doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Relative strength of action in Purdey Self Opener

What if you lived in Australia ?
The land down under.
O.M

I acquired my first double 62 years ago & haven't been without one since. Like Stan I can't recall ever having the need to open one upside down. "IF" in fact that spring had the force to flick them barrels up to open it with the gun upside down I think you would find it extremely hard to close. While my experience in actually handling & Closing a Purdey has been limited to exactly 1 I found it remarkedly smooth & easy to close (right side Up). I should have bought that one but at the time just didn't think i could afford it.

1897 was a good vintage...that�s when mine was first delivered, too. Fingers crossed, I�ve had no trouble in 4 years of custodianship. I feed it a steady diet of low pressure loads.

I had a 10 Purdey that had sleeved barrels and was reproofed for 4 ton...gauge mates and 12 ga. target ammo loosened the action in short order.

It was probably loose when you bought it.

Definitely loose when he stuck his "friend" with it.

Best,
Ted

Upside down, you're asking the upper arm of the mainspring to do alot in pushing the self-opener foot with enough force to tilt the muzzle of the bbls upward.

I don't think they had Gang'sta Style Shooting in mind when they designed the system.
Maybe if the bbls were cut to 12" or so, it might be able to flip them up. Less leverage working against the mechanism that way.
The J. Purdey Auto & Burglar Model self-opener. Just the ticket for those tight situations

Enjoy it as it is. Better to be upright and still shooting!

Good Lord. Purdey, nor Mr. Beesley ever intended the gun to be opened upside down for any reason...but the mechanism did have to open, cock and eject all in the same motion and to do that...it had to be able to open forcefully, so forcefully that the gun could do it all even if turned upside down. They were trying to market the gun as the only true self opener at the time and the gun functioning correctly upside down was a showmanship & marketing sort of thing. I bet a few of us have watches that are water resistant to 50m or deeper.....not that any of you goofs are EVER going to test that out anytime soon either. :-)

Most likely an 'assisted opener' rather than a 'self opener'. Lagopus�..

This is, apparently, a Purdey 'Spring Opener'. I am tempted to turn my Atkin 'spring opener' upside down and see if the mainspring can lift the barrels. I doubt it. If it could do so it would be a real bear to close the gun and these guns are pretty easy to close.