doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 1893 UK - screws on fences?

If the screws were pierced primer protection, I�d think they would not be directed up. In front of the shooter�s face. Other methods had the gases coming out lower to the side.

The screw heads on the flats are probably to retain the cocking limbs/rods .

Here's A WAG. Please excuse! Looks like the gun has been sleeved. Any chance this was once a hammer gun? Those screws sure look like they would fill a firing pin hole. I don't know much about English side locks, so be nice!
Chief

Not sleeved but new barrels were fitted sometime after 1896 and reproofed after 1954. The owner says that the original barrels were also steel. There is a Perkes ejector pat 10679-86 use #290 on the Action Flats.

Sure looks sleeved.

Learn something new everyday...that's why I'm here. Steve, I had always assumed sleeved barrels had to be stamped "sleeved"...like this Reilly 33454. Not so? Thanks.

at one point in time barrels were marked sleeved on the side of the chambers.
Steve

Ah...so 32658 had the barrels sleeved by Benjamin Wilde in Birmingham, not made?

And I see both those barrels have the faint remains of "nitro proof" - post 1896 proof mark on them. There is no way my chart can be stretched to accommodate either of those serial numbers 32658 or 33454 being post-1896. To do so would mean Reilly built only a a hundred guns a year after E.M.'s death in 1890 then suddenly built 2000 between 1896 and 1898. So, I've reasoned they were rebarreled in steel after 1896, then sleeved/reproofed at some point. In which case the actions and stocks shot out two sets of barrels...pretty good from the point of view of robustness.

And I still think Toby's explanation for the screws is most logical...Gunman backs him up. But I'd sure like to see a picture of what's behind those screws so I, the layman, can understand everything.

Gunman it totally correct, the screws on the flats are the retainers for the cocking rods which form part of the Perkes patent that you mention. This patent was bought by Scott and worked extensively by them. You will see it in early H&H No.2's, C&H and Blanch backaction SL's amongst many others.
If the gun is sleeved, the absence of any marking of 'sleeved' puts the gun out of proof by UK proof law. It might have been stamped on the barrel flats or on the side of the barrels and been struck out or maybe the gun was sleeved in the USA where of course no marking is required.
A44, you can always spin out those screws to remove the plate, they don't do anything else. Just make sure you have a well fitting turnscrew.

I'm not the sharpest blade in the drawer on gunsmithing/design. But here are a couple more questions.

Perkes Pat ejector 10679-86 was still under Perkes' control when trial on the famous 1893 lawsuit for patent infringement between Plaintiff Westley Richards (Deeley) and defendant Perkes was conducted. Scott was nowhere listed in the case so assume Perkes went into this alone?:

https://books.google.com/books?id=PakwAQ...ent&f=false


From this case, Perkes sold his pat ejector 1968-78 to Scott in 1880 but it wasn't used much until 1886 per testimony of Scott.



Here are two Reilly's using the follow-on Perkes patent 10679-86, subject of the law-suit:

-- the above SN 32658 dated per my chart to circa Jan 1893 - 10679-86 use #290 with screws on the fences.


-- and SN 33619 dated per my chart to mid 1895 - 10679-86 use #540 with no screws on the fences:


So the question for this novice is...if the screws are the result of having the Perkes 10679-86 patent ejector on the gun, why screws on one and not the other?

(The general subject of patent use numbers, who paid for the patent use and when and how-much, and who might have the records, important for a historian, will be subject of a separate post)...