There are no self opening guns, what a disaster that would be. People may call them self opening. Some people may even call a gun "old betsy". Whatever. There are various assisted opening guns, some more assisted that others. Some can be easily modified to be less or more assisted, like the Smith action used a lot on Rosson or Churchill guns. The down side is of course harder closing but with a little practice it becomes hardly noticeable and if you have your man close it for you there's no problem at all.
