I was surfing the internet the other day and ran across an article that was titled “Top 10 American Shotguns” (or something like that). The author listed LC Smith as one of the top ten, but what caught my eye was the statement that LC Smith was the only US maker that made shotguns with sidelocks.

I know this is not a true statement as I can name a few myself. Just out curiosity what other US shotgun makers made a hammerless sidelock shotgun?

Baker, Meriden, Crescent come immediately to mind...Geo

Early Lefever.

Wasn't the Lefever's just a side plate?

Add Waverly Arms to the hammerless sidelocks. There were many hammer sidelock makers.

Early Lefever and Tobin were hybrid sidelock/sideplated guns with only the sears mounted to the plates.

H&A, Iver Johnson and Davenport were sideplated boxlocks.

No

Clark and Schneider and David Kirkwood

Ya, pretty much. Having sears mounted on the plates by no means qualifies a gun as a sidelock.

Kirkwood, Schneider, Golcher, etc weren't truly manufactured here were they?

I think Sneider was made here. They had several sidelock designs. My Kirkwood has a Brit sourcing and Golcher , if you mean Thomas Golcher or one of the more modern Golchers, seem to be German from Lindner/Daly. Older Golchers, by other names, were parts suppliers, mainly from Britain.

J.C. DANE, Lacrosse Wisc. Made hammer guns. Did he build any hammerless?

John

Don't forget the current sidelock production of Connecticut Shotgun with their A-10 O/U sidelocks and their high end Galazan custom models.

How about Galazan - sxs and o/u

Someone may say not true sidelocks to some of these:
Remington 1889
Aubrey
Colt

Outside of Mr. Galazan's later guns, I don't believe there were ever any American guns produced with an intercepting sear sidelock.
That would seem to be the point of the exercise of building a sidelock, and one would want it to be of the quality of several of the English produced sidelocks, say, Brazier, Chilton, etc.
Calling a Tobin, among others, a sidelock, doesn't make it so.

Best,
Ted

Based on the work of Bill McPhail and others I believe that there is very strong evidence that David Kirkwood did produce sidelocks (of course, the barrels were secured in Belgium or the UK)
Best
Berrien

So, so far we have the following:

L.C. Smith
Baker
Meriden
Crescent
Waverly Arms
Clark
Schneider
David Kirkwood
Galazan

Still in question are:
Rem 1889
Aubrey
Colt

Buck2,

The OP's original inquiry was in reference to vintage American hammerless doubles, but some hammerguns were included in the conversation.

The Aubrey is a Meriden F.A. gun, so yes.
The Colt and Remington sidelocks are of the Hammer variety.

John

Ted,

The pre-Batavia line sidelocks from Baker Gun & Forging Co. had intercepting sears.

Tobin would not qualify given it is a sideplated boxlock with only the sears mounted to the plates.

John

Ted, there are various reasons for making a sidelock in addition to the intercepting sear. One is the ease of accessing the "guts" of the gun, especially if the locks are hand detachable. Another is leaving more "canvas" on which the engraver can do his thing (although that's also true of sideplated boxlocks). Another is that--at least per the British, who contributed so much to the development of the modern sxs--the sidelock is a superior design. And there are those who will contend that in general, you get better trigger pulls with a sidelock vs a boxlock.

But our gun industry focused on numbers with only a tiny percentage of their output represented by the "best" guns they made. In contrast, there were several British makers who made their names based on a much smaller number of "best" guns. So a very different approach to the business. In this country, no one ever adopted the business model of "best" guns only. Or mostly.

Isn't it odd that nobody truly knows for certain if Kirkwood, Schneider, , etc were actually manufactured here? No old pictures of the factory or workshops showing these guns being built, no articles written back then detailing their manufacture, nothing out there that positively confirms that they actually built guns from the ground up. I'm in the camp of putting a gun together from sourced parts doesn't necessarily make you a gun manufacturer or qualify it as being from the USA.
One of the prettiest and well built "American" guns I've ever seen in person was built, put together , finished or brought into this country by George T. Abbey, Chicago. This gun was obviously English, can't be sure if it was brought to the USA in the white and Abbey finished it, or it was brought in as a completed gun. My guess is...it was finished and ready for action when it left England.

Ok, thanks

So, we are back to the following:

L.C. Smith
Baker
Meriden
Crescent
Waverly Arms
Clark
Schneider
David Kirkwood
Galazan

Is this correct?

Yet, today if you drill a single hole in an existing action the Fed.gov considers you a firearms manufacturer.

That is only because fools vote for Liberal Anti-Gun Democrats.

Know your enemy!

John,
Not quite. The graded Bakers had hammer blocks, a different concept entirely, and one that is dependant on the gun being in the upright position to function. Intercepting sears function in any position.
If you have ever had a Baker, or, for that matter, any US sidelock apart on a bench next to an English vesion with even a run-of-the-mill set of locks from the makers I quoted, above, you will see a distinct difference in level of finish and quality.

Calling a Tobin a boxlock really isn't correct, either. If you take the worst, and weakest features from both sidelock and boxlock design, and combine them, you have a Tobin. Which, was good enough when all loads were black powder loads.

Best,
Ted

Ted, your thoughts about the Baker with hammer blocks needing to be in the upright position for the hammer blocks to function is incorrect. I'm not sure where you got that idea, but the blocks do block the hammers, in all gun positions, unless the triggers are pulled. When the trigger is pulled, the hammer blocks rotate to the side allowing the hammer to strike the firing pin.

As to the fit and finish of an American gun compared to a British gun, you are generally right. But, don't you think one might expect this, since the British guns cost several multiples of the American guns? You might compare Fords and Bentleys in the manner you suggest. How many Fords can you buy for the price of a Bentley ?

Larry,
I was thinking in terms of good reasons. The shear numbers of guns built on the boxlock design, in contrast to the numbers of sidelocks, that function perfectly, 50-150 years after they were produced, sans maintenance of their "guts", to use your term, would seem to throw so much cold water on the notion that being able to see them more easily is an advantage.

Engraving, much like the "canvas" of the design of gun it is applied to, is very subjective. I have seen stunning examples of engraving on either design, and, much more that was not so. On both types of guns. I wish people who can't do it would stop trying to do gamescene engraving. Not everyone is Winston Churchill

I have seen good, and horrific trigger pulls in all types of guns. I will suggest, that, at least in the case of English guns, a sidelock would have more time spent by a higher skilled worker on it's triggers than you might expect on a keeper's boxlock. There would be exceptions, but, not often. That doesn't mean a boxlock can't have wonderful triggers. Far from it.

A hammerless sidelock is simply a hammer gun with it's hammers on the inside. As to it being the best or not, comes down to who built it, and not the name that is on it. We have seen examples of "name" guns, that are not the best examples of what said name was supposed to stand for.

Best,
Ted

Dayrl,
I saw a basket case Baker action that the blocks would fall out of position when the action was turned upside down. Perhaps the mechanism was worn enough to allow that? Sorry if I mistook that for how they all operate.
In any case, they are not "intercepting sears". Different device, entirely.
Do you have a good photo of a correctly funtioning graded Baker action? I'd love to see it.

Best,
Ted

Ted, you need to start looking at decent guns, not basket cases. I doubt one could wear out a Baker firing pin block in a lifetime, even it one tried. Here's a schematic of the mechanism. Both intercepting sears and the Baker firing pin block perform the task of stopping the gun from firing when the trigger has not been pulled. Maybe a comparison of the two designs might make the Baker more positive in that function.

Thanks for the photo, Dayrl. I'd guess a few parts were missing in the example I saw at a gunshow. That said, one has to look at a graded Baker when one has the chance, in my part of the world. And I've yet to see a Baker that has lockwork on the level of Chilton or Brazier, which, is not to say it doesn't exist, but, that it didn't get produced at that level on most of the Baker guns.

As to the costs of guns, American vs English, you mentioned, above, circa 1912, a Parker D grade was around $100, and a Jeffrey #3 boxlock was 28 pounds, without ejectors. 34 pounds with ejectors. About the same price. If I was selling, today, I'd want the Parker, but, to use, the Jeffrey would be the keeper, hands down. 100% coverage engraving in decent scroll, no stick men or flying turnips in sight, and much better fit and finish, especially to internal parts.

The internals on most American guns are not in the same league with English and European guns of the same era.

Best,
Ted

Ted, boxlocks are less expensive to produce. That's why more of them have been made. Pretty simple explanation. But you can't escape the fact that if you're over in the UK shooting driven birds and it's more than a bit damp--the weather being that way over there--then there are definite advantages to being able to pull the locks and make sure everything is dried out, etc.

Over here in Realville, Larry, there is a definite advantage to a Benelli Nova for hunting in the rain.

Truly, I've seen some English keepers boxlock guns that had zero finish remaining, checkering that was worn nearly smooth, and other signs of heavy use, that were ready for their next century, even if it didn't start out with someone looking at the bits.

Quite impressive service.

Best,
Ted

Union Firearms Co. hammerless appears to be a sidelock

CZ,

There are two variants of the Colton and at least two Union SxS models also. Don't know about the early Colton or the late Union model but the two guns I have are very similar.
I had always assumed the Union SxS's were a hybrid lock. Your post got me thinking so I grabbed each (Colton & Union) and pulled a plate.

Unconventional, but a sidelock.

Colton(top) and Union F.A.(lower) doubles. I believe the Union to be a Model 22.

P_20170926_200642 by John Eurom, on Flickr


The Colton: Coil spring with inline hammers. Floating FP in frame.

P_20170926_201131 by John Eurom, on Flickr

P_20170926_201235 by John Eurom, on Flickr




Union F.A.: Much the same as the Colton but the cocking bellcrank is mounted to the lockplate also and the parts are secured with a bridle.

P_20170926_201600 by John Eurom, on Flickr

P_20170926_201657 by John Eurom, on Flickr



The mechanism is somewhat unique, wouldn't you all agree?

John

A wonderful alternative to what John E. has shown us would be seldom found English-made sidelock from Vickers Sons & Maxim Ltd. known as Imperiale. Just like what John E showed us the lock mechanism was powered by a coil spring (in English lock it was dual purpose coil spring and sear spring). This made for simple, reliable and less expensive shotgun. Period adds state it came with nice Vickers steel barrels. They also made machine guns and airplanes. I would like to find one of them Imperials myself.

Added Colton and Union to the list.

L.C. Smith
Baker
Meriden
Crescent
Waverly Arms
Clark
Schneider
David Kirkwood
Galazan
Union firearms Co.
Colton

Have my grandfather's 12 gauge Elgin Arms Company side-by-side which he purchased in the mid-1920's. It is a genuine sidelock and I still use it for bird and rabbit hunting from time to time.

How about the shotguns built by John Nichols or Nichols and Lefever?

Welcome bruin. Elgin Arms Co. was a tradename used by Crescent for Fred Biffar & Co. Chicago and Strauss & Schram Chicago
More infro here
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1OxZo5Tkvx2G8eYf747QR9B5RJdN6Siu5JGIhfguSXXQ

John thanks for posting on this

Lets correct the spelling. It is Sneider.