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One could argue that while Westley Richards guns were Birmingham made, many carried the 170 Bond Street London address, as in the case of these two examples. Unlike other and later uses of the doll's head by gunmakers after the patent expiry, these two Westley Richards guns have ONLY a doll's head attachment, no underbolt or other method, as the fastening system. One of the many believed flaws of the early breech-loaders was that the under-bolting systems used to that point were insufficient to keep the barrels from rotating on the hinge when fired, lifting the barrels at the breech and pushing the muzzles downward, thus making them shoot lower than the point of aim. The Dougall Lockfast (1860) used raised bosses on the standing breech fitted to the barrels to keep the barrels from moving upon firing, and was the first design to address this perceived 'problem,' to much acclaim at the time. The Westley Richards doll's head was one of the first attempts to have a snap-action that locked the barrels at the breech-face, or something close to it. A well-fitted doll's head was sufficient in and of itself.

Patent No. 2506 of 1862:


Patent No. 2623 of 1864, on a pin-fire conversion: