doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The pinfire game gun

In studying the picture of the Newham conversion it is clear the the pin in the cartridge in this single shot has to be canted about 20 degrees from the usual vertical.

I wonder if the face of the hammer was slanted to give an angled blow?

Perhaps this was the source of the stresses that caused the front of the lock plate to fracture?

Stephen Nash sent me a short e-mail; He was down with Lyme disease for months and is now in the hospital with Pancreatitis and can't post. Bummer; sent well wishes. He's obtained a really beautiful Blanch pin-fire converted to C-F.

I told him I've received a mystery letter from New Zealand yesterday with no return address. It contained a print out from a NZ web site dated 2007 (details no longer on-line) with descriptions and photos of a Reilly pin-fire SN 12776 (1863). I've corresponded with 3 NZ members of DGS BBS over the last 8 years but the latest one David Brailsford denies sending it to me. Right now it is one of those "rapture moments," a letter from beyond the pale, from an alternative space-time dimension. . .haven't a clue. Here are the details for the record: (The "Germanic" type trigger guard has been seen occasionally on Reilly's).

I'm very sorry to hear of Stephen's illness, and wish him a speedy and full recovery.

Thanks for sharing the information on the fine Reilly pinfire above.

The page for the Reilly is still available at: https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplace/sports/hunting-shooting/shotguns/other/listing/120053521
Unfortunately, the images that formerly accompanied the auction appear to have been unpublished or removed from Gun City's server. It seems likely they still have them archived, however.
Old web pages can sometimes be found and accessed using the "Wayback Machine" (https://web.archive.org/) - but not in this case.

Hi Gene, I sent you that, posted on the 23rd from here in UK. I also enclosed a copy of an 19th Century Shooting Times. Dave

Ah, thanks David. I recognized the portrait of King Charles III. I thought it might have come from NZ because of the website. Thanks for the 1889 "Shooting Times" as well. Gene

Hi Gene, You are welcome. I have sent you an email, something else I found in my collection of stuff! Dave

Ah, I am still in the land of the living, though I'm not sure what else can happen to me this year.

So much to catch up with. Firstly I have to thank JulesW for posting his beautiful William Gasquoine gun. I sadly passed on acquiring a Gasquoine & Dyson pin-fire some 30 years ago, and have not seen one since (a lesson all collectors eventually learn). While the gun is standard in form for one of the later 1860s, the engraving is particularly pleasing. Manchester was certainly a busy centre for gunmaking.

Thanks also to Parabola for posting about the Newnham single, with the Moore lock. Here is a similar Moore lock, on a Woodward conversion of a Moore tube-lock:


I have some lovely new acquisitions to describe in this thread, but I shall await a good day to take some pictures. But for now I'll return to the subject of conversions, because I came across one that surprised me in its complexity, and I was lucky enough to obtain it.

Fashion is a powerful force. The desire for the latest styles and trends has always been a powerful driver in the gunmaking world, and the rich and titled were the influencers of their day. In the late 1860s and early 1870s, the pin-fire game gun, once the most modern sporting gun in the world, was quickly falling out of fashion, replaced by the central-fire gun. Just as the pin-fire gun had developed a styling all its own, with its tall, long-nosed hammers, central-fire guns were appearing with lower-profiled hammers, differently-shaped fences, and firing pin assemblies surrounded by attractive sculpted ‘splash-guards,’ a visual throwback to percussion guns. To the owner of a pin-fire gun wishing to keep up with changing fashion, there were two options. First was to purchase a new central-fire gun. Only the wealthiest could afford to do so, while their pin-fire gun was still perfectly serviceable. The other option was to have their gun converted to the central-fire system, either by the original maker, or by one of the many competent smiths who specialised in such work. At its most simplest, such a conversion would involve drilling and tapping the fences to accept central-fire strikers, changing the hammers, trimming the breeches to accept rimmed cartridges, and adding some form of extractor mechanism. The pin holes at the breeches could be filled, if a dual-fire gun was not the objective. These kinds of conversions were widely performed and the results range from the obvious, to the scarcely noticeable if done well. Such second-life guns are often found in a well-worn state, showing they remained in the shooting field until replaced with a new gun.

Here is a Theophilus Murcott of London pin-fire, converted to central-fire quite simply, with a grooved action bar to allow an extractor by William Spinks Riley of Birmingham, of a patent dated 1866.


Early pin-fire guns had thin fences, and a conversion could involve brazing an extra layer of steel at the face to strengthen the gun, as with this conversion of a Thomas Horsley pin-fire. The extra metal has been engraved to hide the addition.


Though renewed in a practical sense, these guns still displayed their original pin-fire characteristics, and did not duplicate the aesthetics of the new central-fire guns appearing in the field. Could such a thing be done? The answer is yes, as shown by a 12-bore by the London maker John Blanch & Son (though more correctly by the son, William Blanch). I’m presuming the conversion was done by Blanch’s firm, because of the work involved. In any case, the client did not want a simple conversion, but rather a complete make-over, to have it look like the best central-fire guns of the day. This make-over was more akin to asking for plastic surgery, than a simple update.

To have an idea of the starting point, here is a similar Blanch pin-fire, not many serial numbers apart, in its original state and with the house-style floral spray engraving on the fences. Pretty, but the wrong shape for central-fire.


And here is the converted Blanch. The red arrow shows where the pin holes were filled with inlet steel. Look at the green arrows, and you start to see other joints, uncovered by 160 years of wear, where steel was added in slices. The central part of the top strap was retained, with new steel forming where the forward part of the firing pin is fitted, and a second portion added, forming the rear of the firing pin assembly and the splash guard.


Here are two more views, showing the joints (one side is more visible than the other):



The end result is quite pleasing:



When the work was done, the joints would have been near invisible. The action would have been annealed, the new metal brazed on, strikers drilled, the action shaped with chisels and files, new hammers filed, the whole sent to the engraver to hide all the work, the action re-hardened, and the barrels re-browned. The gun then reassembled, perhaps with a fresh coat of hand-rubbed finish on the stock, and put back in the hands of the client at a lower cost than that of a new gun.

It is quite remarkable what these Victorian craftsmen were capable of, further confirming the adage that anything is possible in British gunmaking.

On the subject of 1860's construction differences between pin-fires and Central-Fire guns, this observation from the Reilly line might be apt here. The working assumption was that certain gun types indicated pin-fire altered to C-F - narrow fences, etc. But not so:

Chapter VIII. 1860 – 1867: 58. 1863-1873: Pin-Fire vs Center Fire
The chapter has been edited to include observations on two styles of center-break, Central Fire rifles and shotguns being offered in the 1865-1869 time period,
-- Thin fence, noseless hammer guns which copied pin-fire type actions, which was widely used 1865-1870
-- Broader and deeper fences with a back splash guard and normal hammer, which became ubiquitous from 1870 - 1930
. . . . . .based on the following line:
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=645601#Post645601



Attempt at understanding the relationship between "Central Fire" guns from 1865 and their pin-fire precedents began with this misunderstanding. I looked at the Dickson and immediately said, "converted pin-fire." The Dickson records say otherwise. It stuck in the mind and this germinated into the above understanding:

https://doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=635255


This gun, 14983 owned by 12boreman, is the first gun with 2 rue Scribe on the rib (February-March 1868). It is clearly a converted pin-fire (even though those are some pretty robust fences), which has raised some questions about the dating chart. The first four or five extant Reilly guns with rue scribe on the ribs are all converted pin-fires. Would Reilly have re-engraved the ribs when he converted them? Reviewing the continuity of the script engraving and the cost involved, probably unlikely but something to be kept in mind:

Gene, the variation in fence shapes in the early days of the central-fire is quite something, especially when matched to the various ways developed to retract the strikers. What I had not come across before was the transformation (can't really say conversion) of pin-fire fences into the classic sculpted form of the central-fire, by the careful addition of steel sections prior to the shaping. No doubt there are others out there, deserving of a careful look.

That is a great find and great analysis Steve. It'll have us all looking twice at similar guns. I'm already wondering about Reilly 14983 above because I can't figure out how a pinfire hammer could strike above those substantial fences. What a pleasant mystery.