doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Boxlock Saint-Etienne gun - really tight top lever

If I remember right, the top lever/spindle is kept in place at the bottom end with a nut. The end of the spindle being threaded.
You can crank the nut down way too tight,,that just pulls the spindle/top lever down even tighter than necessary for needed functioning and makes for hard lever movement.

The spindle has an off set pin just underneath the toplever that engages the lockingbolt to one side of center (left).
Opening the lever pulls the bolt back and allows opening the bbls.

A V spring common to toplever set ups keeps things in tension.
An extra strong replacement top lever spring may be the cause as well. Or one that is slightly too long on the one leg that engages the spindle and binds it when you attempt to open the lever.

That Nut on the end of the spindle shaft is likely a multi grooved affair needing a spanner driver to sit over the shaft to get at it to loosen/tighten it.

You should be able to see all of this with the stock off and trigger plate removed

...says every bodger who ends up bringing a partially disassembled gun with buggered screws to his gunsmith, saying, "My dumb brother-in-law took this apart, and I need you to fix it "

Come to think of it, that's also how a lot of old motorcycles end up being sold as "basket cases".

What you really need is this:

Gunther Pfrommer Gunworks
2954 Hopkins Rd
Rocky Mount, VA 24151

And perhaps some of this:

I'll watch the videos - always good to do that and the internet is an amazing place these days for education.

Since this is pretty obviously a copy of V-C's Helice-Grip, Helicobloc, Helistop (all names trademarked by V-C . . .assume they are essentially the same top lever(. . .here's the V-C catalog illustration of the top lever. I'll take some pictures as I go along and thanks and if I reach a point I don't feel comfortable...will stop.

OK. here is my check-off list.

Cocking rods free to move?
Ejector or extractor rods free to move
Di-chem the forend knuckle to check wear pattern
Di-chem forend end joint pin to check wear pattern
Di-chem breech face to check wear pattern

Starting from there, we can move forward

Footnote. The gun when I got it was in pretty pristine condition for a 90 year old. There are no obvious wear marks from external inspection on the lumps; extractors are free and easy. Cocking rods haven't been checked. But the tension in the top lever might not be related to them (and do NOT get your finger caught in that "Helice" lump.).

This gun has not been shot regularly...maybe because of this very problem? How this came to be in a 1920's gun from France, probably buried or hidden during the occupation, but guns are guns, stories are stories...

On the Jack Rowe video, I'm not sure I'm ready to embark on an exploration of the internals of this SxS, not really understanding what I'm seeing except the mechanicals, and the vice on my workbench is not really optimal for gunsmithing.

(It's funny, watching Jack take out a wood screw is excruciating stress and I think of the time I broke off a screw extractor trying to back out the points screw with buggered head in a 1967 Triumph TT-Special with cast aluminum case and had to have it ground out...with no sweat).

Still thinking of driving down to Gunther and asking him to relieve the chokes too (I took the gun down with me last time ....should have had him look at it then).

Haven't seen Gunter for a couple of years so on a gorgeous spring day, drove down to Rocky Mount and hung out with him for a couple of hours, leaving the "Wonder" Saint-Etienne gun with him.

Some surprises - the barrels have been rechambered for 2 3/4" shells - without reproof, obviously done in USA. Gun is very tight and in good shape - he'll change the chokes currently .026/.026 to .009/.018. His preliminary conclusion about the sticky opening is it's caused by the firing pins. These are very long thin firing pins, not retractable; they are getting stuck in the shell primers. Cocking rods are free; extractors free. Hinge pin is a little tight but better tight than not.

While he's at it he'll add a pad to increase LOP another 3/4".

On the way back I stopped by Bedford, VA meaning to visit with MacNabb"s Bob Ney; the address on his card, however, is his house and I didn't feel like disturbing him there.

All in all, a pleasant day and you always learn something from him. It was worth the trip.

Sounds like a good way to spend the day.

Just to finish this story. . Drove down to Rocky Mount today to pick-up the "Wonder" from Gunter. He relieved the chokes, installed an orange pad increasing LOP by 3/4", shortened the firing pins. It looks to be a much better gun and certainly the ergonomics feel better. No chance to fire it down there but based on feel along, I think it points better and it certainly breaks easier - It's tight - not silky smooth but I don't have to hammer at it. This is my back-up gun for when the 6 former special forces guys descend for Memorial Day - in 2016 I ran out of guns - but It points really well and we'll give it a try next go-round. (Never could hit squat before - better use a rifle).



I wish I had you all's expertise. When this was mentioned, Gunter sort of grunted and said, "For tools, start with screwdrivers." He also said a lot of people visit and hang around because they "like to watch gunsmiths work." He doesn't much appreciate that but since I was "picking up" - I wasn't included in the criticism. He also added that it's almost impossible for a "gun smith" to run a retail gun shop - the jobs of selling - promoting and repairing -fixing cannot be intertwined without staff support.

Gunter said he'll be at the Southern next week. I won't make it. But it's worth talking to him. How he wound up in the middle of the Virginia mountains is a question. I asked him. . .got a sort of jumble of reply starting with "economics of real estate." The vagueness of answers may be endemic in the gun-repair community. . not sure of this.

Three weeks ago Virginia and the great valley was a paradise...floating down a corridor of purple - the red bud was out in force and the crab apples like large clumps of pure cotton-color were everywhere. This time it was the Wisteria - purple and white - and the new green of the trees along with the back-country azaleas - purple, white, red, pink and some late blooming white dogwood . I've lived in Virginia for some 50 years - 26 spent abroad of course - and can never count myself as a Virginian. I'm from the Deep South and look for Spanish moss, black water creeks and Savannah's and marshes as my habitat...but on a spring day, in rural Virginia...especially in the Great Valley running from Birmingham to Pennsylvania, with the windows open on the jeep and the smell of new plant and cow funk, mountains to the left and right, trying to figure out the drainage basins of the Shenandoah and James Rivers, it is pretty exhilarating.

As for the video, I looked at it...decided I wasn't really mechanically ready to start down this road. I talk all the time with David Trevallion but am not ready to do my own work other than cosmetic stuff. Can't explain why. But at this age - I'll watch (so to speak).

And as for the South - here is the last performance of "Dixie" by the Ole Miss Band.


I grew up with this - at my (segregated) high school we stood up for "Dixie." The brutality of the culture cannot be denied - I was hitch-hiking from Duke University through South Carolina in the dead of night in 1963 - a Black family picked me up at 11:00 PM and asked me to drive their clapped out station wagon - 100 miles. Afterwards it occurred to me that they were terrified. Not of me - I'll leave it at that.

And yet the Confederacy is my history - My sons don't care - But you cannot understand what it was like growing up in the South in those days. There was a famous book "Mind of the South" which explained it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1941/04/the-mind-of-the-south/653368/

I took the Saint-Etienne "Wonder" out yesterday for the first time since getting it back from Gunter. Two problems immediately manifested. 1) the gun was still hard to break. 2) using some old ammunition one shell got stuck in the left chamber. In trying to break the gun (using the now accustomed pressure) I bent the extractor.

Now what to do? I don't feel like sending it back to Gunter.