doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com unusual (to me) extractor mechanism

Daryl , it is as I thought , the extensions at the back of the strikers are broken . The one nearest the turn screw is about the right length but would have had a stud on it facing out ward from the lock that engaged in the inside face of the hammer . This pulled the striker back when the hammer was cocked . The grove was cut in such a way that it did not rely on the connection to drive the striker fully forward on firing and it is the hammer that actually hits the striker at the point of detonation. I think that due to wear or not perfect fitting caused the hammer to put excess pressure on the connecting piece that caused it to break ,possibly combined with metal fatigue on a very small area of stress .
Hope that makes sense to you .As you can no doubt see that they would be a pain to make and get right is almost certainly why thy have not been replaced

Gunman was right in his comment a couple of days ago. There is a groove on the inside of the hammers on my Pape which appears to have something to do with the retracting system. Here is a photo which clearly shows the groove on the right hammer:

Thanks to Gunman and Daryl and everyone for helping to put the puzzle together. From all comments received it sounds as if I should just rely on gravity and not try to restore the mechanical retractors!

Thanks Rich . Nice to know I can be right about something now and again.

Gunman and Daryl, Here is a footnote very consistent with your comments. Looking closely at the "spare" strikers in my case, I don't think they are spares at all, but rather the originals likely replaced by strikers without the mechanical extractor elements. A closeup photo shows that the two strikers have three elements: the firing pin itself, a post that exends in the opposite direction to the firing pin but parallel to it and a rounded horizontal extension that is perpendicular to the firing pin. Here is a closeup of both pins together showing that the post on the right striker is broken and shorter than the other, leading me to think that these were the replaced originals after the system broke down. In the next post I will try to get a decent photo of the striker from another angle showing the rounded horizontal element. Is this the part of the system that slid in the groove?

Here is a photo of one of the strikers held in my needle nose pliers so that you can see the rounded horizontal arm that extends at a right angle to the striker or firing pin:

Rich, thanks. Makes sense that those are the original strikers. Such an interesting gun.

How would these work?

I am mechanically challenged, but as I see it, pulling the hammer back to half cock would move the horizontal piece in the slide on the inside of the hammer, which would in turn pull the firing pin/striker back below the breach face. One of those very many experiments in the early years of breach loading shotguns, some of which had staying power and some didn't, but all interesting.

What I don't understand is in what way was the groove cut so that the force of the hammers striking the pins didn't pop the whole thing off the gun