doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Not a gunsmith but have question

Today I started out at the club shooting my 1907 Joseph Lang with the Baker single trigger that they used in their guns. Straight out it would not fire the second barrel. (Last time I used it, it worked flawlessly). On a few occasions I had my friend shoot it and it did fire the cecond barrel but not often, maybe two times.
Once I dry fired it, put two shells in and it worked fine. Then it stopped all together. It's going to my gunsmith next week but just curious what your thoughts might be. (I hope not expensive thoughts)

Dirt or wood shrinkage ,or anything else that can go wrong with a single trigger.are you hand and action screws turned past being in alignment? I.e.turned past a straight alignment

I have but one ST double. It has been in and out of the shop for years. It was enough to cure me of purchasing another!

A gunsmith good enough to be entrusted with a Lang should probably be expensive.

The single triggers used in Spanish guns are considered to be unreliable. That is because they are direct copies of the single triggers used in English guns. If it is your lucky day, perhaps the gunsmith will find some dirt or hardened lube in a place that impedes the workings of said trigger. But, often, that is not the case. Inertia single trigger designs often need a good thump of recoil to make them consistently operational, and we tend to load these old guns with the lightest recoiling and lowest pressure loads we can find. My father, RIP, put big, squishy recoil pads on everything he ever owned, and the pad he had put on a Beretta he owned impeded the inertia single trigger on the gun. It became reliable again after time hardened the pad up. My Dad quit using the gun when the trouble he had unknowingly caused, started. Took 20 years or so of sitting around for it to get better.

Hopefully, it is something easy to diagnose and rectify.

Good luck.

Best,
Ted

Ted I have an Aya matador 20 not a expensive gun the single trigger is squishy but it always works I use standard 2.75 ammo I opened the chokes for steel shot and it is still working this has nothing to do with the lang the op is asking about but the crappy Spanish trigger is still working.

There are many Spanish and English single triggers that aren’t working. Crappy, and, otherwise.

I keep the old Silver Snipe around because I can get a gloved finger in the trigger guard in the winter. Well, that, and because it was my Dad’s gun.

Best,
Ted

Single triggers can be problematic. Specially on Spanish small bores.

MC: you have one of the few matadors with a single trigger that work.

John
Arrieta

John I have had this gun for a long time mabey 20 years I do give it a good cleaning every 10 years or so mabey that's the secret now that I have said it works it will probably crap out

I've worked on a Silver Snipe a couple times recently for a friend who bought one for $300, because it wouldn't reset the trigger to fire the second barrel. The first time I had it I cleaned the action in my ultrasonic bath, then dried and lightly oiled it. He said it worked for about 20 shots then started the same thing again, so I agreed to look at it again.

This time, as I looked more closely, I saw that the inertia block, though it would swing freely when touched with my fingertip, wouldn't swing freely when I tipped the gun up and down. Looking more closely I noticed that the axle upon which the inertia block pivots is a screw. I saw that the end of the screw opposite the head looked to be center punched to prevent it from backing out. I tried turning the screw CCW and it moved. I only moved it maybe 15 degrees. I then tried tipping the gun upwards and downwards and found that the inertia block now pivoted more freely. Another tiny drop of Eezox oil went on that pin.

I returned the gun to the owner today at lunch in hopes that it is now fixed. Time will tell, as he will be shooting it some more soon.

True confession time, the Lang is 2 5/8 chambers. So I have started experimenting with light 2 3/4" shells. The last time I had it out I had been shooting the B&P Comp 1 , 7/8oz loads , 1160 FPS and they were working fine. I also had purchased some of the Gamebore EVO loads in 2 1/2" and boy did I have a time with them. They were so hot I was having issues opening the gun after each shot.
This week I took some Clever 1150 FPS loads to try. That is when it would not seem to switch to the second barrel.
Now, at home using snap caps it seems to be working fine. I still am going to send it to my gunsmith to check out but this is strange to me.