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

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Here is another snap-action that the authors of The British Shotgun haven't seen in the flesh, and the last in this series of the earliest snap-actions.

It is another bar-in-wood gun. Each maker that tried building them took a slightly different approach, while keeping with the wood-covered action. Some covered the hinge, while others chose to stick to covering the action bar. In any case, seeing a bar-in-wood gun always makes my heart race.

This gun is puzzling for both the maker and the action, and as is often the case with mid-Victorian British guns, many more questions are left unanswered than would be the case with later guns (and better record-keeping). The first breech-loaders were all experimental in their way, some more than others. This one is unusual in having a top lever which isn't the W&C Scott design. It engages the barrel with a small rotating cam bolt, a single bite, which is not very strong compared with later designs. The top lever is quite long, and while effective, it does not feel as solid as other top-lever guns of the period. It is the design of the Birmingham gunmaker John Crofts, patented on 11 April 1866 (No. 1033). John Crofts went out of business in 1868, so the action had to have been made between these dates. In over 25 years of searching and researching, I've not seen another one, or heard of one. Whether the gun was made by Crofts, or the action sold in the white, will never be known.

Crofts is not the name inscribed on the rib and locks. The rib carries the address "27 New Bailey St. Salford Manchester," and the locks the name "Hambling." This is where it gets strange, as the name "Hambling" does not appear in any available references for Manchester. Hambling gunmakers in Blackawton, Devon, include the father, William Bartlett Hambling (1787-1864), and his seven sons William Baker (1812-1862), James (1814-1900), John (1815-1873), Charles George (1820-1878), Hiram Bartlett (1822-1897), Henry (1823-1892), and Reuben (1833-1892), all gunmakers. Reuben Hambling is known to have been in business on his own in 1858 in Brighton, in the South. It appears that Reuben moved to the North of England, and from genealogies and other information, Reuben Hambling was in Manchester in the period of this gun (his daughter, Fanny, was born there in 1869). He would be the only Hambling known to have made guns there.

Further evidence is the local newspaper The Bury Times which published on 14 Oct 1865 a small article titled "Gunpowder Explosion in Salford." The article went on: "On Saturday evening, about half-past seven o'clock, two lads went into the shop of Mr. R. Hambling, gunsmith, Bexley-street, near the Salford Town Hall, to buy a pennyworth of gunpowder. An old man, named Cadden, was serving them out of a small canister, when by a mishap the gaslight from a bracket near the counter ignited the powder, which exploded. The canister contained about one and a half pound. The effect of the explosion was signally destructive. The contents of the shop window, guns and powder flasks, with the window frame and shutters, were all swept into the street. The lads and shopman were burned on the face and hands, but their injuries were not serious." As there is both a New Bailey Street and a New Bexley Street, there is no way of knowing if the paper made an error, or if Reuben Hambling moved from one location to another. He didn't stay long in Manchester and later worked for E. M. Reilly & Co. in London, and finally in Ashford, in Kent. Reuben Hambling died in 1891.

Sadly the gun is not in very good condition, but I'm glad I didn't wait for another to come along. It is a 12-bore pinfire, with 30" Birmingham-proofed barrels. The barrels also carry the mark "Roses Patent." The Rose Brothers (Hales-Owen Mills & Forge) were barrel makers located in Halesowen, Worcestershire, operating between 1860 and 1892. They were well-known for barrels made using a patented method for machine-production of damascus barrels (Roses Patent barrels are worth a post by themselves). The action flats are signed "Crofts Patent" and the back locks simply "Hambling." The top-lever return spring is now weak, the bores are heavily pitted, and the gun weighs 7 lb 11 oz.










There are a number of obscure snap-actions that appeared in the timeline covered so far, but most were variations on the same designs, or they simply didn't catch on. Nowadays we don't give much thought to hinge actions, but they are clever designs and part of an interesting evolution of ideas, engineering and practical production.