doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com This would've cost like $120,000 in todays dollars

I have posted on Pauly guns before. These are essentially the earliest breech loading cartridge firearms. In 1827, after working as an apprentice, Lefaucheux purchased the Pauly business and the rights to the open patents.

By that time Henri Roux and then Eugene Picherau had already adapted the Pauly system to work with percussion. Roux’s changes reworked the internal mechanism to accept cartridges incorporating a percussion cap. Picherau then developed the system further to use external percussion ignition while still permitting breech loading. After Lefaucheux took over he filed one more addendum to the patent in 1828. That addition included a mechanism and clear instructions for converting earlier Pauly type guns into muzzleloaders by moving the percussion nipple onto the barrel and removing the rosette and the cartridge dependence.

The gun I recently acquired appears to follow that Lefaucheux modification. It looks to be an earlier Picherau example that was later altered to permanently close the bascule and have percussion nipples fitted to the barrels, effectively making it a muzzleloader.

Among the other very unique and historic aspects of the gun, just love the stock inlays!
Thank you for sharing.

Aaron, thanks for the Pauly info. That craftsmanship would be soooo hard to duplicate today. He was a genius in his time, fully 4 decades ahead of some others in Europe.

Wow it even has sling swivels! Does the button on the bottom of the butt plate open it up for storage?

Lovely gun Aaron, and iinteresting to see. The inlay work is amazing.

What is the purpose of the metal loop/ mechanism at the nose of the comb?

It does!

That is the lever to open it for the breech-loading mechanism. Here is a picture of another one open

even so, let us be grateful for Joe Manton...

Not sure I follow, however there is a possibility that Manton comes into this picture. I can't find anything else about this but there is a possibility that Manton bought Pauly's English patent for the compressed air version of his gun. Pauly was sued by Egg for allegedly squandering his money when working on their main project, his dolphin-shaped dirigible. And he needed to raise some money. And Pauly did take out an ad in Birmingham to sell one of his other patents for a weighing machine.

https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-3103319

This is one of those English Pauly pistols, but is marked "Joseph Manton Patent Hanover Square London"