doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Newnham Limited BLE...Self opener?

I bought this gun at an auction a few weeks ago and have finally got around to spending some time looking it over in more detail.

Nice little 2 1/2" gun, 6.2 lbs., nice wood, fast handling, would make a good grouse gun.

When I turn it sideways and open it, it springs open as shown below.



Here's a bunch of pictures of the fore-end iron, which doesn't look like anything I've seen before:

Pictures - from the auction - of the rest of the gun

Looks like straightforward Baker ejector work to me. I don’t see anything there that would be indicative of an easy opening system.

Not any form of self opener .May be the poorly fitting forend has more to with it .

A nice gun, but it looks as if the extractors are not sitting flush with the rear face of the barrels when at rest, and thus press against the bottom of the breech face when the bolt is drawn back.

A minor timing issue?

Yes. The extractor legs are compressing the ejector springs when the gun is closed. Also pushing the forend away from the knuckle. I think a careful shortening of the extractor legs will solve the issue.

can you help me understand what you mean by "extractors?" This is an ejector gun.

There is an issue with the fit of the fore-end wood to the metal - but that's there whether the fore-end is on the gun or off.

I'll have to look at some of the other English BLEs I have down there to see if the forends are similar.

Yes, a Baker patent ejector. I'm trying to diagnose this from photos. I think the legs or rods that are attached to the plates that either eject or extract the cartridges are too long. These legs pass through the lump and cock the ejector hammers as the gun is closed. The too long legs seem to be pushing the ejector hammers past the cocking position and further compressing the springs in the ejector boxes you see attached under your forend iron. This tension is released when you push your top lever to release the bolts. This tension is also putting a strain on your forend loop as it is pushing the forend away from the knuckle.

Given the age of the gun, I struggle with the idea that things like that can bee to long, unless a fairly recent repair was made - which I don't see any evidence of.

...but I could easily be wrong. There's clearly something going on that I can't figure out.

Next question to ask is if the people giving you advice are at all familiar with Baker ejector work? Because if they were, they would know that there’s alot of moving parts in the system and any one of them out of spec can cause problems, multitudes of problems. Sometimes the fix is so simple it seems ridiculous.
I would NOT just go shortening parts either. That’s dumb. The individual who knows a little something about Bakers would definitely have to have the gun IN-HAND to see what exactly was going wrong before starting to take any kind of metal down.

Beware of that seller ...

OWD

It was an auction house - they can't go through all the guns they sell without charging a considerable amount for their services.

`The Baker Ejector explained ` is on page 5 in Gunsmithing & Technical section of `The Vintage Gun Journal` produced by Diggory Hadoke online.
A worthwhile read for the OP and anyone else interested !
HTH.

NO ,no no .Thats the last thing you need to do .Shortening will create more problems in so much the ejector s will not cock .
The extractors are the pieces that lift the cases out of the chambers . The ejectorts is the mechanism that drives the extractors to throw the cases out .

Dustin and Graham have given you enough of a warning to understand that this isn’t going to be a successful guessing game and not to take a dremel tool to any of the bits inside this old gun. Seeing how the action sits with the lever open makes me wonder if the ejectors are in time, or, if they try to eject when the gun hasn’t been fired? Shortening anything isn’t going to fix what might be honest wear or past bodgering the gun may have suffered.

Might be very wise to enlist the services of a good gunsmith at this point. Which, will likely add significantly to the final cost of the gun.

So it goes at auctions.

Best,
Ted

Thanks!

Here's a direct link to avoid scrolling though other topics: https://www.vintageguns.co.uk/magazine/the-baker-ejector

Thank you.

The ejectors seem to be timed properly and eject correctly.


Yep. I'll consider it. We don't have all that much in the gun to start with, it's certainly a viable path.