I suppose the first step will be to strip the lever work and get a good look at everything. If relieving the top of the spindle doesn't work, it sounds like I'll be stuck sending it off since welding is not in my skill set yet. Either that or live with some play in the lever.

As for the hitch, I wonder if it is also related to the sloppy lever to spindle fit. I feel it even when the barrels are off, as in the video in the post. If I understand you correctly, the catch should only be present when the knocked up lumps are in place, if that's the problem.

Thanks for your help thinking through this. Any reason that you can see that I shouldnt use the gun in the meantime?

Try relieving the top of the spindle a little till the top lever pin bears better on the top lever.

failing that to remove play a temporary solution may be to remove the spindle, reinstall the top lever pin to protect the threads - upset some metal on the square axle which will tighten up the fit a very small amount of shim stock may achieve the same - we are probably talking of play of 1 or 2 thou its going to be tiny - but the top lever is exaggerating the play in the spindle so its going to feel worse than it really is.

The issue wouldn't worry me as long as i was confident that the under bolt is properly engaged. I would just inspect the mechanism for your own piece of mind to confirm ( as i suspect ) that what you are feeling is a manifestation of wear and tear and not because its going to fall to bits.

Its an interesting point for discussion and one i would like to see some experimentation on. As i understand it the forces actually trying to wrench the gun open are quite minimal- despite years of development of hidden bites and extra secure locking mechanisms I've not read any texts of guns wrenching themselves open - many westley richards guns were made solely with a dolls head extension and a hidden bite with no under bolt.

I Have one experience of bringing the a gun so quickly into my shoulder and pulling the trigger when pigeon shooting that i am almost certain that i fired before the under bolt had engaged - this was with an over under gun and on firing i felt a force trying to push my leading arm downwards that i would describe in weight similar to holding a heavy house brick out at arms length. It was an interesting experience - at the time it shook me a bit but i remember the top lever thudding across distinctly after i had pulled the trigger.

Excellent. I'm out of town at the moment, so I'll have to wait till I get home to give these things a try.

I don't think that the play is any indication of the gun not closing securely, because with the barrels off, I can see that the bolts are engagibg fully. The gun feels very tight when the barrels are on. I'm going to take it out on Monday and give it a go shooting pheasants at a preserve. I've brought along a back up gun, but I really want to shoot the Atkin.

I'll keep you posted if I am able to get it sorted out more properly. As you say, I'm inclined to take it apart if only to see what's going on inside.

Thanks again

jw

No problems shooting pheasants this week. Of course, in the action of shooting, I didn't pay too much attention to the small hitch in the lever work.

Here's the bird dog, the bird boy, and the bird gun. All did their work well.

All depends on the type of leaver work fitted .

All have different problems , some more easily rectified than others . It needs careful examination to find the problem and then the appropriate action taken to correct it .It may well be several small things/places of wear that add up and need to addressed individually .
Any suggestions I could make would be pure guess work and possibly set you on the wrong track .

Nice photo. Looks like you all had a great day.