doublegunshop.com - home Forums Thread Like Summary - Let’s see your hammers....

This is the most beautiful and graceful hammer I have ever seen. From a Williams & Powell of Liverpool about 1872. Try to imagine these identical twins were carved out of a block of steel or a rough forging by a craftsman without blueprints, only his lifetime skills, saws, files, and chisels. And an incredible knowledge of the Golden Mean and Rococo scroll.

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28 gauge

Here’s a Pape 10 bore from around 1873:

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This is a repeat from the pinfire game gun thread (have a look, if you haven't seen it), but it is a good look at a bevy of hammers from the late 1850s to the late 1860s... Remarkable what can be done with metal files and talent.








1. Barnett
2. Birkett & Allan
3. The Breech Loading Armoury Company (Limited)
4. John Blanch
5. John Blissett
6. Boss & Co.
7. Joseph Braddell & Son
8. Dougall
9. Cogswell & Harrison
10. James Bott
11. James Erskine
12. Boss & Co.
13. Benjamin Woodward & Sons
14. Masu Brothers
15. Henry Adkin
16. John Blissett
17. George Fuller
18. Frederick Gates
19. W. W. Greener
20. Hambling
21. Harris Holland
22. Harris Holland
23. John William Hunt
24. Jeffrey
25. Joseph Lang
26. Masu Brothers
27. William Moore
28. Charles Frederick Niebour
29. Parker, Field & Sons
30. Edward Paton
31. William Powell
32. Fedele Primavesi
33. Schofield, Goodman & Sons
34. W & C Scott & Son
35. Hugh Snowie
36. Thomas Julian Watkins
37. Robert Watmough
38. Philip Webley & Son
39. Westley Richards
40. Westley Richards
41. James Woodward
42. Unknown
43. Unknown
44. Unknown
45. Châlet, Père et Fils
46. Jean-Baptiste Rongé et Fils
47. August Gottlieb Schüler, Maximilien Nicolas Colleye action
48. Boss & Co.

Very nice, Joe.
Will add some hammers to keep it going. Next, we should sing the praise of remarkable fences.

Daryl, your Tonks looks very similar to a WC 'Scott Victoria grade that I have.

Posted for Stan(ton) Hillis:

From an America San Giorgio. Nothing cast here, just fabulous sculpting with hand tools and an artists eye. A bit of Gothic design here? Reminds me a bit of gargoyles.

Hard to find Wilkes Barre.

The S shape of hammers might be a carry-over from the friction flintlock hammer, with its circular arc to scrape flint against steel; the percussion hammer appears to have been designed to hit an angled nipple square on with the most force; the pinfire hammer had to perform an awkward arc to drive a pin downward; and the centrefire hammer was more of a return to the angled hit of the percussion nipple, with a striker instead. Noseless hammers could hit a striker more in line with the barrel which, while sufficient for the task, might not deliver as hard a blow as the slightly longer arc of the angled striker? A physicist and mathematician might provide a better answer.

One thing, the tighter S shape, angled thumb pieces, and lower positioning of the tumbler vis-à-vis the line of the barrel on later hammerguns means that when the hammers are fully cocked, they are out of the line of sight. The other extreme are pinfire hammers which, when cocked, offer a sight picture resembling rugby goal posts!

One thing that is remarkable on so many of the centrefire hammers pictured above is the retention, though highly stylized, of the percussion-era 'cap guards' on the hammer noses designed to keep flying bits of copper cap away from the shooter, a good example of skeuomorphism.

As posts without pictures are dull, here are Lancaster early centrefire hammers of the noseless variety, dated 1858.