There is little art more beautiful than a perfectly sculpted hammer. This one belongs to a Williams & Powell, Liverpool. Circa 1873.

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……..unless it’s a perfectly sculpted action as on this Thomas Johnson, Swaffham, Norfolk. 1869? This gun is #3 of a garniture (set of three) and made by Joseph Brazier, Ashes and the only gun I have seen made by Brazier.

The really neat thing about hammer guns made up to the mid 1880’s is that you will never see an identical gun unless it was made as a set. The gun was rapidly evolving and also the individual artisans took great liberties in creating their work. Remember, every single piece was hand made and unique, there was no stock factory making interchangeable or cast parts.

Notice the very percussion cups on the head of the hammers. The cutout was for percussion caps—when fired any fragments from the cap were supposed to blow out through them. This design hung on for a few years into the breech loading era.


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