doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Closing A Gun................

Holding the lever is part of NSSA skeet shooters ritual,from what I`ve seen a few of them do it.
Kind of like the pitcher adjusting his cap and grabbing his jockstrap before a pitch.
Now why do any of this on a Perazzi that was made to digest hundreds of thousands rounds?

Being an (ex) university professor, I naturally have a literary bent. On this topic, I quote Michael McIntosh (_Best Guns_, 264-265):

"... you can wear out a bolting system [of a shotgun] without ever firing a shot; all you have to do is close it shut enough times. Unfortunately, one of the greatest myths among the misinformed is that you can judge the quality of a gun by how resoundingly it clangs shut when you slam the barrels up. All it really proves is that there's a powerful spring behind the bolt. The stronger the spring, the less slamming it takes to erode the bearing surfaces and produce a poor old gun that rattles like a bad set of teeth.

The proper way to close a break-action gun is to hold the top latch with your right thumb, close the action and "ease" the latch over until the bolt takes hold. With a bit of practice, it can be done quickly and smoothly, and it won't slow you down in even the busiest shooting. But you seldom see anyone doing it, and that's why you need to look for worn out bolts in a gun you might want to buy."

I have read most of McIntosh's books, and I have found him to be the epitome of common sense in all but a few issues. I, for one, would not want to second-quess him on how to treat a shotgun. Obviously, Dez' technique is a variation on this theme.

The double underbolted top lever snap action gun has the following features; The rear of the front bolt below the bolt notch has a decreasing radius so as the gun opens the lever comes back to center. Pressure on this bolt helps to hold the bbls in the open position for loading. As the bbls are closed the bolt is pushed back, moving the top lever to the right, until it comes to the notch, at which point it "Snaps" into the bolting notch. This is the way they were designed more than 100 yrs ago & were not meant for the lever to be held. This system is far & away the most common bolting method on both British & Continental guns. It is virtually unseen on American built guns. The vast majority of American built guns have the hold-over trip for the top lever which does not return to center until the bbls are closed. There is however still no reason for holding the lever. "Don't" "Slam" the gun shut, just close it in a manner to insure the bbls seat firmly against breech & let the bolt/s go home of their on accord. This is the way they were designed to operate.
Miller

The hinge wears almost entirely as a function of movement of the bearing surfaces during opening and closing of the action. Violent TV-style opening and closing is undoubtedly rough on the hinge. The manner in which the opening lever is moved to closure (pushed, snapped, or eased) has nothing to do with wear at the hinge because the action is closed.

Similarly, violent closure of the action likely has no effect on bolting wear as it is still accomplished by spring tension. Letting the lever go under it's own spring tension hardly constitutes abuse. The tension of the spring provides for consistent mating of bolting surfaces. This tension ensures no further motion on firing.

I open and close actions (movement at hinge) gently. I do not hinder or assist the lever on closing.

Sam

The "Proper way to close a shotgun" argument is only seen and heard in the US.

As our English friends (among others) have pointed out, Mr. McIntosh is clearly wrong, as is Dez, or anyone else who doesn't allow the snap part of a snap action to complete the wedge aspect of it's locking function.

Why is it, that something that takes so little actual common sense to realize, is completely out of the grasp of so many?
Best,
Ted

Let me add one thing to this discussion. I just looked at my Beretta 470 manual and it states "do not hold the top leaver while closing".

But what does Beretta know?

The missing factor here is common sense. I have shown JW all the Browning manuals(Superposed, Citori and BSS, where it specifically states to "not hold the top lever while closing". To "let it snap into place".
He has finally found ONE episode, out of hundreds, where Dez retards his shotgun's lever and is ignoring all the others where he closes it gently, but without retarding the lever, and is trying to get someone to say he's correct. Bull-headed doesn't even come close. :p JL

Jim I think you hit the nail on the head in your post in there where you said something about "retarding".

Hey!! Don't blame me!! Someone ask a long time ago what is the proper way to close a double with a lever and I only gave references of who told me or what I read or saw. And I told how I closed my guns. Larry Potterfield, Michael McIntosh, the smiths and sales reps from, Beretta, Browning, Perazzi, Kreighoff--- the smith at Beretta literally took my 686 from my hands opened it, held the lever over, closed it and then released the lever. I have never seen any such books from (my) Berettas or anyone else to say any different so don't give me any horsedroppings about showing me something. All along I heard that Dez Young closes his guns properly and then when I show you a close up of him closing it properly, uh-oh, all of a sudden he's wrong. HA-HA. I had to laugh when I saw that. I have watched him on several occassions closing his gun like this. Sorry. Now all of these people against.....hmmmmm.... how did you put it joe?....... Retardings? I'll do like they say and use them as a reference whenever I'm asked. Sorry about your luck. LOL.

And Ted, Beretta, Perazzi, Kreighoff- these are hardly American gunmakers/ gunsmiths. They showed me personally. Not through some vague pamphlet printed by who knows what?