From Mr. Nash--------------
"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."
I think the above is a good synopsis of the countries relating to pinfires. I may have seen a couple from Sweden, but cannot name a maker or source from there. From my experience, you may add Germany to the list of pinfire producers.
From North America, most of the pinfire double shotguns I have seen seem to be rebranded British guns. Poultney and Trimble, Forsyth [Made for Syms and Bros., N.Y.], and a few others. But, one gun I have seen seems to be mostly, if not all, an American product. It is a double barrel pinfire shotgun marked C. E. Sneider, Patentee, Baltimore. Barrels surely came from Europe, but the rest of the gun is not like European samples. I cannot recall another North American maker of pinfire doubles that did not seem to originate from Europe.
Understanding that we don't want to get too far off of the subject of the British Game Gun, indulge me a bit with the Sneider, the only U.S. double pinfire that I know of. There are probably others. As Mr. Nash stated , the U.S. seemed to jump from muzzleloader over the pinfire, directly into the centerfire breechloading double. This is logical because we are talking about the period of the U.S. Civil war when the citizens were preoccupied with things other than game guns. By the time the effects in the U.S.of the War were over, the centerfire breechloader was starting to bloom in Britain. Soon on to the U.S.
Somehow the Sneider did come out in that period. Sneider , if my memory is correct, did have some British patents. He was also in the forefront of the first American hammerless breechloaders. This pinfire "may" have European locks, but I have not taken them off. It should be noted that Sneider was continually advancing the sidelock design in America, using coil springs quite often. A friend and I compared three different Sneider locks, and the similarity of each was coil springs, but the designs were completely different. The odd almost circular piece on the inside of the bar is a stop/keeper for the barrels. When turned the barrels could not be removed. A later Sneider patent used a crossbar in this area to retain the barrels.
After removing the lock on the Sneider, I think the lock and barrels had a British origin. The stock appears to be American Black Walnut and the receiver and lockup details seem done in the U.S.
