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

Tinker, you have a very interesting gun, one I presume to pre-date British pinfires. Mind, it is devilishly difficult to date French and other Continental pinfires without paper records, as the patterns did not change much until the beginning of the 20th century. However, a gun built as a breech-loading percussion or dual-fire percussion-pinfire would definitely be early. It is remarkable that the pinfire system was in use in France for twenty years before it appeared in Britain.

I'm also taken aback by the assisted-opening stud, a feature I always understood to have been a Hodges/Lang's invention, though never patented. I don't think Casimir Lefaucheux's gun on display at the Great Exhibition of 1851 had this feature, Lefaucheux used a different arrangement to help with opening the barrels and closing the lever. However, Beatus Beringer (6, Rue du Coq, St. Honoré, Paris) also displayed his guns at the Great Exhibition, and the idea might have come from his guns. It seems a bit of a stretch to suppose the reverse, that that Lang first offered the rising stud in 1853, and it was subsequently copied in France?? These Beringer guns have definitely got me thinking in new directions. Similarly, having a removable wooden fore-end might have started with Beringer guns, not the British ones.

I had planned on continuing with British guns, namely Dougall's Lockfast action, but this turn on French guns is a good introduction on how different French/Continental pinfires were in terms of technological advancement and aesthetic designs when the British guns first appeared - with their 20-year head start.

We've just seen the Beringer style. By the mid 1850s the standard Lefaucheux gun had heavy, arching hammer noses, a long forward-under-lever, an iron fore-end (with a small hidden lever to release the barrels from the action, an improvement by the Parisian gunmaker Le Page), a scroll or volute-shaped trigger guard bow, and a straight stock, often without chequering. Engraving styles varied, from open floral scrolls to full-coverage chiselled reliefs, and were usually bolder in appearance than on British guns.

In the flurry of technological advances happening on the Continent, guns were also appearing with push-forward under-levers, side-levers, Beringer under-levers, Bastin-type pivoted under-levers, and many more. These advances were making their way across the Channel, as, for example, Lancaster's slide-and-drop action was a French design by Louis Julien Gastinne, and George Henry Daw's centre-fire gun was designed by the Parisian Francois Eugene Schneider.

While some British makers apparently did copy Lefaucheux's iron fore-end design (I have not seen one, though), at first most favoured Lang's understated forward-under-lever design, after which the lever-over-guard became almost universal. The lines of the British muzzle-loader were followed as much as possible, most evident in the appearance of bar-in-wood guns, with decoration also reserved and understated. That is not to say engraving patterns weren't spectacular when viewed close-up, but they were rarely what one noticed first.

Here is a typical French Lefaucheux-type forward-facing underlever pinfire sporting gun, a 12-bore by Châlet, Père et Fils of St. Étienne, France, serial number 10, made sometime between 1856-1868. It has the Lefaucheux double-bite action with forward-facing underlever, back-action locks signed "Châlet" on the right-hand lock and "A St Étienne" on the left-hand lock, fine chain-pattern double-proof damascus barrels by renowned barrel makers Antoine Heurtier and L. Piney, a scroll-type trigger guard, heavy hammers, minor engraving, and a unchequered walnut stock. The gun weighs 6 lb 13 oz.






Continuing on the subject of early Continental breech-loaders, here is a Belgian gun. Unfortunately, one can't help but associate 'Belgian gun' with the mass-produced, cheap hardware-store guns, knock-off copies, and otherwise poor-quality guns that were exported in large numbers. The truth is that artisans have been making guns in Liege for over four centuries - that's a lot of experience. Many Belgian guns do not carry a maker's name but are 'Guild' guns produced by one or more artisans.

Here is an example of a good quality Belgian gun, and a reminder that not all Lefaucheux-under-lever guns had all-iron fore-ends. It is a 16-bore Lefaucheux-type forward-facing underlever pinfire sporting gun by Jean-Baptiste Rongé et Fils of 4 Place St. Jean, Liège, Belgium. This gun appears to have originally started as a double rifle, and subsequently bored out to a smoothbore. It has a removable wooden fore-end, and it and the stock are chequered. The metal parts have an attractive deeply etched floral scroll motif. The Lefaucheux lever is iron covered with horn, which is a nice touch. Notice the dovetail on the rib where the leaf sights used to be.