A questions was asked about the action of 10456. It appears to have a rising stud on the water table. (I don't know what that is for; if someone can explain - much appreciated). Holts responded in 24 hours - a record and very admirable:
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

The gun was unsold. They raised the estimated minimum from £150 to £400. It'll probably be reauctioned and at some point go into the silent bid group.


edit: Stephen Nash offered an erudite and elegant explanation for the rising stud, identifying it with a Beringer patent of 1837, widely adopted in UK gun making.
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=662816#Post662816

This sub-chapter has been added to the history. It is entirely Steve Nash's research and mostly his prose. I will delete it as he wishes and will certainly footnote it when his book comes out.


*24A 1852-1860: Break Action, Pin-Fire Guns in UK; Beringer Patent

Stephen Nash, per above has postulated that UK gunmakers adopted elements of Beringer's center break concepts in their guns, vice those of Lefaucheux; here are his thoughts which are truly ground-breaking:

. . .—Casimir Lefaucheux’s gun had a forward facing lever under the fore-end and the barrels had two bites. Lefaucheux used a fixed pin protruding from the barrel flats which cammed against the locking lug upon the closure of the barrels assisting in helping the lever to close.

. . .—At virtually the same time, howevever, in 1837 Beatus Beringer took out a patent on a similar center-break style gun. He used a single bite and it included a stud protruding from the water table attached to the under-lever. This stud acted as an assisted opening/closing mechanism and was used on all of Beringer’s guns.
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

. . .— Beringer's action improvements and design choices (such as the single bite) were far more common in British pin-fires than Lefaucheux's, despite all British pin-fires being called 'Lefaucheux' at the time. Joseph Lang copied Beringer's single bite, but did not include the rising stud. Blanch, Reilly, and others, including Birmingham action makers such as Samuel Breeden and Joseph Brazier, did.
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

. . .-- While the pin-fire system of Lefaucheux, based on the cartridge, was adopted and correctly credited, Beatus Beringer had a greater impact on British designs, something which has not received the attention it deserves. As noted above in Chapter 24 Blanch bought a Beringer gun to study. It is not known if other gunmakers subsequently copied Blanch's gun, or whether they obtained Beringer guns to dismantle and reverse engineer on their own. What is sure is that so far no British built copies of Lefaucheux’s original double-bite design have been found.

Last edited by Argo44; 07/16/25 08:08 PM.
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