doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com What is this called?

Is there a name for the additional metal plate on the side panels? How often do you come across guns iwth this feature? Does it serve any purpose, or is it just for more engraving area?

Thanks

Alex

I don't know what it is called, but it sure beats the wood screw or carriage bolt we often see thru the head of a Parker Bros., Ansley H. Fox, Remington or Ithaca!!!

false side plate to add room for more engraving

'Dummy lock plate' or 'false lock plate'. Very common on Hellis boxlocks like this one, which is really just an 'ornamental side-plate' as it wouldn't fool anyone into thinking it were a lock plate for one second!

Guns bearing this adornment are usually referred to as sideplates, very common and found on most English boxlocks by the better makers in Birmingham and the provinces, used to showpiece the engravers art and to give the impression of a higher grade.Beretta and Guerini are doing it today.

It also goes a long way in keeping the wood from splitting a the head of the stock as so often found on some box locks

CJ

Whatever they're called, I put them in a different category than the standard sideplates you see on modern guns, which are larger and make more of an effort to look like a sidelock. No one could mistake this for a sidelock, and I don't much care for the technique (to the extent one can dislike anything about a nice old side-by-side). IMHO, the gun would look better without anything on the panels but oil finish. 100% scroll coverage on the frame just wasn't enough to say "fancy"? They must not have been too popular, as few makers followed the Hellis example. TT

Riffing on Two Triggers' post; the Hellis is interesting in that it's not a false sideplate, but desite it's honest design, it's unattractive.

But even the wood panels found on boxlocks are vestigal sidelocks. So when considering the stock design for a boxlock, I thought the boxlock should be true to itself, and not wish it was a sidelock with panels, or even more annoying; panels and drop points. But during the stock work, I found the panels a necessity for the graceful transition of shapes taking place between the stock head and the hand.

Obviously, some rounded action boxlocks don't have panels because the action helps with the transition.

Interesting, I didn't think that it would be called side plates because the two are unattached. The metal to metal fit is pretty bad.

The sideplates on Cogswell & Harrison's boxlocks (which, at least on some models, are "split" somewhat like the Hellis pictured--but more attractively, IMO) are referred to in C&H literature as "ornamental strengthening plates".