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

I may as well post this gun from the Reilly line. I believe this may well be the oldest datable extant UK made center-break pin-fire.

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10054 - Vintage Gun Journal comments

Double gun enthusiasts are passionate about their history. Per posts two pages earlier, Diggory Hadoke forward an advertisement for a Reilly pin-fire SN 10054. It is absolutely the earliest Reilly center-break gun found to date and would date to early fall 1856 per the Reilly chart.


Diggory published the following article in September "Vintage Gun Journal" on the gun:
https://www.vintageguns.co.uk/magazine/the-earliest-reilly-breech-loader-

A few comments:
-- The dating of the gun is far more complex than is presented in the article, and is far more precise. Please read the serial number dating chart and go over the p.44 list of extant guns. (I need to move both history and list forward)
-- Mark Crudgington was introduced to me by Diggory, and I have had an on-going conversation with him about Reilly; we disagree on a number of points - he has been extremely helpful on others. Some of the comments he made to me are included in Diggory's article.

10054 is still the Earliest Reilly center-break ever found. It may be in fact the earliest extant UK made center-break pin-fire.

Mark said that he knows of two dated Lang pin-fires from 1854 per the receipts. (Per Lang's own essay we know he began to make them about early 1854). Mark like David Trevallion and Robert Dollimore in New Zealand, are the historical repository of knowledge of gun making from the 1950's - 60's and in Mark's case because of his father Ian Crudgington stretching back to the 1940's. However, over the years I've learned to wait for the physical evidence.