Just finished restoring a nice little hammergun with an unusual sliding, captive forend. The forend is released by pressing in a disc in its body and it slides forward about 1 1/2" to allow the barrels to be unhooked in the normal way. Reassembly is the usual process and one just snaps the forend back to the action knuckle. The patent is Ellis & Wilkinson's forend fastener patent no. 292 of 1877. Wilkinson was then trading as Charles Osborne & Co and Ellis was Osborne's granson.
I got thinking about Why?
I know Browning made O/Us with a captive forend and never really understood that either. It makes cleaning/drying under the forend a nuisance and doesn't seem to have any real advantage.
However, this gun is contemporary with the Deeley, Anson and a dozen other forend catch patents the use of which would have attracted a royalty payment so perhaps it was just an attempt to keep the overheads down.
It has to be said that the catch works very smoothly and makes assembly very easy, with no need to keep the forend in ones pocket!
