doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com History of early grip safety

Grip safeties occasionally turn up on early pin-fire game guns, and on conversions from percussion. There appear to be several patents involved.

Here is a Harris Holland 12-bore, no. 824:



A Hugh Snowie 14-bore, no. 3277:



A 16-bore conversion to pin-fire from percussion, unsigned:




And here is an unusual variation on the grip-safety idea, on a 16-bore pin-fire signed Robert Marrison of Norwich, no. 2281, with an action by Jean Louis Mathieu Godin of Herstal, Belgium, itself a copy of Beatus Beringer's peculiar underlever action. The safety is a small stud protruding behind the hammers, and the triggers cannot be pulled if the underlever is not correctly in place and the stud is correspondingly depressed: