doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The pinfire game gun

You can't have too many Lancasters, Argo44, thanks for posting. The Lancaster base-fire, sometimes referred to as the Lancaster needle-gun, was a true contemporary of the earliest British pinfires, and it pointed the way in which the British shotgun was to develop. The information that Argo44 refers to is correct and entertaining reading, especially the part about the proprietary cartridges killing the business. It also must have come to a shock to Lancaster and his customers that the base-fire, at 65 guineas the most expensive sporting gun in London, performed the worst in the Field Trials of 1858. It took me a while to understand that Lancaster's slide-and-drop action gun was also being built under a slightly modified design to use the early Pottet/Boxer or Schneider/Daw centre-fire cartridges. At first I thought these were simply converted base-fires, but no, these were built that way, concurrently with the base-fire. AaronN can tell us when the Pottet and Schneider cartridges first appeared in France, and as to the action designed for them, there is much history.

Albert Henri Marie Renette of Paris obtained a French patent in 1835 for a slide-and-tilt breech-loading action, presumably a capping-breechloader, close to the time Casimir Lefaucheux patented his hinge-action capping breechloading gun, which led the way to his pinfire invention in 1834 [text corrected 30/11/2020, as two earlier Renette 1820-dated patents might not be related to the 1835 patent]. In 1853 Renette's son-in-law and partner, Louis Julien Gastinne, obtained French patent No. 9058 for this breech action on a hammer gun, intended to use the new internally-primed Pottet/Schneider centerfire cartridges. The prolific patent agent Auguste Edouard Loradoux Bellford patented the design in Great Britain, receiving patent No. 2778 of 1853. This is the patent that was later assigned to Lancaster and first used for his base-fire cartridge, and the story behind "Charles Lancaster's Patent" marked on his base-fire and centrefire guns -- though the patent was never taken out in his name.

Here is a best quality 14-bore by Charles William Lancaster, made in 1858 (three years before the Daw gun, and concurrent with the base-fire and earliest pinfires) for Captain Henry John Bower, of the 4th (The King's Own Royal) Regiment of Foot. Gun number 3092 was one of a pair, with 30" fine damascus barrels with an extractor (the first British gun to have one), the top rib marked "Charles Lancaster 151 New Bond Str London. Patent Breech Loader", Lancaster's initials "CL" stamped under each barrel. The back-action locks were converted to rebound locks by Lancaster in 1894. Part of Louis Julien Gastinne's patent, for the extractor, was assigned to Lancaster in 1856. Note the size of the gap at the face when the lever is fully rotated, in partly necessary because of the acute (not 90 degree) angle of the breech face to the bar -- remarkable fitting work.








At first I thought it was a converted base-fire, as the strikers were was not of the conical form in Argo44's photographs, and the protruding pins fixing the striker assemblies seem an odd aesthetic choice. Then I was fortunate to come across number 3879, a 12-bore, built on the same pattern, made in 1864 for Sir Thales Pease KCB. It was recorded in the Lancaster order book as simply 'under-lever centre-fire', same as number 3092. Neither was a conversion from base-fire, both were early centrefires. In a testament to Charles Lancaster's barrel-making prowess, at some point it had undergone a nitro reproof, and it is now my favourite grouse gun.