doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Advice on a Deeley & Edge forend

The Deeley and Edge forend on my 1896 Clabrough sidelock ten bore won’t come off. The lever only lifts partway and doesn’t disengage from the hook, even if I put quite a bit of pressure on it and pry the forend from the barrel gently with half a safety pin. This gun has Harrison ejectors, and when I pull the triggers I can feel the left one firing but not the right; shells are extracted but not ejected from either chamber. The ejectors were working before the forend problem occurred.

Any advice on what to try next? Thanks very much.

I would get it to a GOOD gunsmith.
Otherwise I see it ending badly.

LGF;

I would begin to disassemble the action of the gun by first removing the butt stock, trigger guard, trigger plate and locks; and then begin to work your way forward in the action to try to remove or at least loosen the cocking levers so that you can move them backward to disengage them with the fore-end ejector mechanism. Hopefully your gun has external cocking lever pivot pins in the side of the action that you can use a screwdriver or a punch pin to remove them and maybe slide the cocking levers back through the rear of the action. The pivot pin for the cocking levers likely will be within the bar of the action under the locks. Hopefully you can move the toplever to get to the breech pin to remove it so to remove buttstock.



Kind regards;
Stephen Howell

Thanks very much for that, Stephen, I'll see how far I can get.

Not having the gun in hand, but reading what you said about feeling the movement when you pulled the triggers, leads me to think that the removal or loosening of the cocking levers may allow the fore-end to be removed. It is not unusual for mechanical malfunction to cause difficult and sometimes impossible removal of a fore-end. You will seldom see a London made best quality gun with an Deeley & Edge fore-end latch. The Anson was the most preferred and most simple. European gunmakers seem to have liked the Deeley & Edge system.

While we are discussing fore-ends, the type of fore-end attachment can be a method of dating the age of a hammergun, as up until about 1874 fore-ends were attached with a cross pin through the barrel loop to hold the fore-end in place. That is one of the things I recently saw wrong on a fake Purdey island lock gun that was touted to be a late 1860's made Purdey---It had a Deeley & Edge fore-end latch. The entire gun was not a fake, but the barrels and fore-end were.

Stephen Howell

Hi Stephen, deepest apologies for the very slow reply. I was away from home for a few weeks and only now had a chance to dismantle the Clabrough.

It does indeed have cocking lever pivot pins and when I removed those the levers can be moved about half an inch to the rear. Unfortunately, that did not have any effect on the fore-end lever, which still won't move far enough to release. Of course, one can't get to the screws holding the fore-end iron to the lever assembly. I have read about splitting the fore-end wood in a case like this but very much hope there is something less drastic to try next.

Lawrence;

I sent you a PM of the name of gunmaker to send your gun to.

Stephen Howell

I'm not at all surprised that the recommended solution to this problem did not work. I submitted a Post about two weeks ago questioning how loosening the cocking levers might permit the forend to be released. For whatever reason, my Post did not appear.

The Deeley and Edge forend latch system isn't at all complicated, whether of the type where the notch on the barrel forend loop faces forward, or the slightly more complicated version where the notch on the barrel forend loop faces toward the rear. The problem was stated by the OP in his second sentence, "The lever only lifts partway and doesn’t disengage from the hook, even if I put quite a bit of pressure on it..."

I just didn't see how the cocking levers might interfere with the the forend release lever moving to the full unlatch position. It would be interesting to hear what the eventual solution is. Unless whatever is preventing the release lever from moving to full open position can somehow be dislodged, I'm guessing it will involve splitting or otherwise damaging the forend wood.

I’ve been wondering if the latch lever spring has move slightly to the side, letting the lever move until the hook contacts the edge of the spring, pinching the spring between the hook and latch frame.
Bob

Update: I followed Bushveld's advice and sent the gun to Gunter Pfrommer. He was able to get the forend off and found that the loop had come loose from the barrel, which he resoldered. Ejectors are now working, too. Turn around was fast and the cost was modest, especially considering that the gun had first been lost and damaged by USPS, which Gunter also repaired. I was very happy with his work and his communication.

That's interesting to those of us who understand that without the forend loop being attached to the barrel, it would seem not possible for the forearm to still be firmly attached to them. When forend loop solder joints fail in the field, forends fall off and get lost.

Who knows... maybe the forend iron was made from some super strong ceramic magnet material... or maybe it was a beavertail forend that was so large it had its' own gravitational field???

Sounds more likely that the forearm loop solder joint was pulled loose from the barrels while attempting to remove the forend. After that, it would be pretty easy to diagnose and repair the original problem that was preventing the opening lever from moving to the full unlatch position. Of course, the loop would also have to be resoldered.

I always enjoy when you put your lack of experience on full display Karen.

I have resoldered quite a few fore end lugs, a few of which fell completely off of the gun but the majority had become loose, but had not fallen off. Attentive gun owners often find these problems before catastrophic failure when they clean their guns after use.

Your implication that the gun was damaged by Mr. Promfer was low class, but not unexpected behavior from you.

Princess Stevie, the OP clearly stated that the forend lug had come loose from the barrel. In addition, he had been pulling and prying on it prior to sending it off to Mr. Promfer for repair.

If the lug was separated from the barrel at that point, there would have been no need to pry on the forend. It would have either fallen off or been easily pulled away with the lug still engaged in the latch.

I notice that you had no advice to offer the OP when this Thread first appeared and others were offering suggestions.... even highly questionable suggestions to somehow attempt to unlatch the forend by removing internal parts from the action.

Attentive gun owners might notice a partially separated solder joint before the lug totally fell off. But to do that would imply that they removed the forend. The Deely and Edge latch mechanism is pretty simple, but the lever must move to the full disengage position to free the forend from the lug,. If the lug was still attached to the barrels, it would not have stopped the latch lever from operating and moving to the disengage position.

I shall be eagerly awaiting for you to explain to us why the latch lever was not moving to the full open position as a result of the loose solder joint you are imagining. This should be good! I also eagerly await your explanation why you didn’t offer the benefit of your vast experience until you saw me question the obvious.

Princess Karen,
As stated earlier, fore end lugs often loosen but do not fall off in catastrophic failures. It would appear that in this instance the lug partially separated from the barrel, which changes the angles of the engagement surfaces between the lever and the lug and likely impinged upon the movement of the lever, not allowing full travel.

Seemed to me the OP was in good hands with Bushveld's advice.

If you worked on guns more and pontificated less you would be better informed.

All my best,
Steve

Princess Stevie, your improbable explanation makes zero sense, if one is actually familiar with a Deely and Edge forend fastener.

The bite or notch in the forend lug is fairly open, and it wouldn't "impinge" upon the latch even if the lug solder joint was broken loose to such an extent that it was barely hanging on. And even in that extreme example, if the solder joint was that compromised, the OP would have likely broken it completely during his initial attempts to remove it.

Pay close attention to what he said in his first Post. When troubleshooting, it is important to listen to all of the details:


I assumed from the start that the "half a safety pin" he was using as a pry tool was actually half of a wooden clothes pin, which is something often recommended to pry difficult forends loose. And even if the lug solder joint was defective, it wouldn't be able to move to such an extreme angle as to impinge on the latch mechanism... the OP clearly said it would lift "only part way" and "even if he put quite a bit of pressure on it". You had to be really hitting the bong to imagine a tiny movement of a loose lug would "impinge" upon the nose of the latch in such a way as to stop full movement, even with quite a bit of pressure on the end of lever. The mechanism of a Deely latch is not very complex, and not much movement is required to disengage the locking end of the latch from the notch or bite. The illustration below shows the lever provides good mechanical advantage.



I don't expect you to understand this, but I put this picture here for the benefit of those who actually have some mechanical aptitude. You very recently demonstrated severely poor mechanical aptitude when you insisted Daryl's mystery tool was a percussion drum removal tool... another wild swing for a strike.



I agree that Bushveld is much more knowledgable about guns than you. But I questioned his advice for removing this recalcitrant forend from the start. You may have noticed that the advice did not work, and I was not a bit surprised that it didn't work. He really dropped the ball on that one, but I attributed it to still recovering from his recent medical problem.

I'm sticking with my prior assessment of the repair, which makes a lot more sense than your imaginative but virtually impossible scenario. The latch lever would not move far enough to disengage from the bite in the lug. Removing or loosening the cocking levers as Bushveld suggested certainly wasn't going to do it either. It may have helped if the problem was that even with the latch fully disengaged, the forend iron was unable to rotate around the action knuckle. But that clearly wasn't the issue. With the mechanical interference created by a partially engaged latch, there was no way the forend was going to come off other than pulling on it hard enough to separate the lug solder joint, or alternately, splitting or otherwise damaging the wood in order to see why the latch lever was not able to disengage.

It's fortunate that the lug pulled loose before the forend wood was broken or split. A good solder repair will not be so evident or costly as repaired or replacement wood would be.

And I'm not surprised that you didn't tell us why you didn't offer any advice to the OP when this happened. I'm also not surprised that he didn't choose you to do the repairs. He probably figured that you would just farm out the job to someone who actually had some mechanical aptitude, versus a trade school know-it-all with cheap garage sale Stanley screwdrivers.

Steve, I have to confess that I have not been attentive enough to closely examine the fore end lug carefully every time I dismount the barrels but I certainly will in the future.

What causes fore end lugs to come loose? I happened to be using 10-12 Silver Gaugemate chamber inserts just before the problem arose - is there any way those caused the failure?

Thanks.

Oh my God!

Only if you were using those Gaugemate inserts as pry bars to pull the forend while it was still latched.

I was going to sarcastically say that using the wrong hinge pin grease causes forend lug solder joints to fail, but I don't want to create a panic situation like we've seen concerning small bore Ithaca frame cracking.

Solder joints fail with time. Additionally, when guns are re-joined, if attention is not given to the relationship between the fore end lug and the knuckle of the gun, increased stress can be exerted on the lug. I don't believe your gaugemates are the problem, more than likely it is just a coincidence.

LGF;

I am pleased to learn that Gunter Pfrommer repaired your gun and did it quickly.

Kind Regards;
Stephen Howell