doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The pinfire game gun

Thanks Stephen and you are the expert; My text was meant to try to introduce the subject in the context of the Reilly history, not write something definitive. Sorry for the deviation into the War Between the States - sidetracks happen sometime. You have presented some very interesting research and VGJ will be read with great interest. What are your thoughts on the Liège connection to Hodges and Lang if any. Thanks again for this excellent line and for your outstanding scholarship.

(edit: And in particular your digging into the origin of the Hodges-Lang original UK pin-fire. There may be a reason Blanch bought a Beringer in Paris in Dec 1855!).

Stephen - this is an outstanding, academically researched article we all should read:
https://www.vintageguns.co.uk/magazine/lever-over-guard-origins

But....but.....are you living in the United States as Diggory maintains? Je parle français but the last I heard was Wolf beat Montcalm at Quebec, Benedict Arnold took Montreal but failed to take Quebec in 1775 and the US attempts in the War of 1812 were pretty miserable.

A misunderstanding that I’ve brought to Diggory’s attention… I am most certainly in Canada. And will be in the foreseeable future. No more international travel for me. I’ve had more than my share.

And thanks for the kind words about the article.

I am not sure how I missed this Béringer stuff and your article! (probably the same way you must've missed my Lefaucheux-Béringer article on the topic):

But Lefaucheux was also making "lever-over-guard" designs by at least 1835. I think this was one of the design characteristics he sued Béringer for using a couple years later. Béringer also sued Lefaucheux and in the end they both settled with Lefaucheux licensing some of Béringer's cartridge characteristics.



See section g which translates to: "same key using the trigger guard as a lever."

And a pistol from my collection using the system. Shotguns exist too:





But it is definitely still the typical early double-bite system.

Additionally, Lefaucheux's 1832 patent has a different action that is much more similar to the Béringer single-bite action that he would patent a couple years later.

Thanks, Aaron, that's very useful (and new to me). Time to revise my notes...

You guys are truly amazing and what has been posted here by Stephen and Aaron is a primer in the origin of the break-action/center-break gun.

Having read Stephen's article in Diggory's on-line publication, however, this observer believes he has a point. Beringer like Lefaucheax exhibited at the Crystal Palace fair. No matter what the history was between Lefaucheux and Beringer during the 1840's by 1851 both designs were in production and clearly identifiable. Hodges looks to have used a single bite for his first gun which Lang copied - at least per the gun sketched in 1856, which clearly had a single bite though using a Lefaucheux style under-lever.



It would appear then that though Lefaucheux got the sketches in the press from 1851, it was Beringer who provided the engineering for the orignal UK copies.


That may be the reason that when Blanch sent his employee to Paris to buy a center-break gun to reverse engineer in November 1855, he bought a Beringer not a Lefaucheux.

Just an observation on what seems logical from an 1850's point of view. And I'll add one of the French words for "underlever" is "cle Beringer" (Beringer key)

It's also been the thought for 125 years:

All mentioned in Reilly, Chapter IV: Break Action Guns in UK: 1854 – 1860
23. 1852-1856: Break Action, Pin-Fire Guns in UK., PART 1, Hodges & Lang
24. 1852-1856: Break Action, Pin-Fire Guns in UK., PART 2, Reilly & Blanch

Repeat post: Original Blanch receipt for his Beringer purchase in Nov 1855 - the medals are interesting:

Does this match AaronN's post #645945 ? Gun by Hedeline.