doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Side lever doubleguns….lefties?

Here's a side lever. Great handling when you get used to it. Auto ejectors and assisted opening.

Certainly for a lefty or righty, I think most, if not all, Lefever sidecockers levers were reversible.

Another sidelever, a Scottish gun. Dougall Lockfast patent on a Richard Jeffrey. It seems that the sidelever could easily be on either side of the action, but I have never seen one on the left.

earliest Reilly S-L in my database - like Darryl's gun it's a pin fire and looks as if it could be on either side....no SN mentioned so it can't be precisely dated but probably mid-1860's.


I wonder who created the original patent for a side lever? I have this patent mentioned in the patents found on Reilly DB - was it Needham or is the Dougall Lockfast patent by definition side-lever?:
1860, May - J.D. Dougall “Lockfast” action patent 1128
1862 - Needham patent 1544, rotating single-bolt snap-action side-lever

Here's a somewhat obscure gun from Milwaukee. A Huels, who seemed to be a schutzen maker, too. It appears the sidelever could operate on either side.