doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com What causes a double gun to go off face?

I thought Mac was a writer not a gun maker?

Gunman,

Since I am the only Keith who posted in this thread, I'd like to point out that I advocated closing a gun "normally", i.e., neither slamming it or babying it. This normal closure is what I said would not approach the dynamic forces of firing, and thus allowing the bolting spring to completely and consistantly lock it will neither leave it slightly loose nor spring or gall anything. I will not slam. I will not baby. I will not weld a nut to my toplever and use a torque wrench set at 22 inch pounds. In short, I won't get anal about closing my guns. I'll close them normally and expect they will still be on face when my grandkids are my age.

Spring-loading to shoot the bolt and the existence of lever checks/trips surely indicates the maker's intension of self-locking. Has to be a "want of a nail" scenario. You don't lube and don't clean and relube and the bearing surfaces of hinge and pin and lock engagement wear. Add powder residue and good old natural abrasive (mineral sand and dust about hardness 7 on Moh's Scale)and I'd bet there's no difference in wear when easing the bolt home or letting it go by itself. So now there's a bit of slop or takeup and you get Rocket's battery effect on firing (like a yard engine backing onto a string of freight cars and every coupling slamming against the next).

I "shot" a sizable bunch of teenagers and pre-teens at our club's Youth Day trap station yesterday with youth-stocked 20 gauge autoloaders. The psychological anticipation combined with bad form and ill fit does make for little "ouches" for some of the bantamwgts, but not so much for those (of whatever size) who can somehow focus on placing (or having placed) the butt correctly and tightly in the shoulder pocket. If you add a rugrat to the recoil train, you should make sure they're not off the face of the buttplate!

jack

As usual, Don answered the gentlemans question in the fewest possible words and as usual, hit the nail right on the head in more ways than one.

When I first got into doubleguns....I was instructed to hold the lever over and close the gun...to treat the guns mechanism like you would when closing the "lid" on a fine pocket watch. And so I did, for awhile. Then after I got into the doublegun thing a bit more I went the route of closing the gun gently and letting the springs do the work of locking the gun. I cringe everytime I see someone afield or on the range slamming their guns shut, if they are interested..I will offer advice on correcting that nasty habit. The only double gun that I own where closing the gun gently isnt in its vocabulary is a Lancaster Model A, if you want to close it, there's no doing it gently...I dont slam it shut as hard as I can.. but I do close it with just a bit more gusto than normal though.

Dustin

A Darne is a gun that is cycled from open to closed, "briskly". I don't think there is much opportunity for wear in the case of this single design due to opening or closing.
If you ever witnessed how the guys at the factory handle them, you'd likely blanch. They are not gentle with them at all. After several lifetimes of use, they acquire a silky smoothness that is wonderful and easy to use.
I hate seeing people beat a barn hinge gun to death. I encourage them to try to do that with a Darne. They only get better.

Best,
Ted

As far as safety is concerned, I would submit that the safest way to close a loaded double is with the barrels pointed up. Unfortunately, it's also close to impossible to do, because the shells will fall out. But if you've ever had a double go off when you close it--and I've had that experience a few times--then stop to think what might have happened if your dog had been where the barrels were pointed when it happened. But, due to gravity, we're pretty much stuck with closing doubles with the barrels angled at least slightly down.

HI Keith .Nothing implied I mearly made the point that"slamming" a gun shut as slamming any thing else is not good practice and will increase wear rates tremendesly .Thats all.

Never saw one 'go off on closing'...what was the reason ?

a broken sear or sear spring will cause that condition....very scary too.

I had one old J Stevens 325 double fire upon closing once. I never figured out the cause for sure & could never get it to do it again. I really treated it pretty rough (Unloaded) to see if I could get a repeat & it never dropped the hammers again. It was timed to the point you could load it without it cocking, so all I ever came up with was that the sear didn't fully engage, but just caught enough to hold till it closed. The gun wasn't slammed shut either, just closed normally. After that I always made certain I opened it far enough to be certain of full sear engagement & it never occured again.