doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Tobin

In order for a gun to be a sidelock, the fire control workings have to be mounted on the side plate itself, like so:



The Tobin is really neither, boxlock or sidelock. The Lefevers really aren�t either. I owned a Lefever for about 48 hours, and a friend wanted it way worse than I did.

I�m pretty sure I�m not interested in ever having a Lefever restocked, at my expense. I guess that isn�t an advantage of the design.

The Tobin isn�t a weak gun when used with the loads that were in common use at the time the patent was issued. It simply falls short with modern ammunition.
If one keeps that in mind, a Tobin can be a satisfactory shotgun. In my case, a Nitro Special filled the spot that the Tobin held, and I don�t think too hard about what I shoot out of the Nitro.

Best,
Ted

Now that we have the funny lock work out of the way, what about the funny barrel work ?
Those steps in the forcing cone area, what is that ?

O.M

The Tobin I had with the sharp cones was marked �Tournament�. It is unclear at this time who it was produced for. It did not say Tobin on it anywhere. The Tournament marked guns are fairly common. None of my Tobin 12s were so equipped.
Speculation is the sharp forcing cones were designed to work with roll crimped ammunition, of a specific length.
I have no evidence of this theory, or, any other. They were simply there. There have been other guns from the same era that have similar forcing cones, but, there is no documentation at this time as to why.

Best,
Ted

W W Greener discussed the sharp forcing cones in his works. I do not know where it first occurred but he included it in his "The gun & its Development", 1910 edition. It was according to him an attempt to do away with the possibility of gas leakage while the load passed through the cone. He Strongly Condemned the practice, recommending the ordinary cone. A word of caution if you have a gun so chambered; "DO NOT" fire it with a shell longer than the chamber. At this point in time, all paper shells were closed with the roll crimp. One should Never fire a shell in which the end of the fired shell laps into the bore itself.

My ca 1913 LAC catalog lists loads in 12 gauge of up to 3� drams, or equivalent, of powder behind 1� oz of shot. Those aren't weak even by modern standards. This includes a measured amount of Black or Bulk Smokeless & up to 28 grains of Ballistite or Infallible (same composition as Unique only slightly thinner flakes, thus a bit faster). You will not find a load today listing as much as 28 grains of Unique pushing 1� oz of shot.

From Drew's pictures, it appears that perhaps Tobin copied the Lefever design, except he changed the bolting. Can't really tell from the pictures how closely he followed Alexander Brown's original rotary bolt design. Brown's intent was that his bolt should serve two purposes, 1st hold the barrels down & 2nd hold the standing breech up to the barrel breech. It can accomplish both purposes only with precise fitting & usually the secondary function suffers.

Lefever accomplished the two purposes by using a square-shouldered "Doll's Head" & then a wedge bolt working in the rear of the Doll's Head. All of the ones I have had seem to have been extremely well fitted & served both functions well.

I would have no fear of "Action Strength" in my Lefevers even with modern short Magnums, but keep my loads light in respect to barrel strength & 100+-year-old wood.

As far as the �sharp� forcing cones, I think Ted is referring to the length of the taper between the end of chamber and start of full barrel inside diameter.

Some shotguns are quite abrupt (short), and some quite gently sloping (longer).

CZ
Yes, that is how I took it & also what I was speaking of. Present day SAAMI specs call for a 5� max angle from the horizontal axis for the cone. For nominal chamber & bore dimensions, this would give a length of .400". If anyone has a gun with cones shorter than this, personally I would Highly Recommend they do not fire any shell with a fired length longer than the chamber.

Stan Baker told me he had seen them, but, not many of them. His practice was to relieve them.
He didn�t know why they were like that. I thought maybe it was a 16 gauge thing, but, a few guys have seen them on 12s, as well.

Best,
Ted

Well said Miller.

I just shoot the ammunition my Tobins are spec�d for, and leave it at that.
Pretty much B&P comp1�s, or RST�s for game loads.

�Simplex� was the term Tobin used.

My Tobins were the oldest guns I have ever used/owned. To be fair, they had all been used, some very hard, by the time they got to me. It was a pleasure to carry the 16, which, would have been around 100 years old, at the time. A lot of guys like putting that history back to work, in the fall. Nothing at all wrong with that. But, I get it that most guys aren�t interested in going down that rabbit hole. Most double guns are a rabbit hole, and the really old, and primitive designs, are a deeper rabbit hole.

Best,
Ted

The Tobin bolting is not at all a rotary bolt a la A.T. Brown. It is a bolt that rotates horizontally. See Part # 16 --