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

Trying to figure out who made pinfire game guns during the years they were in fashion in Britain is a multi-layered process. Simply going by years in business is no guarantee, as some makers saw their muzzle-loader business gradually dwindle and they ceased operations without making the switch to breech-loaders, while others might have jumped straight from building muzzle-loaders straight to centre-fire, or just started making centre-fire guns. While there were 930 or so self-identified gunmakers and gun sellers in business at some point during the period of the late 1850s to about 1870, not all would have been making and/or selling pinfire game guns. Hard evidence can be had from the guns, and this thread has illustrated a good number of examples. I had hoped more would have come out of the woodwork, as it were, but this thread is a work in progress and I remain ever hopeful more pinfires will be posted here.

Another source of information is auction and sale listings and catalogues. Ivanhoe has graciously gone through his Weller & Dufty catalogues for 1974-1975 and pulled out the pinfire game gun listings. How I wish I was in the UK and collecting then!

Here is a list of names appearing on pinfire guns from Ivanhoe's trawl effort, for which I am very grateful. They are in no specific order, but by adding them here I hope that anyone searching the Net for information on pinfires by any of these makers will find their way to this discussion thread. Several of these makers have already appeared on these pages.

Stephen Grant, London
Charles Ingram, Glasgow
E. & G. Higham, Liverpool
E. Dodson, Louth
George Jeffries, Norwich
William Golden, Huddersfield
Williams & Powell, Liverpool
Harris Holland, London
Daniel Petts, Ripley
George O. Wilson, York
Benjamin Cogswell, London
Cogswell & Harrison, London
William Powell & Son, Birmingham
William Andrew Beckwith, Birmingham
Francis Brebner, Darlington
Isaac Hollis & Son, Birmingham
John Rigby & Co. / William & John Rigby, Dublin & London
John Blanch & Son, London
John Dickson & Son, Edinburgh
Charles Frederick Niebour, Uxbridge
J. Erskine, Newton Stewart
Manton & Co., London & Calcutta
James Beattie, London
Robert Marrison, Norwich
Robert Spring Garden, London
Masu Brothers, London & Liege
William Butler Barratt, Burton-on-Trent
Joseph Lang, London
G. T. Adcock, London (dealer)
Westley Richards, London
David Nixon, Newark-on-Trent
J. D. Dougall, London
Gasquoine & Dyson, Manchester
William Green, London
William Dooley, Liverpool
Joseph Harkom, Edinburgh
Thomas Horsley, Yorkshire
William Wellington Greener, Birmingham
Henry Beckwith, London
Thomas Robert Hasdell, London
Thomas Chard, Croydon
Thomas Johnson, Swaffham
William Robert Wallis, London
Edmund Morris, Bridgewater
Peter Powell, Tonbridge
Thomas Edward Kither, Sevenoaks
Joseph Smith, Birmingham
William Pountney, Birmingham
James Purdey, London
Richard Jeffery, Guildford
Henry Tatham, London
Robert Watmough, Manchester
Edwin Wilson, Horncastle

In addition, there were a few listings that were mysterious either through lack of details, or perhaps from typographic errors (of which I noted a few). These include the three names Bond, F. Boss, and R. Townsend of London, for which I was not able to find any reference.

As an illustration of the usefulness of the above information, I have a case with a label for Thomas Hasdell, Clerkenwell (Islington, London), minus the gun. The age and the fittings seemed right for the period (the case contained a Boss & Co. pinfire), but without the original gun, I could not confirm this maker made pinfires. Ivanhoe's data settled it.