doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Syracuse Arms?

I had these pics here and thought I'd share. This is a Hollenbeck D grade with original monte carlo. Paul

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wow

Ross, you're going to need a new barn with your aquisition rate.
The engraving is sparse on the gun, nothing like the later guns like your 16. Now I remember that gun, perhaps I was just trying to put it out of my mind. The engraving is quality though.
For kicks, I laid out a Philly Fox 16 (6 lbs/28")next to this early H/SAC, the frame length is nearly identical, the width is close. The wrist is actually thinner on my early Hollenbecks. The weight is in the tubes, although struck well and comparative to English guns.
Thanks Tom for the added info, when I promised pics, I meant you as well. I do have a question for you. Do you find the 'star/flag' pattern common on most of the damascus guns? Just wondering as I have two examples, a 12 and a 16, yet I'm thinking that the serials are @25K apart.
Please do me a favor and send a blank email, as I don't have yours Ross, and I have lost Tom's.... to sacclub at comcast dot net.

Just let me add... and NOTHING like Hammerback's gun... is this yours? Just curious of the general serial number? Would you care to share a few more pics? Please see the post above as to my email address. I've been trying to link some additional engravers to the company, or at least prove/disprove the time window of known engravers.

RR, my email.

ross@berck.org

Ross: I had no way to measure chokes on the prototype SAC, but the barrels measure 27"; based on my visual examination, I would bet my meager SAC collection that these barrels have been amputated at least 3". Otherwise, the gun remains in fine condition with some remaining case colors and relatively strong nitre blue finish on the trigger plate. The barrels on this gun are "one of a kind"; the lug, lug face, and rib extension are different from any other production SAC gun I have ever observed; so it is extremebly remote that a replacement set would be available. The engraving and coverage on this particular example is not to the same quality and quantity as Paul's Grade D; but other features on the gun make it extremely intereting to knucklehead SAC collectors like me.

R.R.: My email is thomas.archer@charter.net; and I sent some information to Ross to forward to you. The barrel steel on my D2
features a beautiful chain pattern Damascus. I have no idea what barrel steel may be on your D2; but what I am thinking you refer to as the "star/flag" Damascus pattern is the barral steel Syracuse used on all their Grade 2 and Grade 3 guns. On later guns SAC roll-stamped their moniker "Improved Damascus" to ID the pattern; but early Grade 2 and 3 guns were not marked as to barrel steel. I have obserbed an almost identical pattern on Grade 3 and 4 Ithaca Flues model guns identified in period Ithaca catalogs as "American Flag Damascus".
As to the Fox and SAC frame sizes, Hollenbeck may/may not have had a direct association with Ansley Fox (Researcher can help me out here?); but Hollenbeck and G.A. Horne (a SAC gun superintendent) certainly had a major (and Horne a direct) influence on the development of the "Finest Gun in the World". The Fox gun utilizes Hollenbeck's one-piece cocking rod, hammer, firing pin unit; cocked by a sliding plate on the barrel lug (the sliding cocking plate was placed into SAC production in late 1903 by Horne, but Horne's idea to utilize this sliding cocking plate feature was actually a modification of one of Hollenbeck's earlier patents). The first Fox ejector guns also featured an adaptation of the SAC ejector mechanism originally patented by G.A. Horne and used on SAC guns from 1896 thru the end of SAC production (G.A. Horne worked for Fox after leaving Syracuse Arms). The Fox gun design was completed by the adaptation of the rotary locking bolt used on the LC Smith gun. So the bottom line was that Ansley's gun seemed void of any real innovation; he instead used existing and tested ideas that, with some ingenious minor modifications, created an excellent double gun. These comments are not intented to knock the excellence of the Fox gun; but are instead pointed out to illustrate that the Fox gun may never have existed without the genius of Hollenbeck and Horne (who, unlike Ansley Fox, are virtually unknown except to those who collect the little-known American classics).
Regards

Actually, all the cocking/lock features of the Ansley H. Fox gun were in his Patent No. 563,153 granted June 30, 1896. That was the design used on his gun made in 1898 and 99 by the Fox Gun Co., Balto., MD., U.S.A., a Maryland corporation. In that gun the cocking piece was a spring-loaded pin through the barrel lug instead of the sliding plate on the bottom of the lug as used in Philadelphia. As Ansley matured in his designs he moved from the V-springs of his Baltimore gun to coil main springs as well as to drive the rotary bolt he pilfered from A.T. Brown. Actually the A.H. Fox Gun Co.'s A.H. Fox & G.A. Horne ejectors gave a lot of problems with a delicate sear, and were replaced in 1911 with the F.T. Russell designed ejectors.

In early 1900 Ansley joined up as a professional shooter for Winchester, leaving his partners in Baltimore to reorganize as Baltimore Arms Co. and reincorporate under the laws of West Virginia. They then brought in Frank Hollenbeck and built a gun of his design with Frank's 5/8 inch wide barrel lug and sears pivoted from above as both Lefever and Tobin used.

Dave, I realize that Ansley Fox got his own patents to build his Fox gun (and I am specifically referring to the AH Fox Gun, the other models are primarily known only to the most advanced collectors such as yourself); but, in my humble opinion, the patents he received for his lock mechanism was a modification of Hollenbeck's original idea, just as the sliding cocking plate on the barrel lug was a modification of Horne's patent. Please note that I did acknowledge Fox's modifications were ingenious; and that the finished result created an excellent gun (I also noted Horne's ejector patent was used only on the earliest Fox ejector guns). However, if my theory/s is incorrect, I bow to your superior knowledge.

Thanks for the additional information guys. For the most part, I was trying to relate the small size of the frame to others for comparison. It has me very excited to find a "10" Hollenbeck SAC. I know what my odds are of seeing any SAC, how about a pre#5k '10'?
My question about the damascus was indeed about related companies including Ithaca, Remington, and possibly, Lefever.
Yes, I knew that I had seen that gun before. I went back and looked, from the dogs and birds, I would lean towards a different artist.
In my notes, I have a #28K 16 listed as an oddity, I believe it was a late first model. FWIW, I found a 16 gr.2 in the high #25K range that is also a first model. Just curious if you've seen anything higher than the #37K gun yet? I did find a #37K gun, but about 600 lower.
Thanks for the chat and the interest.

The idea of a lip, moveable or fixed, on the barrel lug to pickup the extended toes of the hammers and cock the gun predates either Hollenbeck or Fox with the W.W. Greener "Facil Princeps", which was a way around the leverage of the forearm cocking the A&D locks. Greener won his argument in three successive British Courts up to the House of Lords! It is all kind of a "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" argument as I see it.

The rest of the Fox lock is pure A&D, either V-spring driven in Baltimore or coil-spring driven in Philadelphia.