doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The Pinfire Patents of James Erskine

James Erskine, a gunmaker and inventor from Newton Stewart, Scotland had a prolific career inventing and patenting many improvements to guns and cartridge loading machines. His patented cartridge filler was universally accepted and used by all of the great British gunmakers of the day! This article takes a detailed look at many of these important patents.

https://aaronnewcomer.com/the-pinfire-patents-by-james-erskine/

Thanks for posting. As Newton Stewart is my home town James Erskine�s shotguns have always been of interest to me. One of my great regrets is not purchasing an Erskine shotgun in excellent condition that was greatly undervalued by the owner who was aiming to fund a clay shooting gun for his grandson. My advice was to have it valued and auctioned as it was worth far more than the figure he was asking, I heard later he took my advice.All I remember is that it was a back action hammer gun, skelp barrels which were nicely coloured and with a Jones rotary underlever. I have only seen two Erskine shotguns in reasonable condition one in a Holts sale the other on the guntrader site both asking just under the �2000 mark in both cases I think barrels were a bit thin at around 20 thou in both barrels if my memory is correct.

After I posted this article, someone gave me a nice brochure by James Erskine's son which shows some neat information:

Picked up another loading machine. This is for 12g pinfire or centerfire shotshells. It's a different style than my other one.







I think I may try actually loading up a bunch and shooting them.

Great find, AaronN!

I would love to see a loading demonstration, but Aaron's article in the first post is quite informative. Really good work.

I have been thinking about doing a video showing it. I will trying to make that happen.