doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Help with Value of old British Hammer Gun (Pic's)

William Jackman Jeffrey was at 13 King Street, St. James, London by 1891. He is more widely known for his double rifles but made all manner of sporting guns. The name survived until 1957 when it was purchased by Westley Richards (Agency) Co., LTD, which in turn was merged with Holland and Holland in 1959 and moved to 13 Bruton Street. You have a beautiful example and should be worth in the $1,500 - $1,800 range in my humble opinion.

Best Regards, George

The origional proof marks on the barrel flats confirm that the gun is black powder proof and was made after 1887. The diamond stamp inside of which is the symbol, 12/C,[also introduced in 1888],means that at the time of the origional proof test, the barrels had 2 1/2 chambers.The engraved,"2 3/4 chambers",on the barrels suggests that the chambers have been lengthened. There is however, no government proof mark to indicate that the gun was ever submitted for reproof.This being the case the gun is technically out of proof.

"We recommmend steel barrels as they are far more durable and about twice as strong as damascus!"

Perhaps Mr. Jeffrey missed the Birmingham Proof House Trial as published in The Field March 7, 1891 Vol 77:325
http://books.google.com/books?id=inQCAAA...d=0#PPA9-IA6,M1


http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfg2hmx7_242cxhh9hfq

Just to clarify or perhaps complicate the discussion, my understanding has been that the 12/C proof mark includes chamber lengths up to and including 2 3/4" and the 12/LC (long chamber)
is reserved for 3" and over. Re the chamber length being marked,
I have a W.J.Jeffrey 10 HG that predates this one by about 3 or 4 years and is engraved in the same area with " 3 1/4 10 bore
Perfect Case " This gun has 34" barrels,weighs 11 1/2 lbs, and appears to be built on an 8 ga. frame.As Mr.Jeffrey made quite a few pigeon and wildfowl guns I assume he had a policy of marking chamber length on some of his guns, especially if they were not standard. Terry

Awful lot of guys shooting them old damascus guns these days and we sure don't heard about a "disasterous failure" with those anymore than we hear about them in fluid steel guns. If people were blowing up damascus guns left and right and taking fingers and hands along with them it would be all over this message board.

What most guys just don't understand is that they never stopped shooting them in the UK and Europe. There never was that industry created prejudice against them at any time. To me that's really all I need to know.


Destry

Hi Destry, My Jeffery 10 went through 3 1/2" magnum proofing last summer without a whimper.Original overbored barrels and 50 thou
barrel walls. The gun was tight on face when obtained and did not require any work other than a light polish of the bores before re-proof.Another dangerous damascus gun handles 1200 Bar proofing.
It is not my intent to shoot magnum factory loads in it,as I do most of my own reloading, but it is comforting to know that it could. 35+ years of shooting damascus with nitro for black, and all fingers intact.
Terry

I concur: 12/C may be 2 1/2" or 2 3/4"; 12/LC is for chambers no less than 3".
RG

There is quite a bit of information available on William Jackman Jeffery. He was at the address mentioned on your gun somewhere between 1890 and 1910. He had experience in the gun trade having worked for some noted London Gunmakers. He started his own business but never actually made a gun at all. He sourced all his stuff from the trade and turned it out as to customer requirements. I am fairly confident that the actual Maker of your gun would have been The Midland Gun Co. in Birmingham. I have one almost identical and from the same era but with damascus barrels. Yours, as was mine, was proofed for black powder. I have since had mine proofed for nitro. The 2 3/4" information is probably just engraved on the forend fastener on the barrel. I would suspect that the gun is made as a sort of general purpose pigeon/heavy game gun. I use mine quite a bit as a duck shooting gun.

I recently managed to source a correct case for the gun but it is a bit tatty.

All of the guns I have seen that bear the Jeffery name have been decent well made guns but of a wide variation in grade. My other Jeffery is a nice little 16 bore boxlock ejector. He is perhaps more famous for big game rifles and big game rounds that he was instrumental in developing such as the .600 Nitro Express and the .404 and .333 Jeffery.

I would suggest having it checked out to ascertain that it is still in proof and then go shoot it; but with black powder ammunition.

I would have queried Roy's valuation until yesterday when I went to the C.L.A. Game Fair at Belvoir Castle in England and saw some of the asking prices for various hammer guns.

The business of W.J.Jeffrey was bought out by Holland & Holland. I don't know how comlete their records are but you may be in luck. Lagopus.....

Want to see something check out some of the prices on Gunbroker...they remind me of trot'line fishing.

The Jeffery looks to be a nice low grade gun...for me it would be worth more with "safer" Damascus barrels.....(the 1900 manufacture date was during the infancy of fluid steel development).

Here's a similar Army Navy hammer gun with Damascus barrels.

Don't be frightened by the $2000 asking price....after hanging as bait for a long time it's been reduced to $1099 on the main page.

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/conten...erarchyId=11655

I do not believe the 2 3/4" Case would have been put there by the proof house. They simply marked the 12/C or 12/LC as stated with 3" being the dividing point. They would have measured the actual chamber length & proofed accordingly. I highly suspect the 2 3/4" Case was put there by Jeffery.