doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Advice on a Deeley & Edge forend

The Deeley and Edge forend on my 1896 Clabrough sidelock ten bore won’t come off. The lever only lifts partway and doesn’t disengage from the hook, even if I put quite a bit of pressure on it and pry the forend from the barrel gently with half a safety pin. This gun has Harrison ejectors, and when I pull the triggers I can feel the left one firing but not the right; shells are extracted but not ejected from either chamber. The ejectors were working before the forend problem occurred.

Any advice on what to try next? Thanks very much.

I would get it to a GOOD gunsmith.
Otherwise I see it ending badly.

LGF;

I would begin to disassemble the action of the gun by first removing the butt stock, trigger guard, trigger plate and locks; and then begin to work your way forward in the action to try to remove or at least loosen the cocking levers so that you can move them backward to disengage them with the fore-end ejector mechanism. Hopefully your gun has external cocking lever pivot pins in the side of the action that you can use a screwdriver or a punch pin to remove them and maybe slide the cocking levers back through the rear of the action. The pivot pin for the cocking levers likely will be within the bar of the action under the locks. Hopefully you can move the toplever to get to the breech pin to remove it so to remove buttstock.



Kind regards;
Stephen Howell

Thanks very much for that, Stephen, I'll see how far I can get.

Not having the gun in hand, but reading what you said about feeling the movement when you pulled the triggers, leads me to think that the removal or loosening of the cocking levers may allow the fore-end to be removed. It is not unusual for mechanical malfunction to cause difficult and sometimes impossible removal of a fore-end. You will seldom see a London made best quality gun with an Deeley & Edge fore-end latch. The Anson was the most preferred and most simple. European gunmakers seem to have liked the Deeley & Edge system.

While we are discussing fore-ends, the type of fore-end attachment can be a method of dating the age of a hammergun, as up until about 1874 fore-ends were attached with a cross pin through the barrel loop to hold the fore-end in place. That is one of the things I recently saw wrong on a fake Purdey island lock gun that was touted to be a late 1860's made Purdey---It had a Deeley & Edge fore-end latch. The entire gun was not a fake, but the barrels and fore-end were.

Stephen Howell

Hi Stephen, deepest apologies for the very slow reply. I was away from home for a few weeks and only now had a chance to dismantle the Clabrough.

It does indeed have cocking lever pivot pins and when I removed those the levers can be moved about half an inch to the rear. Unfortunately, that did not have any effect on the fore-end lever, which still won't move far enough to release. Of course, one can't get to the screws holding the fore-end iron to the lever assembly. I have read about splitting the fore-end wood in a case like this but very much hope there is something less drastic to try next.

Lawrence;

I sent you a PM of the name of gunmaker to send your gun to.

Stephen Howell