doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Firing pins integral with hammers

RWTF;
Not Mr ED & certainly not inclined to defend him, but my answer to his statement was with the view point that any independant firing pin is to at least some extent "Floating", even if only while the mechanism is at full cock. His insinuation was to the extent that the hammers could be lowered on "ANY" double only by the means of snaping them which is far from reality.
There is at least one American double in which I believe the firing pins can truly be described as "Floating" & this is the Lefever. The Hammers do "Rebound", "after a fashion". What takes place is the V mainspring itself is arrested in it's expansion just prior to the hammer striking the independant firing pin. The hammer then carries on by inertia to fire the shell. After the hammer's energy is spent both it & the pin are then free to float a small amount, with no tension in either direction. I have never had a Lefever pin hang in the primer crater upon opening. On all my Lefever's except one I can let the hammers down while closing the gun, as I can also upon a British built J P Clabrough & a German built J P Sauer & Son. All of these guns have automatic safeties. The one Lefever on which I cannot lower them in closing does not. Many, Many doublegun mechanisms have been built which are totally different in operation from the "Parker Bros". I believe Mr Ed depends primarily upon Parker Advertizing for his "Expertise".

Thanks for the explanation- I see why you "rate 4-stars" that and one dollar gets you a free coffee at Speedway in "The World" outside of this website!!

I read about Dan LeFever and his greatness as a gun designer. The V-springs- were they used along with coil springs in American doubles? Uou mentioned EDM and the Parker "Advertising"? The Parker Reproductions are no longer made, heard a rumor that Remington was re-making a Parker in either 20 or 28 gauge- who/whom are EDM's "Advertisers?- possibly his book publishers?" If he is the "Parker Guru" why won't they allow him to publish on their colector's site?

In fairness to: EDM, MM, BB, J O'C- et al. NO man can know everything about anything on any one given day, whether he be a Brigadier (one star) or a General of the Army (4 star) or even Die Wiestul Fuchs- that's with a "H" not a "K"- not a typo here!!

By "floating firing pins" I mean the firing pins not attached to the hammer. They "float" between the hammer and the precussion primer and tend to be spring loaded to back them away from the shell. On the old Parker hammer guns the springs would break... but this has nothing to do with rebounding locks, which affect the position of the hammer.

In the old guns before the rebounding feature was devised the hammer (or "cock") would rest against the firing pin unless pulled back to half-cock position. Pulling the trigger at half cock would not fire the gun. Failure to half-cock prior to opening after firing could cause the firing pin to be damaged when the gun was opened, because it otherwise would be in the fired position stuck forward past the standing breech into the fired primer. Failure to half cock the loaded gun would leave the firing pin pressed by the hammer against the unfired primer in the loaded shell, which was very dangerous.

The first Parker rebounding locks were ca.1870, when the gun works licensed the John Stokes/Wesson Arms patent after Wesson gave up on shotgun making. Stokes was hired by Parker Bro's as a lock maker, and the Wesson records show Charles Parker's company paying royalties of $1.00 to $1.50, depending on grade. I am presently corresponding with the keeper of the Wesson records trying to nail down, once and for all, the cross-polination of Wesson and Parker in the early 1870s.

Quite simply, rebounding locks are engineered in such a way that opening the gun withdraws the firing pins from extending beyond the standing breech, and is applicable to both floating (independent) firing pins, like the L. C. Smith hammerless side lock and David Mc Kay Brown round action (DGJ Spring 2004 p.8), and which ever other gun makers chose the floating firing pin mode. The patent drawings I have seen in McIntosh's book for the Philadelphia Fox show nosed hammers.

I don't know about "design flaws" and am not a gun mechanic. I observe, however, that the Parker concealed-hammer gun ("hammerless") has simple one-piece nosed hammers that strike the primer directly, and, as reported by Babe Del Grego, are trouble free; other guns have a hammer that strikes a spring-loaded floating firing pin that, in turn, strikes the primer. Different strokes... I don't see where a two-step process can be any more trouble free than Parker's direct hit, but I have no information that floating firing pins present any chronic problems. David Mc Kay Brown sells an $80,000 bespoke shotgun with floating pins and I believe most if not all side locks do it this way.

Perhaps the issue of nosed hammers versus spring-loaded floating firing pins is just another red herring, like side-locks versus box-locks, that wasn't a topic of contention when the guns were in current production, but now rears it's ugly head when gun cranks spin their opinions on the Internet. Hammer guns had floating firing pins of necessity and the springs of the 19th century were not made of alloy steel, so they sometimes failed. Parker adopted an encapsulated-coil main spring for use with its hammerless in 1888 (that would still function if fractured); Parker omitted the spring-loaded firing pin altogether, by using the one-piece nosed hammer.

All Parkers post-1872 were made with the essential rebounding-hammer safety feature, which had been a $10 extra. There is an entry in the 1873 order book that "reb ham throwed in gratis." Rebounding hammers are a design feature of the lock mechanism; firing pins are an extension of the hammer, some connected (nosed), some disconnected (floating). EDM

Here's a cool example from Bernard.
Seen through Holts some time not so long ago.







--Tinker

You got that right. I know and understand Parkers; they are my focus; they work for me. When I go off topic, so to speak, it's sailing on the ocean, bow hunting for deer on my place; fly fishing; RV'ing from Key West to Camden Maine to Dead Horse Alaska in the Road Trek, duck shooting with Destry, and scaring up pheasants outside my back door on the IL/WI state line.

In other words, my dance card is full. I have never professed to know all about all the makers of fine guns. I have always disclaimed being a gun mechanic. My forte is research to the old books and periodicals that most everybody cannot or will not access. I read a lot. And I try to connect the dots.

People have written abundantly in books about the L. C. Smith, the Ithaca, the Fox, the Remington, the Winchester 21, the Lefever, and a multitude of other double guns. Magazine articles abound. But when it's all said and done, I have my Parkers, and they suit me. I can understand why some favor a Model 21, or a side-lock, be it a LCS or Purdey. I don't shoot my old lifter guns; some people like to shoot Damascus, but it's not my thing. Different strokes...

But let me tell you what I've noticed: posts like 2-piper's seem to unnecessarily attach some preface or disclaimer like, "...certainly not inclined to defend [EDM}]..."

Really, guys, do my observations about something as basic and pedestrian as nosed hammers versus another manner of firing the primer hit such raw nerves that they need "defense."

It seems to me that if one opens a hammerless shotgun that works on the Anson & Deeley principal of barrel leverage cocking, and if the gun is loaded and closed, fired or not, when opened the hammers are cocked. If one removes the shells and closes the gun it remains cocked. I have never owned a hammerless gun that didn't, as a matter of prudence, need the hammer springs released for storage. If the few people who own the various Lefevers of Uncle Dan's nine gun-making ventures have one or some hammerless guns that have a feature that lets off the hammer springs by some method other than dry firing (snap caps or not) then that hardly conflicts with anything I posted.

The parting shot that "I [2-piper] believe Mr Ed depends primarily upon Parker Advertising for his expertise" could lead a reasonable person, who has actually read my books and magazine articles, to conclude that 2-piper has not. And it's a fact that the esoteric points made by 2-piper could only see the light of day on a Blog-like Internet Forum.

Meanwhile, had 2-piper even glanced at a copy of my new book he'd see complete chapters on: Wesson Arms, N. R. Davis, Ethan Allen, Roper, Whitney, Boyd & Tyler, E.Remington-Whitmore, American Arms' "Original Fox," Lefever, Baker, Colt, and Maynard's first American 28-bore. I cover the seminal ammunition, and black powder to wood nitro. I trace the beginnings of the use of a scatter-gun in America, and how our experience was quite different than in the "mother country." I describe trap shooting from the earliest mention in 1793 in England, to its adoption as sport in America, and the advent of inanimate targets (gyro pigeons,target balls, and clay targets). organized trapshooting is traced from its inception in 1885 to the Amateur Trapshooting Assn. in 1920.

When I get modern I use Roy Eckrose's Auction Report for 2004 to show the relative merits (measured by market value) of the various makes of old-time double guns. According to Roy, 45 guns made by Lefever Arms sold for an average $777; 3 D. M. Lefever & Sons brought an average $2,323. Meanwhile, 104 Parkers averaged $4,382 (16 Trojans averaged $1,333 or $556 more than Lefevers of all grades). This is called "homework." This was not "Parker Advertising," but raw data generated by Roy Eckrose; I simply crunched the numbers that he posted to great approbation on this very website.

Now let me tell you how reference to the old advertising contributes to the body of knowledge; I found a Parker ad in the Spirit of the Times, December 20, 1879, that had buried in about 300 words of text this simple statement: "This company [Parker Bro's] has succeeded in making their own barrels..." This led me to read closely the nuances of text in old Parker catalogs, which could be read to imply that Parker was actually forging their own Damascus-type barrels starting in the late-1870s. Meanwhile I had transcribed letters to the editors of several old pulp weeklies (Shooting & Fishing and Forest & Stream) stating that Wesson, Roper, and Parker forged barrels in America. Then John Davis hit pay dirt in the American Field: Names were Named! John Blaze was Wesson's barrel maker, who, in turn, was hired by Parker Bro's. There was a letter from Dexter Parker (one of the brothers Parker) detailing the manufacture of forged barrels at the gun works.

This has led me to contact the person with the Wesson records and he confirms notations to the effect that Wesson made barrels for Roper, and sold left-over barrels to Parker, which may account for the absence of foreign proof marks on some Parker Damascus and Laminated "prehistoric" guns, made before the beginning of the known record books in summer 1874. Without the old ads and the old newspapers and books, we would have no original provenance of American-made forged steel barrels. Everything would be opinion built upon speculation and conjecture.

As to 2-piper's use of quotation marks in his gratuitous mention of my "Expertise," the slam is well taken. But for the 11,000 plus people (and counting) who have bought my books to read casually, or use as research tools, they save the quotation marks for when they quote me. EDM

Some guns with floating firing pins have springs on them, some don't. Those blanket statements will bite you virtually every time. Just off hand I can think of not a single double I currently own with integral pins, nor can I think of one which has springs around the floating pins. Retractor springs, while used on some makes of guns are definitely not a requirement for proper functioning. If the pin was designed for them, they should be present less the pins protrude too far & hang up on closing the gun or when the chamber is empty. Very few Hammerless doubles have rebounding locks & depend upon perfect timing of the cocking mechanism to prevent pin drag in opening a fired gun. Has been a while since I owned a Parker, but as I recall they are in this category. I purchased my first double shotgun in the fall of 1955, a pre WWI J Stevens 12ga. Since that time I have owned doubles having integral pins, including Parker Bros, as well as independent ones. As far as I can recall that old Stevens is the only one I ever had to replace a pin on. A Parker Trojan I had broke the top lever Spring (V). The Stevens had to have the main springs replaced (coil). They didn't break, just went soft & would not consistently fire the shells. A J P Clabrough broke the swivel which connects the V Mainspring to the tumbler in one lock (Sidelock). Repair for all of these was elementary & rather inexpensive. I would not call any of them a design flaw. In the old days I think the coil springs were more likely to go soft than the V ones were to break, but were simpler to repair. In like manner an independant pin is more apt to break but far easier to repair. There is virtually always a trade off in design, there is no perfect design, that is an absolute best in all regards. Many tend to forget this.
RWTF; I am in total agreement, All make mistakes. It's how they handle them that is more important to me.
I once read an article by an author whom I considered extremely knowledgable on muzzleloaders. He had a regular article in a peridocal publication & wrote some very useful stuff. He made one major error though. He advised when taking a percussion gun hunting "Not" to set the lock on half cock as according to him it was possible for a blow to the hammer to break the sear & for the fall of the hammer to still fire the gun. He recommended to carry the gun with the hammer down on the cap instead. What he seemed to completely forget is that it takes less force on a hammer to fire a cap than to break a sear (I tried it). Any blow sufficient to break a sear & fire the gun would have fired it anyway. No gun should ever be carried with the hammers resting on the pins/caps. Eds comments on this in his last post are Spot On & believing in giving credit were credit is Due I Applaud him for those statements. Anyone using an early gun without rebounding locks should fully understand this & be on double watch. This includes both Muzzle loading & Breech loading guns.

Fox guns which remain off safe because the safety pushrod has been removed will also let down their hammers slowly upon pulling both triggers after opening and cocking. The force of hammer springs relaxing to let the hammers down allows the hammer toes to apply pressure to the cocking rods and Viola--"self-closer". Stored energy does not care that the normal operation of the mech is reversed. Both of my Lefevers do so with the safety held to the rear and triggers pulled.

Ed, some of us have been trying to feed you humble pie and peanut butter for several days and it ain't working so what the heck, I guess your opinions here are as good as anyone's as they're free for the taking or leaving just like anyone's.

jack

Ed;
Yes I can & "DO" read. I have been reading about shotguns as well as other mechanical articles for 50+years, starting mainly in my teens. I did read your last book, but have not read the latest. I likely won't unless it should turn up at the local library, Parkers not being my main interest. I do own both of Mr Elliot's editions on the Lefever. Collector prices for collector items are of course totally unrelated to value, other than the old Saying "Anything is Worth What you can Sell it for". Witness the empty Ithaca oil can I saw sell a while back for over $600.00. Now that most certainly does not mean it is worth 120 times a $5.00 (full) can of Starrett oil designed for use on precision tools, including guns, now does it. The fact that when I bought my first Lefever some 40 yrs ago I was able to buy an FE grade for a little less than I would have expected to pay for an equivelent condition extractor Trojan was certainly a Bonus to me, not a detriment. The price when new of the FE was I think about the equal of a Parker GHE. By your evaluation methods an early Mickey Mouse watch is a better timekeeper than many 17/19/even 21 jewel precision made watches. I have nothing per-se against the Parker shotgun, can not really think of anything I ever spoke derogatory about them, I have just settled on the Lefever as my personal favorite. It is noted Lefever preceded Parker Bros with a Hammerless, with an Ejector, with a Single Trigger etc. It could be argued that had it not been for pioneers such as W H Baker, Alexander Brown, Dan Lefever etal Parker may well have continued to build a lifter action hammer gun until he went out of buisness. In all fairness I cannot recall ever seeing a Parker, even the Trojan, which I thought had any poor workmanship in it. The worst I have seen in that regard for a supposed quality gun was an A grade Syracuse Arms Co ejector 20ga I once bought. I have owned a variety of makes over the years to make comparsions.

Thank you Ed for the clarification. I enjoyed your last paragraph to Mr. Two-Pipes- your work, research and dedication to the Parker Gun should be quoted, and often. Gough Thomas, Sir. Berrard, Charles Askins, Paul A. Curtis, Ned Crossman, Peter Johnson, Larry Baer and you, sir. I see I shall have to put your book "The Old Reliable" on my Xmas wish list. Fortunately, one of my daughters is a Mgr. for Barnes and Noble.

As a life-long Yankee Fan, although the "Yankee Clipper" was and will always be my Number one Bronx Bomber, hard to not admire George Herman Ruth- "The Bambino" AKA "The Babe". Is the Mr. DelGrego Jr. you mentioned also a Yankee Fan? Living in Ilion, it would seem logical..

You don't even need to dignify some of the "numbnutted critics" on this, and possibly, other websites. Sort of what the Chinks call the "Ying and Yang" of life.

We have Parker experts like you and 8-Bore and Deano R. on the one side of the "Bell curve" and complete azz-holes like Homely Joe from TN and the El Supremo of them all, Lowell G. from the trailer park in East Bumblebuck Hills, CA. Maybe he shoots quail with "Da Ahrnoold-Jawohl?"" What a jerk. Keep up the great work, Parker research is a mantra, a never ending quest, and I am glad you are our "Point Man' herein. RWTF