doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com L.C. Smith 3E - special?

It sure looks like a factory checkering upgrade? It dang sure isn't a transplant with a fit like that! Matching Serial number under long tang.

I would say that was a special order for the checkering. That style was found on Monograms, Premiers, Deluxes and the earlier A2's and A3"s.

Wow! Nice unit. What year? Weight? Dimensions? Looks like fluid steel, split top lever, & a two position safety. Flat screwheads so post-transition. Stop check gun, bushed firing pins?

The 3E is a pretty typical pre-13 gun likely right around 1900. It has the two piece top tang, bushed firing pins, regularweight frame, and 3 position safety I would call standard on the pre-1913 L.C. Smith.
Nitro Fluid Steel barrels standard for the grade with very yellowed twin ivory beads. It does not have the round stop check I assume you are asking about, and I would ask the experts- is that check seen on ejector guns ?

All L.C. Smith's were on a Regular frame until 1907 when the 20 gauge came out on a Featherweight frame. Supposedly there were 7 20 gauges built on a Regular frame but as of now, not one has been reported. The joint check stopped in late 1889. The 3 position safety carried over from the Syracuse L.C. Smith's because the early Syracuse guns did not have that feature and for some live bird shooters and when trap shooting first started, calling for the bird and not shooting resulted in a lost bird and back then it usually meant money lost so the 3 position safety was put on Syracuse guns and that carried over to Hunter Arms Co. using that feature on their guns but was not a standard feature on later guns. Nitro Steel barrels were the best but there were some with Chain Damascus barrels.
The 3E shown has the last forend escutcheon after 1902, the banjo release, this is the 4th revision that lasted until the 1930's when the rectangular release was used.

David,
when you say the 3 position safety was not standard on later guns, is later "post-13?" or a period of the pre-13 guns as well? I can't recall a gun with the two piece top tang that I have handled that didn't have the 3 postion safety.

Most post-13 guns I have some that do and some that do not. The Syracuse guns I have do but since there are no records there is no way to tell when made. I have not recorded in my records when the two-piece top tang stopped.

LC Smiths are difficult to make sense of at times. I ended-up reading alot about them after I bought my Quality 1 gun (because the seller had ID'ed it as an O-grade & I could tell it wasn't). Pre-Fulton/Hunter Arms guns are really tough because the records for the Syracuse guns are either spotty or just don't exist (the Brits were way-better at record keeping in the 1880s). Graded American doubles are rare in this country (it seems we've mostly descended from the hoi-palloi here, sadly) and accordingly, are usually expensive. Some of them are lovely beyond belief however. With the changing times in this country (i.e. the Boomers ageing out and the urbanization of the rest of it) some of those better guns should eventually find their way onto the market. Since most folks in the gun fraternity tend to think Elsies are just low-end Field Grade guns now, the market for them might be depressed initially, but any examination of these better guns should be a revelation (for the folks who actually know fine guns).

My pre-13 grade 3E has the two piece top tang and a two position safety. And, I'm glad it was built with that type safety, for my use anyway.

Nice 3E Stan, any chance of seeing the rest of it? I love how they filed the top of the action (where it meets the breech-balls). Classic LC Smith (no British gun ever looked like that). My Quality 1 gun doesn't have that and when I first saw it's photos online, I knew it had to be way-early in the evolution of these guns. My figuring was that "older should be better", right(?), so I took the gamble on it's purchase.



That 3-position safety isn't for everyone (it was made for a different time and a more gun-familiar culture).