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Was there something going on here. W.H. Davenport Fire Arms Co.









Then Hopkins & Allen Arms Company --





Then Iver Johnson's Arms & Cycle Works --





I don't have an Iver Johnson or Hopkins & Allen catalogue that shows this side-plated gun. Those patent dates on the Iver Johnson's rib, Mar. 16, 1915, and Apr. 27, 1915, are W.O. Barnes' Patents No. 1,131,984 and 1,137,045, both assigned to Mary E. Johnson, Trustee, of Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

Dave,

I have Davenport sideplated boxlock, ser# 5. It is only stamped "PATENT APPLIED FOR". This is the action shown above with the red background. It is without barrels or wood. The internals are different from the H&A gun. I have not had one of the IJ guns apart to compare them. Davenport was the Superintendent at H&A if I am correct? There is definately common ground if we can find it.

What year is the ad copy from?

John

I have one a 16ga marked Milwaukee Gun Co......was sold through John Pritzlaff Hardware/Sporting goods store in Milwaukee...in the 19teens....like the Crescent Arms guns you could order them with any name on them you wanted as long as you ordered over a certain amount.....picked it up about 10years ago just because I grew up in Milwaukee....

I think they changed them a little year to year...or whenever they found a way to make it cheaper....

The Davenport Double Hammerless Gun flyer was an insert in an undated W.H. Davenport Fire Arms Co. catalogue of their single barrels I recently scored on ebay. The late Joe Vorisek reproduced the catalogue in his Shotgun Research Newsletter, Vol.2, No. 3, 1988, calling it a 1902 catalogue?!? The seller of the catalogue said 1910? According to Joe, W.H. Davenport Fire Arms Co. went belly up in 1909 and after that Hopkins & Allen Arms Co. continued to make some Davenport models to 1915-16.

Gunut,
I will take a guess that your gun is a version of the H&A and has the Hammer-pin showing through the sideplates.



Dave, There is another H&A sideplated model mfg in 1914. The New Model 210, I assume few were mfg. The barrel lugs were much different from other H&A doubles.

We know that from 1901 to at least 1909, Hopkins & Allen were making the box-frame doubles, both hammer and hammerless, that they inherited from Forehand Arms Co. So these side-plated guns must have come from the very end of the W.H. Davenport Fire Arms Co.'s life and passed on to H & A in the teens. I was under the impression that Marlin bought the remains of H & A, so how did the double that looks like this get to Iver Johnson?

Researcher, isn't that April 1915 patent the one we also see on some Stevens doubles? Don't have one to look at, but seems to ring a bell.

April 20, 1915, patent #1,136,247 for a striker fired action, is the patent found on some models of Stavens guns. A different patent from that seen on these guns, though they are both from April of '15.

W.H. Davenport died in 1904. H&A took over W.H. Davenport around 1901 and continued to mfg guns with the Davenport name until 1909-10. Per Dave: (http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=156069)
Do we know from whom the widow Johnson purchased the patents for the IJ gun?
Does anyone here have a schematic or pictures of the inner workings of the Iver Johnson variant? I have pics of the W.H. Davenport and the H&A.

John

According to Joe Vorisek, H&A took over W.H. Davenport around 1910 and continued to mfg guns with the Davenport name until 1915-16.

The Patents, Nos. 1,131,984 and 1,137,045, on the Iver Johnson side-plated gun were both issue to William O. Barnes.