doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Very long top-lever

An advertisement on gun trader.uk was posted on the Reilly line, purportedly SN 10448 (1857). When the pictures were sent however it turned out to be 20320 (1876), a top lever hammer gun - much less interesting. What is interesting however is the length of the top-lever. Never seen something like this before. Any ideas why or what patent this might be?

Is it a self-cocker? I have seen quite a few hammerless guns and rifles that used the top lever to cock the locks, the longer lever gives you more leverage and makes compressing the mainsprings easier.

It's a Hammergun Princess SKB. It's got external hammers, and each one has a hammer spur. So why would you need an additional lever to cock the locks?


I suppose it could be a novel idea that came out of E.M. Reilly's Department of Redundancy Department

Just from the photograph so I am quite prepared to be wrong. That top leaver looks like it has been cut from a plate of steel with no rounded edges, also with that notch being cut to allow the leaver to pass the hammer and with the engraver not following the curve with his border line this is far below the Reilley standard that we expect. I feel that is an after market alteration may be for some physical problem of the owner further down the lime.

I did blow up the above picture and the border top lever engraving seems to go around the notch . I think the top lever shape is very similar to the Lindner sourced Daly, Golcher , etc guns. Could that gun be Continental ?

I wouldn't give up shooting just because I lost the tip of my thumb
🤷‍♂️

Self cocking hammer guns were a thing dim wit, developed in the UK around the same time as hammerless guns. The really neat ones had ejectors too. You sure are dumb Karen.

Added a picture.

And, no thumb means you cock the hammers with the palm of the hand and also use the palm on the top-lever like an old Lefaucheux system. Might make sense.

It would only make sense if one was grasping for straws and prone to wild conjecture.

There was a much better and more attractive solution to the problem of a top lever that interfered with opening a cocked hammergun. It was called the fishtail top lever:

https://parkerguns.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6134

I think I would have preferred that option, rather than the modification that looks like it was hogged out with an angle grinder. It appears that one of Reilly's employees went by the name of Bubba.

Oh, I've seen lots of self cocking hammerguns Princess SKB. My Marlin lever action rifles cock the exposed hammer when the lever cycles the bolt.

I'm sure you would have shown us a self-cocking sxs hammergun that utilized the top lever for cocking,... if it was done.

It wouldn't surprise me if you spent the last couple days searching for a picture of this rare unicorn Princess SKB.

Imagining a Hammergun sxs double that is cocked with the top lever, while you are hitting your bong, won't make it real.

Diggory hadoke features a few of these self cocking hammer guns in his book "hammer guns: in theory and in practice"

There's a couple good looking Reilly's in there as well!

I never claimed to have seen a top lever cocking hammer gun, most used under levers. Keep searching Princess.....try Holt's, they sold a nice one a couple of years back.

It delights me when you parade your ignorance Karen.

Princess SKB, in your very first post within this Thread, you were asking Argo44 if this TOP LEVER Reilly Hammergun was a self cocker. I mocked the utter stupidity of such a statement. Then you went on to stupidly and dishonestly say that you "have seen quite a few hammerless guns that used the top lever to cock the locks".


You also stupidly explained that the longer top lever provides more leverage and makes compressing the mainsprings easier, which is even more B.S.

The facts, which you are too dumb to apparently understand, are that many people have some difficulty even opening a gun that uses a top lever only for operating the bolting mechanism, and also uses the much better mechanical advantage or leverage afforded by using the barrels to operate cocking and ejector/extractor mechanisms. Early on in hammerless sxs development, some gunmakers used things like side-levers and under-levers to cock the locks, but those levers were longer and stouter than the top lever on this Reilly. However, they learned relatively quickly that using motion and leverage of the barrels while opening the gun was a much better system, which prevails to this day. That's why you were unable to show us even one sxs double gun that utilized the top lever to both operate the bolting mechanism and cock the mainsprings.

I knew that you were simply making up shit when you said, "I have seen quite a few hammerless guns and rifles that used the top lever to cock the locks..."

I never expected to see you admit your dishonesty or ignorance, but I have sure enjoyed seeing you tap-dance around the truth. You wanted to impress us, but instead got caught in another lie.

Lancaster top-lever self cocking hammergun, not a lever cocker though.

https://www.rockislandauction.com/d...ever-self-cocking-hammer-ejector-shotgun

You are an ignorant moron Karen

Here is a rare Henry top lever-cocking shotgun, I have only ever seen two, though the rifles are quite common. I own this shotgun and have owned a wonderful rifle on this patent also pictured below. This action is well documented as a lever cocker, showing both top-lever and under-lever variants in chapter 1o of the Donlad Dallas book "Alexander Henry Rifle Maker"

To say that you are an ignorant a$$ is an understatement.

Stick to the things you know, like being a greeter at Wal-mart, maybe try to improve your knowledge base and the boss might let you collect the carts from the parking lot. You have shown off your ignorance on early British patents quite nicely, this thread is starting to remind me of the time you dug up one of my posts on barrel browning from 14 years prior, attempted to call me out for not being able to brown barrels, then had to eat a nice big plate of Crow. By the way, how is your barrel browning coming along? Any pics?

I'm done with you little piggy, roll in the mud by yourself.

It's peak foliage and I have a new bird dog to hunt.




Best quality Alex. Henry .360 2&7/16" top-lever cocking hammerless double rifle and a nice big Tom that I shot with it.



This would be a good time for YOU to admit YOUR ignorance.

Princess SKB, I really enjoyed the link to the Lancaster Hammergun that DOES NOT use the top lever to cock the hammers. So close... yet so far from what you were assuming about Argo44's Reilly with the longer than normal top lever.

I also liked the pics of your Alex Henry shotgun locks. It's a shame we aren't able to see the actual top lever mechanism that you say cocks the locks via the motion of the top lever alone. I'm surprised that you didn't share the patent number and date, along with pics of the action knuckle and lump recesses to show there is no cocking lever or cocking rods that are actuated by the opening of the barrels. And son of a gun... it still doesn't have external hammers. Nice gun though. Who did you hire to disassemble it?

I am happy to see you bring up, and also outright lie about me once having to eat Crow concerning your very apparent inexperience with barrel browning. If anyone had to eat Crow, it was you, after a couple other guys saw the absolutely ridiculous ferric chloride concentration and time you said you were using for your etching process. Anyone who had actually ever done etching with ferric chloride could immediately see that you had about zero actual experience.

Let me refresh your defective and obviously deceptive memory. See your Post #76837 where you told everyone about your etching:

https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=77129&page=1

Then go here to see my actual response to your obvious lack of experience:

https://www.doublegunshop.com/forum...ds=45+seconds&Search=true#Post643717

Once again, we see that you like to just make things up to try to impress us. If you had ever actually tried etching with a 14.5% ferric chloride solution for 45 seconds in mid 60's temps, you would immediately know it would remove whatever rust finish you had acquired. What we don't see is any hint of me eating Crow.

Another tall tale you told us about your vast rust bluing experience was that you were the only person in your shop to ever do rust bluing. You called me a liar when I reminded you that you had an employee or boyfriend named Manito who did rust bluing for you:


It turns out that was a lie too. I found another Post from you where you admitted that Manito also did rust bluing. And because of that, I absolutely believe what Doug PA24 Wooden told me about you contacting him to ask him to rust blue barrels for you. I can still hear him laughing about it.


I had attempted once before to post that QUOTE from you showing that you lied about Manito doing rust bluing, but for whatever reason, Dave did not post it, and locked that Thread. Hopefully it will pass muster this time, and you can enjoy eating a big serving of Crow.

So while you were telling us lies and pretending to be an expert, anyone who paid attention learned that you had an extreme lack of actual experience, and that another member here, Stallones, graciously shared his knowledge and techniques with you. I didn't share that same pathetic need to pretend to be an expert when I wasn't. I openly admitted that I had problems early on getting anything but a matte or satin finish that was never going to spook game by being too shiny. And I was fortunate to have Doug PA24 Wooden share his superb rust bluing and browning formulas and techniques with me before he died. And sadly, he made me promise to never share them with anyone else, because he did not want Liberals like you to profit from his knowledge. He mentioned you by name Princess SKB.

In spite of claiming repeatedly that you will no longer roll in the mud with me, you keep ending up with mud on your face. And it's also great to see you repeatedly engaging in personal insults and name-calling when you have also repeatedly claimed that such behavior has driven away a multitude of valuable members. I wonder why you feel you are exempt, and why hypocrites like Gladys Kravitz never have a problem when you do it? I hope you enjoyed this trip down Lying Memory Lane... I hope it was a welcome respite from you having to run like a coward from my question about whether you paid Dave the $12.00 fee for each and every sale resulting from your Free Tagline Advertisements. BTW, you still have never given us an answer to that simple question. I wonder what you are afraid of???

https://www.holtsauctioneers.com/asp/fullcatalogue.asp?salelot=A1125+++1801+&refno=++235769

Not a top lever but still in line
Very neat piece

I have two top lever hammerless cocking guns. One is a MacNaughton skeleton action and the other is a Sumner built on a Scott action. Both have crystal indicators. The MacNaughton is under the top lever and the Scott is on the sides. They open and cock every easily so I don't know if the extended lever is a help or not.