doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Calling all John Dickson & Son gun owners

Last call on the any Dickson gun info you want to share/submit.
First draft of book is complete and under review and now just sorting out some gun pictures.

Thanks again
J-PD

Finally, a book about John Dickson, it’s about time!!!

J-PD,

Can scan and email the gunbook notes on my pair of Dicksons if that would be of use to you/Dallas.

Best of the Season,
Tim

Thanks for the offer Tim but we have access to all the paper records and they have been sorted and cleaned up.

Donald has even found the lost first ledger in the shop which Dickson never knew existed. It shows that Dickson started his numbering at about 1000 back in 1840. The first book is actual in better condition than some of the latest ledgers! Turns out there were some guns before this but with no number and named Wallace (his old master) but built by Dickson.

The book will lay to rest a lot of myth too.

Rumour was Dickson built guns for Lord Byron, Admiral Nelson and Queen Victoria (a rifle for the loyal Mr. Brown!). However, the guns for Byron and Nelson were built by Mortimer out of London and the order from Queen V was actually in the Alexander Henry records.

Hello Fletchpair and other fine Gents

I’m currently doing some work on an early 12 bore round action, I though while I had all the experts here I would try and see if could get an answer to my question as well as provide any info and or pictures on this particular piece for your research.
As you can see there is quite a bit of damage to the front end of the full length trigger plate, and since I cannot find a round action that has this particular long plate for comparison I’m not sure how it was finished…whether it was squared off or finished with a slight concave contour.
Any info or pictures of a similar model would be of great help

Thanks in advance

CJ

CJO

I recently repaired a round action of that early type. Quite soon in production they went to the shorter plate. I think I've seen four or five like that, and they were all cracked or broken.

If I remember correctly, the plate was finished square, with a bevel. You may have to build up material so the barrels do not gape open so much, this is what causes the breakout.

Good luck with the welding. I have repaired quite a few round action trigger plates, and the iron has not been of the purest kind. Get ready to herd a lot of slag around.

Thanks Mike, as you can see I have welded it already but I'm not totally happy with it yet..looks like I need to go further, I only took it as far as the metal that was left..actually slightly further but I think I need to bring as far as the curvature of the knuckle.
Ser # on this one is 3672

Any thoughts?

CJ

Nice work as usual CJO

Mike Rowe is correct, the early ones eventually crack like this. Combination of a loose gun and the cocking slide and extension on the fore-end iron that pushes the slide slamming back and forward. Letting the locks off with the barrels off does not help at all too. I guess Dickson figured this out and moved to the shorter tongue trigger-plate to reinforce this area.

The gun you have there for repair is about as early as it gets when it comes to round-actions. The serial number you provide puts it within the first 28 round-actions made.

The first round-action was No. 3658, built for W.S. Davidson in January 1881 with "Gauge 12 Locks on Trigger Plate". The year earlier Dickson had the patent for the cocking slide which would eventually appear in the round-actions to help cock the locks.

Nice work. Thanks for sharing.

OWD

What that guy can do, CJO is beyond amazing!!!!
What do you think happened there?