doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lancaster 20 bore gem.

What a cool shotgun. Four barrels, 20 gauge Charles Lancaster shotgun. Only way to make it cooler would be to make it a side lever. Holt's lot number 1556. Sadly I wont be bidding on it at 12-16,000 pounds. I wish I was.
https://www.holtsauctioneers.com/as...324+++1556+&refno=213899&image=8

I feel that Lancaster is a severely undervalued maker, he had his own style, was extremely innovative and the quality is just top-notch. The four barrel guns are amazing. It must have been interesting getting the patterns to regulate.

Doesn't say exactly but I wonder if, after firing two barrels with the front trigger, the rear one must be pulled to re-cock the action for the other two?

Most amazing to me is the weight, 7/7, with 28" barrels.

I think the rotary system fired the barrels in order, needing to be cocked by the rear trigger in between shots. Like a double action pistol with the rear trigger doing the cocking and the front firing the gun. Sounds complicated but this example is 140 years old and still works. With the right geometry the cocking should be a reasonable effort. Front trigger pull 3.5, rear trigger 5-6 pounds type difference. The other multiple barreled (4) Lancaster I recall was choke all four barrels choked modified so order of firing is not a big consideration. On a driven shoot I expect this gun would be a lot of fun to use. As long as cocking was not that difficult. But I’ll never know.

Was that intended to be used/hunted or was it a display of design and manufacturing capability? Built just because...why not, it's cool and we can.

Impressive. I wouldn't want to have to explain it to a game warden.

I think the other one I saw, more than ten years ago, had a ring trigger. I thought it was a double action type trigger like on many pistols. Pulling it cocked it and then pulling it further tripped it to strike the primer. As to game wardens it would be a simple thing to block one chamber off to be legal. If my good friend Stan would buy this for his farm use, I’m sure I’d get plenty of opportunities to use this double-double and understand its operation more clearly. At 7 pounds, 7 ounces I expect it swings well with most of the weight between the hands.

Probably intended for driven bird shooting, as KyJon speculates. A hunter could fire four shots before needing to reload. It could be the origin of the term" Game Hog". Naturally, it would cost more due to the greater difficulty in building, and the more complicated firing mechanism. At 7 lbs. 7 oz., I'd guess the barrel and chamber wall thicknesses of the 4 barrels might cause some here to swoon. But surely it passed proof.

This is the first four barreled English shotgun I've seen, but four barreled guns were more common in Germany, Austria, and other parts of Europe. The 4 barrel guns from Germany were called Vierlings. 3 barrel guns are Drillings, and they are fairly common. 5 barrel guns are called funflings. They were built in all manner of barrel configurations. Some were all shotgun barrels, but most are some combination of shotgun and rifle barrels. A well heeled hunter could have a single gun that had shotgun barrels for birds, and also had a rimfire barrel for small game, and one or more centerfire barrels for deer, stags, wild boars, and other larger game. He could essentially shoot any game that might run or fly by, all with one gun.

now we know why there are pump gons...

Stan loads pretty hot stuff in his 20s when he shoots crows.

Best,
Ted