doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Resurrection of the Lefever

I am, indeed, the one who was a bit "off course", I'm happy to say.

Done; & with by most humble appoligies. I have no idea how I managed to read Jim's post as yours.
Jim;
I understood you were speaking of removing the entire assembly in which you would of course be right, the bbls would fall open. I just wanted to make certain everyone fully understood the reason would be because of the removal of the bolting notch, not from the DH removal.
You are absolutely correct on the Lefever safety. It is not an auto/manual but an auto/non safety. I have for years felt this was the best solution to the safety controversity. Much of our actions we do by rote/habit. With this safety simply lock it out for targets, where a safety is not really needed, & when going afield with the same gun unlock it. If used enough in both capacities one will probably at some point lose a shot at game from forgetting to push it. but this has nowhere near the possibilities of forgetting at some point to "Set" it.

There's just better waYs to get the job done. Any dollshead gun that gets off face then put back on face, no longer has the dollshead in contact as it should be.

Chuck; You old Rascal, you are just totally sidestepping the whole issue. More guns have gone "Off-Face" from frictional wear in opening & closing an improperly cared for gun than has ever been the case from plastic deformation by shooting.
Now that old "Parts" H grade I mentioned above, it came to me as follows;
All finish gone, bbls badly pitted & a crack showing in left bbl with a lifted flap, stock cracked. From all appaearences it had been "Rode Hard & Put up Wet". I bopught it years ago from an ad in GunWeek, seller said it wouldn't bolt up but all parts were present. When it arrived he had put in a note he had adjusted the hinge & had it working. Well that was a matter of Opinion.
At some point the trigger plate screw had apparently been lost & someone had come up with another & installed it, but it was too long. It projected into the frame beneath the cocking hook & prevented it coming down enough for the bbls to seat & the bolt to engage. This was most likely when the gun was taken out of service. What the seller had done was to back up the ball screw until the front of the bbls could lift enough for the breech to tip down till the bolt would start to engage with lever well right on the taper. There was of course a large gap between frame & bbl flats & the ball screw was not properly seated in the hook.
Upon examining it I saw the problem, removed the plate screw & cut off enough so it flushed with the frame & re-installed it. The bbls then dropped down on the table & with the ball screw still loose as a goose, that doll's head snugged the bbl breechs right up against the standing breech as Tight as Dicks HatBand with the lever some left of center (from bolt wear). In this position I snugged that ball screw up snug, but did not attempt to move the lever back to center as this would have pushed the doll's head back from their contact. Now here My Friend is a gun of about 100 yrs age showing much hard use & plenty of abuse but with a fully functional doll's head which (except for the bbls & with about a pint of epoxy to patch up the stock) could still give Yeomans Service & pull its share of the load in containing the stresses of firing. It was obviously, of course, properly fitted in the first place.
Ps;
Yes, personally I think a well fitted cross bolt (ala Greener) is a better solution than a doll's head, but it is noted that virtually every caveat that applies to the doll's head applies to the cross bolt as well. It is also noted that when D M Lefever left his original company in 1901 & started building the "New Lefever" he himself went with a crossbolt, using it dual purposely as the only bolting. According to his catalog he used a bolt having a dia of 5/16", which should be amply strong for its purpose.

Thanks, Jim. You're correct. I thought about that after I posted it, and it's not really a manual safe with the screw tightened; rather, like no safety at all. You're right--can work well that way on the range. One of the many adjustable features on the gun.

Miller
I think Lefevers are among the most elegant looking sxs guns. All of us are here at this site not because the side by side was the most efficient design but because we like them anyway. Don't let my critique of the dollshead mislead you into thinking otherwise

To 2-P,
I think the "auto vs manual" safety controversy is one of the VERY FEW ideas on which we respectfully disagree. But like you, I think the Lefever idea is a most brilliant solution to it. I use mine the way it was intended. I never go into the field without setting it to work automatically.
Thank you,

Given that Lefever had the brilliance to make a safety you could "turn off", why would they make guns with no safety at all? My AA is like that. I suppose somebody back then who could afford an AA was planning on shooting it at Gentleman's Clays only, but what if J.D Rockefeller invited him on a snipe hunt?

I've never owned one but I've often read that "live pigeon" guns were often made with no safety, at all. Probably at the original owner's request. Lots of single barrel trap guns were made with no safety, of course.

Some years back I saw a Lefever E, probably EE, grade 30" Krupp, straight grip 12ga with no safety. There was no visable sign of the slot having ever been cut in the top tang for one. Unfortunately some idiot had totally ruined the wood, by heavy handed sanding, rounding off every fitted corner, & after re-installing it had filled every "Large" gap with some form of wood dough/plastic wood, which wasn't evan a close color match. It was priced as if it were mint at the time, so I left it on the rack.