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I have been collecting serial numbers for both hammer and hammerless Syracuse L.C. Smiths for over a decade, most with pictures. I was very fortunate to get this one serial number 16000 and is the first hammerless one made in late August 1886. The unique thing about this one is that it has a sear spring and I would like to know from any of our readers if they have an early Syracuse hammerless gun that also has a sear spring. I have a few reprint catalogs and in one it tells that the sear spring was done away with and I am trying to establish an idea when this happened.
I have never taken the lock apart but you can see where the sear rests in the notch in the hammer.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/6YlKpRV.jpg?1[/img]
David Williamson's picture




PLUS I have added a later model


https://www.gunpartscorp.com/products/922420
Does not the lower limb of the Main Spring serve as the Sear Spring on the 2nd gun pictured? I think the key word here is the first type has a separate sear spring while the 2nd type uses one leg of the mainspring.
Both though Have Sear Springs, the sear would not engage without a spring.

Lefevers with in-frame ejectors use the upper limb of the < shaped mainspring to power the ejectors. It would be totally incorrect to say they have no ejector springs.
Skeettx thanks for the postings, for some reason mine would not show the image. I tried a few times and it just came up with the url.

Miller you are correct, the mainspring in the first photo is what powers the hammer, the sear spring is the one that lets the sear cock in the notch of the hammer.
sometime in 1887-88 they reconfigured their locks and did away with the separate sear spring. I'm trying to figure out when that time period is if someone has the same type of lock and gives me the serial number.

The first type of ejectors used on an L.C. Smith also used the mainspring as a way to eject.
David
I took your string and removed the ?1 and that did the trick
Mike
When the changes occurred I can not help you with.

I admire the doublegun for it's mechanisms as much or more so than the Maker, grade, or condition. What I see as the major difference in these two locks is not so much how the sear is sprung, but the configuration of the sear itself. One being a hanging sear, the latter a straight lever. The leverage at the engagement point on the hammers changed greatly. The upper plate is from a Regular frame, the lower a FW frame. Every part of these two locks is different.

John
John, I did not add the lower picture, Mike, skeettx did. He showed it just for comparison.

All Syracuse hammerless and all Fulton hammerless up until 1907 were on a Regular frame.
The comparison still shows what the lock formation was when the change did occur. An 1888 catalog refers to just having one spring, a mainspring and dispensing of a sear spring.
This feature took place earlier and a guess would be sometime in early 1887.
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