doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Got a bar wood Wesley Richards hammer gun today

I miss having a place to fall turkey hunting

Drew
Who was CM

Was hoping one of our British or Anglophile correspondents might know Monty.

All the pinfire shotshells I have ever seen had the pin coming out the side of the shell just ahead of the rim. This would put the pin coming out a cutout in the breech of the barrels, not in the standing breech of the action body. This is the way my Bar-in-Wood W & C Scott pinfire 12ga is constructed.
As nominal 10 ga is .775" as mentioned there is certainly nothing surprising about a .005" oversize of .780". What is the chamber size of this gun, 10 or 12. If it chambers a 12ga shell it was most likely built for use with thin wall brass shells. If 10 then it would have been for a standard paper shell.
The breech face of my pinfire is totally flat, no firing pin holes, no anything. I will say though the hammers certainly do look like pinfire hammers.

Jeweler,
I believe this is Westley Richards Patent No.1572 of 1871.

This is not my collecting specialty but I own this model
and two other variations. With the introduction of centerfire cartridges in c.1867, a number of makers (including Westley Richards) offered dual ignition guns (center and pinfire). Your model, with pin slots in the barrels, could have been a dual ignition.

If you remove your firing pins you'll note that they're a bit of a 'rube goldberg' design that works via a 'wedging action.' When the top piece is struck by the hammer it forces the 'half-moon' shaped pin out of the breech face.

Monty, the hammers were never part of a pinfire, they don't even extend over the breech end of the barrels far enough to have ever punched a pinfire. The setup for the firing pins is typical Westley for the time period. The barrel finish is original. The bore diameter is most likely as made. There was no standard and that's sure in the ballpark. And quit worrying about cylinder bores--you're going to find the lack of chokes on your decoyed birds to be a big help.

It's day 8 on the river Maim in Bavaria. My "new" Dougall 10 bore will be in next week. We will have a lot to talk about!

Joe
I hope you are enjoying some good pork knuckle and beer.

Monty, did you take pictures of the locks when you removed them? I have never taken mine out, so I don't know what they look like. Post pictures if you can.

The trick to seeing whether the gun is a conversion, a dual ignition gun or an original center fire is to examine the barrels. A filled in area of the top of the breeches would indicate a conversion. End of story, I think.

I think Steve has a good point. I cannot get to the picture trail portion of Monte's post, so cannot see if the Richards has slots in the barrel breech for pinfire pins, but the hammers are pinfire hammers, complete with the "rest" block that would bear on the top of the standing breech after firing. The hammers are sized so that they would strike the pin easily where it sits approx. .100" from the standing breech. I think if used as a pinfire, the dual ignition centerfire firing pins would be removed.

If the gun does not have the cutouts for the pinfire pins in the barrel, then the gun could be a conversion or even rebarreled . More pictures might help.