doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Advantages of a Lefever over a Smith?

Ouch! Just recoil did that?

Well, yea:




The second gun, with the crack starting behind the lock plate needs to have a good ‘Smith take a look at it and stabilize the crack. Many were the guns that had an issue like this and were just run until they didn’t run anymore.

The other gun needs work. Badly cracked. Wood sometimes just breaks to be mean, it is one of those things, no specific reason, and sometimes there are excellent reasons that wood breaks, like, behind the lock plates of an LC Smith.

Best,
Ted

Yes Ted, the Preacher obviously needs help here.

I have seen a Lefever with a similar stock fracture, and it didn't happen as a result of recoil... any more than this example from the Preacher's vast photo collection happened from recoil. In the case of my Lefever, the cause was careless handling during shipping by Fed Ex. The gun was intact when I bought it, intact when the seller boxed and shipped it, and broken nearly in two when Fed Ex delivered it. The box also showed obvious signs of rough handling.

In the photo above, all it takes is the simple power of observation and reasoning to SEE that the widest part of the split is near the end of the top tang. The split runs along the direction of the grain (which is not optimal in terms of grain layout through the wrist), and the split becomes more narrow as it runs forward, and then appears to terminate somewhere under the lockplate region. I would bet that if we could see this gun with the lock removed, the end of the split would be at least an inch or two from the head of the stock.

If this was caused by recoil, the widest part of this crack or split would be at the origin of the splitting forces, namely the head of the stock. The famous cracks behind the lockplates of L.C. Smith's are largely due to the wedge effect of the rear of the lockplate. The amount of wood removed during inletting, and the fragile nature of the old wood are contributing factors. This wedge effect is also the greatest cause of stock splits behind the top tangs of guns like the Parker and Remington doubles. We don't know precisely what caused this stock split, but if we observe and use reasoning, we SHOULD also be able to see those signs of damage in the checkering on either side of the split. That sort of thing is not seen in recoil induced splitting either.



Short answer Lloyd... Absolutely not!

BTW, you should think about making room for that F Grade if the condition and price are right. It will hold it's value far better than paper dollars, that are being severely devalued by Biden-flation.

Now Ted...play nice or I might end-up thinking I've been "casting pearls before swine" here.

Make you a deal. I’ll just be honest. There are guns (and cars, and toasters, and washing machines, etc, etc, etc) that have issues. We will not pretend about them, and if guys are willing to live with and deal with those issues, so be it. You, do you.

But, we don’t pretend anymore. Fair enough?

Best,
Ted

Fair enough, but judge a gun fully on its merits.

The later Elsies (especially in the lower grades) were cookie-cutter and mass-produced, as were all the American entry-level guns (especially after 1913 - when import tariffs on cheap foreign guns were dropped). Accordingly, they had issues associated with those early automated processes (one of them clearly being problems with stock-cracking). The very early guns (certainly pre-1900, with the Syracuse and the "transitional" Fulton guns being even more-so) were almost completely hand-made (in an artisanal process much-like what the Brits still use today [when they aren't using CNC machines]). As you would expect, these early guns were much better in every possible aspect (art, materials, fit & finish, & function). The numbers produced were very low (extremely low when compared to post-1913 production) and they are not "commonly" encountered. Until lately, good information about them was limited to basically one book (Brophy's) and a few resident experts (who weren't all that forthcoming with information either). I've been a gun-guy all my life and I knew almost nothing about the earlier guns. If you do happen to encounter one (and it's healthy) they normally command a fairly high price, and for good reason.

Didn't Lefever mostly use English walnut? That's a significant upgrade vs. most American walnut.

I weighed Last Dollar's 28" Lefever 12 and it is right at 7 lbs. I have another one with very, very thick tubes. They slightly overhang the face of the action fences. It's disassembled but, I would guess it is well over 8 lbs. Has anyone else seen this overhang?

I envy how one could order what they wanted back in the day. You can't really configure a custom citori. Well Bob Cash does but his name is Cash.

Pre-1913 Smiths were listed with some gradation of English Walnut, and French Walnut on higher grades

RyanF: The 1889 F grade Lefever I was checking out earlier this week certainly looked like English walnut to me. Most of the better doubleguns being made in this country (in the 1880s through the 1890s) used this "better" wood for a number of reasons, arguably the biggest being bragging-rights (they were competing with each other and even imported British guns for the more well-heeled market here). You really could order what you wanted in those days and most wanted English walnut or better (arguably, French).

Dup