doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com W.R. Pape

This is the 1872ish W.R.Pape that Santa brought me.
Can't wait until the weather is good to bust some clays or etc.
Pre 1954 2 1/2 inch Nitro Proofs and bbls have been seamlessly and invisibly sleeved.
Note the thumb push lever under the action to open it

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beautiful

love that hammer shape

The hammers retract the firing pins

Very nice! I do like the Pape guns and rifles. I do wonder why he built so many using the thumb lever opener? It is nifty and fine for a walk up outing or Red stag stalking but not to handy for driven shooting. I used a 500 bpe and found it really nice shooting once my thumb stopped looking for the top lever. Great fun on the clays course!

W.R. Pape, 'The Purdey of the North'.......

I have a 16 with his thumb pat. I too like the hammers and wish they were on my gun.

Beautiful. I have the same 1872 gun (SN 2145). Like yours mine has the little round extension from the extractors which slides in a groove at the back of the slot for the doll's head, literally extracting (pulling) the spent shells, rather than pushing the extractors with rods from the front. Do your hammers have grooves on the inside of the hammer to retract the firing pins? Another Pape invention. Mine is more austere in its ornamentation. Here is a shot:

Here is a picture of the original firing pin on mine showing the rounded horizontal post extending from the firing pin which slides in a groove/track on the inside of the hammer, retracting the pin. Stallones, is this the same system you have? Is the retraction complete when the hammer is pulled back to half cock? I will post another shot which I hope shows the groove or track on the inside of the hammer.

Here I hope you can see the groove or track on the inside of the hammer for the rounded post shown in the previous photo to slide and retract the pin:



One of the original firing pins on mine broke and the owner replaced this ingenious original system. Now only gravity (pointing the muzzle up) will retract the pins, but fortunately the owner saved the original firing pins, so that you can see how this Pape invention worked.

I had a later 16 bore with rebounding locks and a more conventional extractor .A lovely 85% original finished gun that I submitted for nitro proof . The action came back in several pieces as it was very weak in cross section .
12 bores are much heavier .