I have an 1872 W.R. Pape with an unusual extractor mechanism. A round post at the bottom of the extractor slides into a groove below the doll's head. The effect is that the extractor pulls the shells out rather than pushes them out as with the usual extractor. Has anyone seen this before? The water table is noted "Pape patent".

Here is a photo of the extractor:

And a photo of the round slot the extractor "pull post" slides into:



Do other guns have this system?

Is it a thumb lever with Pape's self retracting strikers ? If so I have one of its brothers .I also have the remains of one in 16 bore that has had the action blown into several pieces in proof .

It has a thumb lever opener under the receiver. What should I look for to deter ermine if it has self-retracting strikers? Yours has the same mechanism for pulling the extractor?

This sounds dumb, but Id look for no sign of the firing pins with the gun fired n open,held stock vertical, n no marks on the bottom of the ejector, where the pins often mark that area..???
Or am I way off here?....won't be the first time, lol
cheers
franc

There should be a direct mechanical link between hammer and firing pin such that when the hammer is pulled from fired to half cock the firing pin is mechanically retracted. I had a Griffiths with this arrangement and it worked fine. BTW, that is a very logical mechanism for extraction. Thanks for sharing!!

DDA

My firing pins do not mechanically retract. They need the help of gravity holding the stock vertical. I am curious about whether other Pape owners of this period and type of gun have mechanical retractors. If so, I may have mine checked out by a gunsmith for a possible repair.

Your gun No 1254 is mine is No 2183 which make them both 1873 according to my numbers which I got from someone who was researching Pape history and had some brief meeting with a Miss Pape and elderly lady and the last surviving descendent of WR Pape . This did not come to any conclusion as Miss Pape would only communicate with any enquiry about the firm through her solicitors . The 16 bore I mentioned that blew in proof would have been built in 1888 so they were being made for a period of years although this has more conventional cammed extractors . Not being far From Newcastle I see a lot of Pape guns and have met a Mr Pape who's great Grandfather was one of WR's brothers but no connection to the firm .
As a matter of interest I have seen a version of the Thumb lever action that had been modified with an extended lever that came under the trigger guard looking more like the normal rotating under lever screw grip with which we are more familiar .

The retracting strikers mentioned connected to a grove in the back or inside of the hammer so as when the hammers were pulled onto half cock the strikers were withdrawn [ non rebounding locks ]. They were quite complicated to make , this I do know as I made a pair for the gum I have so safe to assume that the connector has either broken off or that the strikers have been replaced with non connected strikers .

Gunman,

Thanks very much for the explanation of the retracting strikers. My Pape is 2145. I am trying to find out who did the research for the former owner, but the research appears to be based on Pape records ("ledgers") and dates the original sale of the gun as November 18, 1872. I do not know where these records (apparently auctioned off some time ago) are located or who may have access to them.

Does anyone have a drawing or photo of the mechanical extractor system on this type of Pape with non-rebounding hammers? The mechanical retractors on mine no longer work (I need help from gravity) and I am wondering whether it would be a big deal for a gunsmith to get them working again. Any ideas? Any gunsmiths here in the U.S. that you think are specially good at working on Papes?

Your firing pins are not self-retracting. There is no mechanism there to do this.
The pins used to be pushed back by the small carved out loops in the extractor face as the gun was broken open.
This operation may be made good again or not.

Hard to see but it looks like there is a grove on the inside of the hammer .On the striker there was an extension with a peg that located in the grove .Mine was trial and error and took a lot of bad language to get it right as I had no pattern to copy .It is no wonder that Pape abandoned the idea as it dose have IMHO built in complications and weakness .
As to drawings I would doubt if there are any in existence and I would hazard a guess that the originals were little more than a sketch.

Is this helpful ? 1870 Patent

Thanks very much, Daryl. I am not at all mechanical, but the text talks about the arm (B) preventing the firing pin from moving forward. It does not talk about the arm moving the firing pin back into the breach face. Why couldn't the same arm (B) do both functions, retracting and then blocking? Am I reading the text right?

I do not think that this is the same as the gun Rich shows ,only way to be sure is to take the locks out and look .
There were hundreds of patents taken out many of which were never use or used in very small numbers some which never really worked or only provisional patents were taken so it became public property after 3 years so no need to have outlandish mechanisms to do a simple job as there were better ideas to use .
Long story but I had a gun which I am convinced was prototype as I have never seen anything quite like it nor had several other people all experience gunsmiths . It appeared to have been modified several times since it was made [I guess about 1880/85] so it was hard to see what was original and what was not .
In this Pape's case I am guessing that the strikers have been modified or replaced because of problems/weakness with original design .

Thanks to Gunman, Daryl and Justin for the observations and experience. I appreciate these responses. I think I will stop worrying about it and just rely on gravity to get the firing pins back in the breach face! Many thanks.

Gunman, here's a pic of the strikers that were made as extras for Richard's Pape. Any thought you may have would be appreciated.

Mr Brewster,
You will find this URL enlightening, it shows your shotgun in the serial range built in 1873 or 1874. See :-
http://www.wrpape.co.uk/4.html
The records are held by Bagnall and Kirkwood 28 Grey Street, Newcastle upon Tyne. Bagnall & Kirkwood both worked in Pape's work and retail shop just a couple of hundred yards from the current location of the present retail shop. A potted history of the company is also to be found on the same URL. The Pape records have not, as far as I aware ever been sold. I saw them many times during the 1960's and 70's when I frequented the shop on a regular basis. If you Google the name you will find other information of the current shop and their lines stocked. Sadly English made shotguns are not amongst them unless they are guns made years ago.
Harry Eales.

Dear Mr. Eales,
I exchanged emails with Claire Guthrie of Bagnall & Kirkwood in February. Sadly, she told me that the W.R. Pape records are not owned by B&K and were auctioned off "ages ago". Unfortunately, the bidding was very steep and B&K was not the winning bidder. They do not know where they are now. It would be a great help for collectors to have access to this resource. For a reasonable fee the custodian could provide the relevant information for a particular gun.

Daryl , it is as I thought , the extensions at the back of the strikers are broken . The one nearest the turn screw is about the right length but would have had a stud on it facing out ward from the lock that engaged in the inside face of the hammer . This pulled the striker back when the hammer was cocked . The grove was cut in such a way that it did not rely on the connection to drive the striker fully forward on firing and it is the hammer that actually hits the striker at the point of detonation. I think that due to wear or not perfect fitting caused the hammer to put excess pressure on the connecting piece that caused it to break ,possibly combined with metal fatigue on a very small area of stress .
Hope that makes sense to you .As you can no doubt see that they would be a pain to make and get right is almost certainly why thy have not been replaced

Gunman was right in his comment a couple of days ago. There is a groove on the inside of the hammers on my Pape which appears to have something to do with the retracting system. Here is a photo which clearly shows the groove on the right hammer:

Thanks to Gunman and Daryl and everyone for helping to put the puzzle together. From all comments received it sounds as if I should just rely on gravity and not try to restore the mechanical retractors!

Thanks Rich . Nice to know I can be right about something now and again.

Gunman and Daryl, Here is a footnote very consistent with your comments. Looking closely at the "spare" strikers in my case, I don't think they are spares at all, but rather the originals likely replaced by strikers without the mechanical extractor elements. A closeup photo shows that the two strikers have three elements: the firing pin itself, a post that exends in the opposite direction to the firing pin but parallel to it and a rounded horizontal extension that is perpendicular to the firing pin. Here is a closeup of both pins together showing that the post on the right striker is broken and shorter than the other, leading me to think that these were the replaced originals after the system broke down. In the next post I will try to get a decent photo of the striker from another angle showing the rounded horizontal element. Is this the part of the system that slid in the groove?

Here is a photo of one of the strikers held in my needle nose pliers so that you can see the rounded horizontal arm that extends at a right angle to the striker or firing pin:

Rich, thanks. Makes sense that those are the original strikers. Such an interesting gun.

How would these work?

I am mechanically challenged, but as I see it, pulling the hammer back to half cock would move the horizontal piece in the slide on the inside of the hammer, which would in turn pull the firing pin/striker back below the breach face. One of those very many experiments in the early years of breach loading shotguns, some of which had staying power and some didn't, but all interesting.

What I don't understand is in what way was the groove cut so that the force of the hammers striking the pins didn't pop the whole thing off the gun

If you look at the photo of the inside of the hammers you will see that the grove larger at the top ,as the hammer falls the striker will be pushed forward by the connecting bar , when it reaches a certain point the hammer will come directly in contact with the back of the striker the connector being in the relieved space so it is in effect no longer connected .
On re-cocking as the hammer is pulled back the connecting stud which appears to be missing in the pictures will once again engage and pull the striker back .
This was abandoned on later guns with re-bounding locks as it was not needed . It was idea that had IMO built in obsolescence due to its complexity and potential weaknesses as shown in every example I have seen [ not that's many ] by the fact that the connectors are broken or have been removed .

Thank you,gunman

Just by chance I was looking at a Holts catalogue from September last year and came across a similar Pape gun .It had been reproofed and also claimed to have re-bounding hammers which suggests a later modification .
The provenance stated that the gun 1818 was delivered in July1870 as No1 of a pair and that the gun was supplied to Pape by the gunmaker Wilkinson .I assume that this is the Wilkinson that became Wilkinson Sword now best known for razors .