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

This is just to reassure readers of this thread I have no intention of stopping just yet.

I admit I have been genuinely surprised by the steadily growing view count, considering the subject matter is a little-appreciated invention that few have ever stopped to examine in detail, or thought about in the wider context of sporting gun evolution. Even more so in North America, which saw very few pinfire sporting guns, period.

In its heyday the pinfire game gun was the plaything of the British rich, and a few ardent sportsmen. With the advance of the railroads there was much more access to the countryside, but shooting, and especially driven shoots, was mostly a landowner's pursuit. The pinfire was never a meat gun as it was to be in France, Belgium and Sweden, and it was overtaken too quickly by the centrefire to be much of an export item. It remained a status symbol of the British upper classes, a toy to fawn over in between pheasant drives and multi-course lunches. We've already seen the New York connection in this thread with the Genez guns, and Poultney & Trimble of Baltimore sold pinfires. The few pinfire guns that made it to Canada were mostly as heirlooms, and ammunition supply was always going to be a big problem. For the most part, North America went from percussion to rimfire/centrefire, largely bypassing the pinfire.

Today's gun is a William Wellington Greener, and it is one of the guns brought over from Britain at some point in the distant past. It is also the only W W Greener pinfire I've ever encountered, and I've only seen one other illustrated in print (see Smith & Curtis's The Pinfire System), along with a low-grade "William Wellington" offered for sale on a US website (more on this grade later). As a renowned supporter of the pinfire system, you would think WW Greener's pinfires would be out there, but the firm in the 1860s was not the manufacturing behemoth it would later become. I have no idea how many, or how few, the firm might have made. If anyone reading this has one, I'd like to hear of it.

But first, a diversion on how guns were being sold in the 1850s and 1860s. It is easy to think back to grainy black-and-white photos we've seen of the James Purdey & Sons Long Room, but that didn't come about until 1883. What did an earlier gun maker's shop look like? Early photographs exist of workers turning out barrels and stocking guns at work benches surrounded by tools -- but what did the retail shop look like? I don't know.

I imagine that in the 1860s you could walk into a British gunmaker's premises and order a gun made to your specifications and measurements, and a few months later your gun would be ready. This can still be done at the firms still in business, though the wait can be much, much longer. But back then a gun could also be bought ready-made and "off the rack," if the maker had a stock of such guns, as well as any second-hand guns that might be available, obtained as trade-ins or sold back to the maker. Some firms also sold newly-made guns of various makers, and second-hand guns perhaps taken as trades or part payment. In some cases, this trade in ready-made and second-hand guns was a very large part of a firm's business, and this was reflected in the trade labels affixed to gun cases, and in newspaper advertisements, in the use of the terms "gun repository" and "gun warehouse". Hardware stores (ironmongers) and occasionally general-goods merchants also traded in guns, ammunition and loading supplies (which will be the subject of future posts). In addition, a number of silversmiths and jewellers devoted part of their trade to dealing in guns, acting as agents for gunmakers. This was a favourable arrangement, as a Birmingham maker wishing to sell guns in London could do so through a well-situated London agent at a lower cost than opening and maintaining a London shop themselves.

In previous posts I mentioned that Benjamin Cogswell started as a pawnbroker (later advertising himself as a "gun and pistol warehouse", before declaring himself as a gunmaker). Westley Richards's London agent, William Bishop, aka "The Bishop of Bond Street", was a jeweller. And William Wellington Greener used Edward Whistler.

Edward Whistler was a silversmith, pawnbroker, and dealer in guns and pistols at 11 Strand, London, from 1844 to 1875. In 1867 his business was advertised as "Edward Whistler, Gun and Pistol Repository", offering new and second-hand guns from "the most approved London makers." Whistler was one of two London agents used by the Birmingham maker William Wellington Greener.

Greener was an early promoter of the pinfire system, which put him at odds with his father, the eminent Birmingham gunmaker William Greener, who had nothing good to say about the newfangled breech-loaders. The elder Greener wrote in 1858 in his book Gunnery that "the French system of breech-loading fire-arms is a specious pretence," adding "there is no possibility of a breech-loader ever shooting equal to a well-constructed muzzle-loader," and "the gun is unsafe, and becomes more and more unsafe from the first time it is used." Perhaps to cement his point, three W. Greener muzzle-loaders were entered in the 1858 Field trial, and all out-performed the competing pinfires. Ouch.

However, the tide of history was on the side of breech-loaders, and William Wellington Greener looked to the future, not the past. W. W. Greener would go on to author several important works, invent (co-invent?) choke-boring, develop the cross-bolt fastener (his "Treble Wedge-Fast"), put forth various other patents and improvements, and build one of the country's largest gun factories. But that is all much later than the period I'm interested in. W. W. Greener built two grades of pinfire guns: lesser guns and export-market guns were signed "William Wellington," and higher grade guns carried the Greener name. Greener had his own trademark or "proof" mark, an elephant's head, that appeared on his barrels (and sometimes actions). This might have been an evolution of his father's earlier "elephant and castle" trademark.

This gun is a 12-bore double-bite screw grip rotary-underlever pinfire sporting gun by William Wellington Greener, retailed by Edward Whistler, 11 The Strand, London, and probably made in the late 1860s. The 30 1/8" damascus barrels have Birmingham proof marks, and a barrel maker's mark "SP", which I believe to be the mark of Samuel Probin of Loveday Street. The top rib is signed "W. W. Greener 11 Strand London." The gun has unsigned bar-action locks, nicely sculpted hammers, a beautifully figured walnut stock with drop points, and the fore-end has a horn or possibly ebony tip. The bores are slightly pitted at the breech, and the gun weighs 6 lb 15 oz.


[img]https://i.imgur.com/im4VG4c.jpg?1[/img]






A fine quality gun overall, but there is more. The gun is lacking a serial number, and the barrels lack the elephant mark. The story I was told was that when the gun was brought to Canada from Britain, the barrels were still "in-the-white," and were rust-browned locally. Graham Greener, of the current company, W W Greener (Sporting Guns) Limited, confirmed the gun was a Greener and that it would have sold for 30 guineas, but could not explain the marking discrepancies. All of which lead me to speculate that the gun was re-barrelled in Britain during its working life (not uncommon for later guns, but unusual for a pinfire). Greener guns of the period carried their serial numbers on the barrels and not the action bar or elsewhere, so a re-barrelled gun would lack the Greener serial number and trademark. The original rib might have been retained and put on the new set of tubes, or the name and address could have been engraved on a new rib -- I can't tell for sure, but suspect the latter, from the somewhat awkward letter spacing. The fact that the gun was not converted to centre-fire suggests the new barrels were put on at a time when pinfires were still in common use (or it would have made sense to change the hammers, drill strikers and add barrels with an extractor and centre-fire chambers). Why the new barrels would have been left in-the-white is a mystery. So many of these stories will never be known.

The Greener family has quite a remarkable history. William Greener was born in 1806 near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He apprenticed with John Gardner in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and for a short time he worked for John Manton in London. In 1829 he returned to Newcastle to open his own business. In 1835 he wrote his first book, "The Gun", or "A Treatise on the Various Descriptions of Small Fire-Arms". Around this time he invented the first bullet designed to expand in the barrel in order to seal the bore. In 1841 William Greener wrote "The Science of Gunnery". In 1844 he relocated to Birmingham, with three men, the rest of the work done by outworkers. In 1848 the firm was appointed gunmaker to HRH Prince Albert. In 1851 William exhibited at the Great Exhibition, and his guns were awarded prizes. However, his irreconcilable views on the new breech-loaders were said to be the cause of the split with his son William Wellington, who set up his own business in 1855, probably with his financial help. The new firm was named W Greener Jnr. It was recorded in Lench Street from 1858 to 1863, but in 1863 the name changed to W W Greener and he moved to 61-62 Loveday Street, the premises being named the "St Mary's Works". Continuing the family's inventiveness, William Wellington patented in 1863 a sliding bolt single-bite snap-action breech-loader (patent No. 2231). The patent also covered an extractor for pinfire guns. In 1867 William Wellington Greener registered patent No 1339 for a top lever locking mechanism, with a cross-bolt through an extension of the top rib, which eventually became his treble wedge fast grip. He went on to obtain many, many other patents, but these are beyond the pinfire period I've looked at.

William Greener died on 23 August 1869, and shortly afterwards William Wellington bought his father's business, and his operation at St Mary's Works at 61-62 Loveday Street was expanded to St Mary's Square and St Mary's Row. In 1874 William Wellington acquired the business of Joseph Needham. In 1878 he took over the firm and premises of Theophilus Murcott at 68 Haymarket to use as a London base, and opened a shop in Paris at 8 Avenue de l'Opera. On 25 July 1921 William Wellington Greener died at the age of 86. The firm continued and went on to be the largest sporting gun factory in the world. In 1965 the company was sold to Webley & Scott Ltd., which continued making Greener guns until 1979. In 1985 the W W Greener name was revived and the firm re-established at 1 Belmont Row, Birmingham, and guns carrying the Greener name are still being built.

William Wellington Greener surpassed his father as an author. In 1871 he wrote "The Modern Breech Loader", followed by "Choke Bore Guns and How to Load for All Kinds of Game" in 1876. In 1881 he wrote "The Gun and Its Development," which went on to nine editions and reprints in the period up to 1910. In 1888 WW Greener wrote "Modern Shotguns," and in 1900 he wrote "Sharpshooting for Sport and War". In 1907 he and Charles Edward Greener published a book entitled "The Causes of Decay in a British Industry" under the pseudonyms Optifex and Artifex. Finally, in 1908 William Wellington Greener wrote "The British Miniature Rifle".