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

Mr Dougall is definitely an interesting subject for research, and I hope someone will someday publish a history of his business, inventions and writings. My earlier post focused on his patent Lockfast action, but there is much more to cover.

Around 1840 at the age of 22 James Dalziel Dougall inherited his father's business at 52 Argyll Arcade, Glasgow, with the firm then described as gunmakers, fishing & fowling tackle makers. In 1844 James was admitted as a burgess and guild brother, and in 1845 he was admitted as a fish-hook maker. Not every gunmaker started out only as a gunmaker!

By 1848 the firm had acquired additional premises at 51 Argyll Arcade and James described himself as a fishing tackle maker and practical gunmaker. His business offered "an extensive assortment of Fowling pieces" and "in the workshop department every care is taken in the manufacturing of guns, the best material only being used and superior workmen only employed"; "Guns restocked and bored to shoot close and strong". From 1850 the firm occupied 23 Gordon Street and traded as gun maker and fishing tackle manufacturer. An advertisement at this date stated "Fowling pieces. Rifles etc. made to order to any style or pattern. and their shooting warranted, being bored and tested on an unerring principle." In 1851 the gunmaking part of the business employed 6 men. In 1854 James described himself as a gunsmith and fishing tackle manufacturer.

James Dalziel Dougall is frequently said to have been one of the first English gun makers to recognise the potential of the breech loading guns exhibited by Casimir Lefaucheux at the Great Exhibition in 1851, but he was not without reservations about the system. In his 1857 book, Shooting Simplified: A Concise Treatise On Guns And Shooting, he wrote:

"Another novelty is the rapid introduction of breechloading firearms. These have been in common use in France for the last fifteen years, and are said to have stood the test of that period. It is yet immature to decide upon their merits. They are strongly advocated as excellent by many sportsmen, but the strength of our powder is so much greater than that of the French or Belgian, that they have still to pass through a severe ordeal before receiving the full confidence of British sportsmen. How long the jointing at the breech end may continue to withstand the tremendous vibrations of our heavy charges, time alone can show. It is far from the author's wish to attempt giving an ipse dixit opinion upon these new arms; his only desire is to place the question before his readers. He will not be the last to give his free adhesion to a movement when there is really an increase of quickness or power. It is this word, "quickness," on which the whole question hinges. Is this great quickness desirable in sporting as well as in war? And is it quite an improvement to deprive the pursuit of game of those little rests, while loading, to men and dogs, which preserve their strength throughout the day, and add a zest from the incidental conversation during these pauses? In grouse and partridge shooting can the dogs be so handled, after firing and killing, as to render the quickness in loading advisable ? Were extermination of game the purpose of the sportsman, the use of a gun which can be loaded in a few seconds would certainly be a desideratum. The author is informed by an experienced sportsman that he can raise a hare from her form, place his cartridge in his gun while she is running, and kill her afterwards. On the other hand it may justly be argued that great rapidity of loading is an advantage in many cases, for instance where birds after long unavailing pursuit are suddenly fallen in with. All sportsmen must know what is here meant, the huddling up as it were of game in a corner, where only one or two shots can be obtained, and the remainder of the birds go off before the guns can be reloaded. Such tantalizing incidents must be fresh in the memory of most sportsmen. For the wilder kinds of sport, as duck-shooting, that of rock pigeons on the coast, and of golden plover, rapidity of loading is much to be desired. For woodcock at certain times, when they are found in wisps, breechloaders will also be in request. The reader may desire to know something of the formation of this novelty. Instead of being closed behind with a breech, the barrel is an open tube, working on a hinge at the extreme forward end of stock. The false-breech is a solid mass of iron, with the front perpendicular surface of which the breech end of the barrels, when in position for firing, is in close contact. There is a small notch in the top of each barrel. An apparatus below rapidly fixes and unfixes the barrels. The ammunition is made up in cartridges, containing powder, shot, and the means of ignition, all in one. To load the gun, the barrels are removed from their seat, and playing on the hinge expose the open breech ends. Into these the cartridges are placed, and the barrels restored to their seat. A wire connected with a detonating cap in the cartridge comes through the notch in top of barrel, where it receives the blow of the hammer when fired. Of course no powder flask, shot pouch, wadding, caps, or ramrod are used. When fired, the process is repeated, only withdrawing the empty shell of the cartridge. Many of these shells are so little injured as to be fit for refilling. The barrels are said to keep wonderfully clean during the hardest day's shooting. One of the very best judges of fire arms, a gentleman of scientific attainments in these matters, for whom the author has had the honour to make many guns, writes to him in these terms, " In a few years muzzle loaders will be, as flint locks are now, in the category of things that were." Nous verrons."

He changed his tune rather quickly, perhaps prodded by the business opportunity the breech-loader presented, as in the same year he published in The Field an advertisement which read "BREECH-LOADING GUNS.-In addition to the manufacture of the very superior Fowling-Pieces which have gained the Advertiser so great celebrity as a gunsmith, he has now respectively to state that he is preparing to take Orders for BREECH-LOADING FOWLING PIECES. A few excellent light Double guns on hand, of best quality, will be sold at a very moderate price, as he is now working entirely to order against next season.-J. D. Dougall, 23 Gordon-street, Glasgow. Established 1760." Curiously, Dougall insisted that his clients call pinfire cartridges "douilles", the French term.

On 7 May 1860 James Dalziel Dougall registered patent No. 1128 for his famous "Lockfast" action, where the barrels, rotating on the hinge pin which turned by means of a downward moving lever also acted as a cam, sliding the barrels forward before dropping down, and locking into bosses on the action face when closing.

The 1861 census listed his son, John, aged 19, as a gunsmith. In 1864 John was left to run the Glasgow business while James moved to London and opened a shop at 59 St James's Street. John Wilkes (which Mr Hallquist above mentions as the actioner on his gun) worked for the London business from around 1867, he was also working for Edwin Charles Hodges, the well-known actioner. In 1868 James described himself as a "patent lockfast gun and rifle maker and fishing tackle manufacturer", but by 1871 he described himself as a breech loading gun and rifle manufacturer, having dropped the fishing tackle business. In 1872 James Dalziel Dougall was appointed Gun and Rifle Manufacturer to the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), who ordered a Lockfast gun. The firm was also given an appointment to Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh.

As a side note, St. James Street in London is very short in length, yet at some point it housed some of the best gunmakers of the day: Dougall (number 59), James Woodward (number 64), Stephen Grant (number 67a), John Rigby (number 72), Boss & Co. (number 73), and Charles Moore (number 77). Locke & Co., the famous hatters (and inventor of the bowler hat in 1846, originally for gamekeepers) were at number 6, and they are still in business at the same address (since 1686 -- and that's not a typo).

James Dalziel Dougall died in 1891, aged 72. James left behind a number of written articles (under the pseudonym "A Glasgow Gunmaker") and books, including "British Rural Sports", "Scottish Field Sports", "The Shotgun and Sporting Rifle ", "Shooting Simplified", "The Rifle Simplified", and "Shooting: Its Appliances, Practices and Purpose".

I've already covered a Dougall Lockfast pinfire game gun in this thread, so today let's look at a cheaper and less desirable model. It is a standard 16-bore double-bite screw grip rotary under-lever pinfire sporting gun, serial number 1486, likely made in 1863, around the time Dougall ceased making percussion guns. The 30" damascus barrels have London proofs and a barrel maker's mark "W.H.", which I've yet been unable to trace. The top rib is unsigned, and the back-action locks are signed "J. D. Dougall." The gun was probably ordered from "the trade" as a less expensive offering than the proprietary Lockfast, with James and John Dougall concentrating on making the Lockfast action for themselves and other gunmakers (I have seen photographs of Dougall pinfires with bar locks, which may or may not have been done in-house, but this is the only back-action Dougall that I know of). The rounded hammers have forward flanges, a trigger guard bow with a round stud to fix the under-lever, and a long top strap. The figured stock has old repairs at the comb and toe, and the chequering is almost entirely worn off (as is almost all the foliate engraving on the action bar). The bores are pitted, and the gun weighs 6 lb 11 oz.