doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com A Cameleopard from E. M. Reilly

Gene,

Thank you for the pictures of those 3 Westley Richards actioned Reilly guns. All 3 appear to be typical Anson and Deeley actions as made by Westley Richards and undoubtedly by others in the trade.

My gun Reilly 30227 differs in having the Facile Princeps action with its rounded front to the bar, and being the first model Facile Princeps the bottom end of the cocking hook protruding through the action body.

Those features, combined with the Westley Richards style top lever, are shared with the Cogswell and Harrison Daryl located and I would be interested, as I said at the outset, in learning about other guns sharing those features as it would now appear mine is not a “one off”.

Parabola

My apologies, I rather naively or stupidly thought you were attempting to add something of value to this interesting topic. Regards

Parabola thank you for posting, it is an interesting gun.

Thank you.

I was in two minds as to whether to re-open this thread when I saw the Bland gun at Holts.

I am very glad that I did, as the Cogswell and Harrison gun Daryl found goes some way to answering my original post, and otherwise I doubt if I would ever have known about it.

Parabola, fascinating and unique gun. I knew nothing about that action. Thanks for posting and I for one certainly learned a lot.

Daryl Hallquist kindly assisted with my search for a similar gun by providing a link to a Cogswell and Harrison offered on Gunbroker. As that link has now expired I am uploading the images I saved in case anyone wishes to compare them with the gun I have now found and will show in the next post.

Another gun that shares the Westley Richards top extension/sliding top bolt with the Greener Facile Princeps action. The serial number is in the Greener numbering sequence for 1885, shortly before they started in 1886 at 6001 a separate block for Needham guns that continued until 1941.

It appears that when Greener acquired Needham in 1874 that he moved all the production in house. Whilst some Needham guns bore a Loveday Street address it is the side of the same block as the St. Mary’s works.

I had previously remarked on the similarities of the filing of the top lever on my Reilly to a Needham gun. It seems almost certain that my Reilly was made at the Greener works.

I have now taken delivery of the Greener built J.V. Needham gun pictured above and find that it is another early model Facile Princeps action with the swinging cocking hook on the front lump, albeit in this case incorporating the Needham/Greener ejectors.

The photo of the water table shows the stamp for the Greener Patent number 930/1880 for the Facile Princeps action. Situated below it in the bolt release stud which holds the top lever and bolts open. Necessary in guns fitted with a Greener cross bolt, less so in this case with a dolls-head to extension.

J.N. Patent 676 - I can’t match this to a particular Needham Patent and take it 676 could be a use number.

I assume the 1881 U.S. patent was Greener getting protection for his 1880 Facile Princeps patent.

The ejector operates as follows. On firing the cocking dog drops to press down under tension on the upper projection on the cocking hook.

As the gun opens it slips off and strikes the ejector kicker before engaging and being re-cocked by the rising lower part of the hook.

It is a wonder that they worked at all, let alone (at least in this case) more than 130 years later.

Although a well used gun it does not appear to have been externally abused, and the action still bears traces of a dried grease coating which doubtless helped preserve it.

Parabola, very nice gun. Those self acting ejectors are nice, and they work until there is excessive wear or if the the geometry of the sear noses is changed. The old gunsmith rule on these self acting ejector mechanisms is that it’s best not to alter the trigger pulls on these FP actions. They were adjusted and timed at the factory and should remain how they were if possible. The sear nose and tumbler bent are critical in keeping the mechanism in time.
My G-guns do not have the bolt release stud in the action that your gun has. I’m going to post a picture of what the internals on one of these self acting ejector mechanisms looks like. They are actually very simple. There are no separate “cocking dogs” in this action, the tumbler (hammer) and cocking limbs are all one piece. Actually a very simple & very robust action, very few parts, the critical timing of the action being most important to keeping the guns mechanism healthy and working correctly.

Dustin, what is that part between the hammers (to the right) and the top lever (to the left)? It appears to be a two piece affair that will swivel from one side to the other.