doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Who was/is RJ LePage?

I got a chance to handle an interesting gun at an LGS. They had just received it and had not even closed the deal on it yet, but they let me handle it.

It was a ".45 - 2 1/10" resleeved into a 16 gauge German sidelock that was interesting in its own right. The resleeving was flawlessly done and the action was incredibly smooth and crisp. Everything about this gun suggests that RJ LePage was a very talented gunmaker. But who is/was he? The gun had only it's original german proofs. I take that to mean that LePage was probably on this side of the Atlantic, but I have never heard of him.

Beautiful rifle, perfectly balanced (for a double rifle). It was about the only thing that was good about today, other than Dusty got through the vet reasonably well.

Very likely one of the French Le Page family of gunmakers This Wikipedia article.

"Fauré Le Page (French pronunciation: [fɔ.ʁe lə‿paʒ]) is a French firearms manufacturer (arquebusier and fourbisseur) founded in Paris in 1716 by Louis Pigny."


This link on the military-history wiki notes one of the likely ancestors
"Jean Le Page (1746 - 1834) Arquebusier et fourbisseur in Paris (1779-1822) [2] of the House of Orleans, of King Louis XVI, of the First Consul Bonaparte and then of Emperor Napoleon I and of King Louis XVIII."

He authored a text that establishes the genealogy of the Le Page family, which is kept in the National Archives of the French National Library in the
Fonds Bro de Comères which may be useful in researching the family tree.

It appears it is the Nimrod Action w/ spring removers made in Suhl by Thieme & Schlegelmilch @ the Römerwerke factory / facility.

R.J. LePage was just the firearms merchant who wanted that specific platform.


Hochachtungsvoll,

Raimey
rse

I would agree completely, definitely a Thieme & Schlegelmilch Nimrod action.

I agree also, on the maker of the action. But the rifle barrels were installed long after the action was made as it was originally a sixteen gauge per the proofs. LePage, put his name on it along with the rifle calibers, when it was resleeved. Whether he was a merchant, ordering the work, or he did it himself, I could not say, but whoever did it, did a damn nice job.