doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Eureka Brass Shell Set- The Bridgeport Gun Impleme

Found this in an antique shop. Is this for hand loading black powder? Can anyone tell me the vintage?

Eureka Brass Shell Set. No. 159 12 ga.

The Bridgeport Gun Implement Company Bridgeport Conn.

Comprising
Loader, Cap extractor, Recapper, Shell extractor amd powder and shot measure.

These sets were made for handloading either black powder or bulk smokeless, which could be dip measured by an equal volume to black. The addition of a roll crimper made them also suitable for paper shells. I have an Eureka set in 16ga which includes the paper roll crimper. I do not know for how long they were made, neither beginning or end of production, but do know they are listed in the 1902 Sears catalog. You seem to have a few extra pieces there, than would have been in the original set. Looks as if a couple extra "Loaders" has been added. This piece served as both a funnel to aid pouring in the powder & shot charges & also assited in pushing the wads in without hanging on the case mouth, of particular importance in loading paper shells. Perhaps the set was originally bought for the brass cases & another loader having a slightly reduced neck was added to accomadate the thicker walled paper cases. A roll crimper would have likely been added at the time, but could well have become seperated over the years.

Thanks! Which one is the recapper? I am sure you are right about someone adding the extra loaders because the box is so full the cover doesn't all the way down.

the recapper is the black enameled piece which is hinged. The shell was dropped through the ring & held by the rim. The cap was placed in position by hand & then seated by the little peg on the other handle. Somewhat crude, but it worked. The knob for the wad rammer/decapper would fit either end. When ramming the wads it thus covered the decapping pin, & the hull was set in the wood block with through hole with the knob on other end of rammer for punching out the fired cap. Most early cases, even paper used a cap very simialr to a rifle cap, thus the small size pin, the battery cup primer as we know it today did not come till later.

I have a similar set, though not as complete as yours, and it came out of England about 1890ish. I load full length brass shells with GOEX 2f black powder for my 1887 J.P.Sauer double hammargun.

I, too, have a set like this. They must have sold a lot of them as the old roll crimpers show up at antique sales all the time. I do not have the wooden decapper, knob for it, base for it or the ring in the upper right of the picture. What was it (the ring which looks like brass) used for, Miller?

I load all my 2 7/8" tens with hand tools like this and easily turn out plenty production to suit me. After using my progressive MEC on regular 12's it is kind of fun to slow down and load some tens occasionally the old way.

Stan

Stan the ring was used to remove stuck cases.

I believe this was a name used by Sharps Rifle Company.

You can find these on ebay quite often.

Miller is correct. Eventually Sears produced a tool with their own name on it. I just picked one up on Ebay. The design is different from BGI, so I don't know who made it for them.

I don't know the history of BGI, but they were around for quite a while. Abby at Cornell Pubs has a few of their catalogs.
http://www.cornellpubs.com/Templates2/BGI%20c1912.htm
http://www.cornellpubs.com/Templates2/BGI%201882.htm

Pete