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

Well, that Smith gun prompted me to pull out my copy of The British Shotgun Volume One. The action was patented in December 1863 so it fits in nicely with the other snap-action inventions being covered here. It looks near-identical to Needham's action, but the locking mechanism is different. It even has the captive hinge-pin barrel removal mechanism. The gun is in centre-fire and apparently not a conversion, so it must be an early centre-fire. Remarkable gun.

Please forgive my long-windedness today, but sometimes a single gun can demonstrate several advances and carry a lot of history. Today's bar-in-wood gun exemplifies the start of the Westley Richards "doll's head" and the "crab joint," and it is an uncommon variation.

Many double guns have a top rib/barrel extension such as a "doll's head" or a tab through which a Greener-type crossbolt extends. The idea of fastening the barrels to the action at that point, at the highest part of the breech face, was started by Westley Richards, and it was done to address a weakness inherent in all hinge-action guns. Ultimately the top extension provided many makers with a second or third point of attachment, but Westley Richards considered the single rib/barrel extension sufficient, and made many guns on that principle alone.

Some names become synonymous with their inventions. In the case of Westley Richards, one of the great names in Birmingham gunmaking, both terms "doll's head" and "crab joint" come to mind. The peculiar rounded tab extending from the barrels into the top of the breech has been copied by many makers, including several American ones. The elaborate wood-covered jointing indeed bring to mind a crustacean appendage -- well, I can't think of anyone else who went to such trouble. The amount of skill required to shape metal and wood to these respective designs is beyond my understanding -- it is uncommonly fine work. The best-known and most commonly encountered bar-in-wood guns carry the name Westley Richards, as the firm started the making of bar-in-wood guns and made these a mainstay of their offerings for a long time. The pivoting top lever, the one our thumbs know how to use seemingly without thinking, appeared on Westley Richards snap-action guns in 1864, one year before the more famous W. M. Scott top-lever. Like many gun inventions, the side-swinging top-lever was an improvement on an earlier system that is rarely seen today, the pull-lever.

One of the reasons that I've studied the pinfire is that so many of the inventions, designs and ideas found on the fantastic hammerless Edwardian guns of the Golden Age of shotgunning started there. Breech-loading was new, exciting, and radical. Clever inventions abounded, and makers fought for custom through innovation and meticulous attention to detail. What makes collecting the earliest breech-loaders a challenge is that there were relatively so few of them. A gun mechanism might have been patented in, say, 1862, but only a handful would have been made in that year. Popularity would be gradual and in the meantime the maker might have come up with a better idea, and then even fewer guns might be made with the earlier design. This makes the early designs hard to come by, especially when a maker supplants his own ideas with better ones.

The first Westley Richards doll's head and crab-joint gun did have a top lever, but it did not pivot -- it was pulled straight back with the thumb. While this was great news for left-handers, there is only so much leverage that can be applied in this way against a strong spring, and it is no surprise that Westley Richards decided that a laterally pivoting lever did the same job with less effort. The pull-lever was given the patent number 2506 in September 1862, and the lateral lever was given patent number 2623 in October 1864. There could not have been many pull-lever guns made in this short time, and famously one was built in 1863 for HRH Prince Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, for his 22nd birthday.

The Prince of Wales enjoyed his shooting. The year before in 1862 Sandringham and close to 8,000 acres of land were purchased for him and his fiançee, Princess Alexandra of Denmark, by his mother and father, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. With his new Westley Richards pull-lever pinfire, he could shoot to his heart's content and he developed the Sandringham Estate as one of the finest shooting grounds in Britain. Later, and as Edward VII, he no doubt had many fine guns to choose from, but I'm sure he remained fond of his birthday gun. If you do have a copy of The British Shotgun Volume One, there is a photo of the Prince with his WR (page 135 in my copy).

The doll's head fastener was actually a clever solution to a problem. One of the weaknesses of the hinge action is made worse by the distance between the hinge and the attachment point. When a gun is fired the barrels try to flex downward, acting as a first-class lever against the action bar. The closer the attachment point to the hinge, the stronger the forces working against the action bar. With enough shooting, the junction between the action bar and breech face is apt to crack or fail. Two solutions eventually reduced this problem. The first was to increase the distance as much as possible between the attachment point and the hinge -- and the doll's head did just that. The second, appearing in most guns some time later, required leaving a slight curve or radius where the action bar meets the breech face, as a curved surface, even a very small one, is stronger than a right-angle joint at withstanding opposing forces (this is a good time to take out a magnifying glass and look at your guns). While the doll's head provides the only point of attachment in the early Westley Richards guns, other makers often combined the doll's head with an under-bolt or other attachment for extra strength. Considering we're talking about guns made with hand tools, the craftsmanship required to shape and fit a Westley Richards doll's head is astounding.

The crab joint must push the limits of the stock-maker. Both the action portion and the fore-end have to be shaped to fit together in the least ungainly way. I admit the Westley Richards style is not my favourite bar-in-wood jointing, aesthetically speaking, but I still marvel at the design and the skill required.

As to the story of the business, William Westley Richards was born in 1788, son of Theophilus Richards, another gun maker. He started his business in Birmingham in 1812, and from 1826 or so he operated from a second address, 170 Bond St. in London (more on that in a future post). William Westley's son, Westley Richards, took over the business in 1840 at the age of 26. He was a great inventor, obtaining a number of varied patents (such as the hinged breech block "monkey tail" carbine). In 1859 the business was re-named Westley Richards & Co.. Westley Richards retired from the business in 1872 due to ill health, and died in 1897 at the age of 83. Westley Richards & Co. is still in business today.

Gun number 10652 is a 12-bore, made in 1865. Unlike so many Westley Richards pinfires, it is still in its original form and was never converted to centre-fire. It has 30" Birmingham-proofed damascus barrels signed by Westley Richards, and carry the London address on the rib. It has the pull-top-lever snap-action with doll's head fastening system (patent No. 2506 of 1862). The breech face is stamped "WESTLEY RICHARDS PATENT 564," indicating it is the 564th gun built on this patent, perhaps amongst the last of this type. As Westley Richards had already started building lateral top-lever guns by this point, the client must have preferred the pull-lever instead. The bar-action locks are signed "Westley Richards," fitted to a bar-in-wood stock with the "crab joint." The hammers are flat-sided, with dolphin-shaped noses. The silver stock escutcheon has a distinctive family crest (unicorn's head erased, horned and crined) and initials "CGS", but I have yet to trace it back to the owner. The gun weighs a tidy 6 lb 12 oz, and the bores are still mirror clean. It is still in its original leather-covered case with label, cleaning rod, and original key.