========== *57 1863-65: Reilly’s Sporting Gun Business TEXT ==========

*57 1863-65: Reilly’s Sporting Gun Business

Returning to the early 1860’s and Reilly’s sporting gun business, Reilly was numbering from 400 to 450 guns a year from 1858 to 1868, a pretty consistent number which perhaps reflects the maximum he could produce at the time (still more than Lang, Purdey and Haris Holland combined). Breech loaders shared place of honor with muzzle-loaders expecially during the American War Between the States period.

However, it was a time of dynamic change in the UK sporting gun business. Purdey patented his “double-bite” system (pat. 1104) in 1863 which combined with Scotts 1865 Spindle (Pat 2752) became a standard; Reilly was to make (and pay royalties for) dozens over the next 14 years. Snap-actions were introduced. Retractable firing pins. Westley-Richards began building “dolls head” fasteners, etc.

Reilly was not an innovator; but he kept abreast of all new patents changes; he advertised them, paid the royalties and built the guns. There is one 1865 advertisement which pretty well sums up what the entrepreneur E.M Reilly was all about: Reilly in an ad discussing a rifle construction system advocated by James Forsyth, had this to say:

. . . .“We are prepared to waive all the existing prejudices of “the Trade,”
. . . . .and to make Double and Single Rifles to order, on the principles laid down
. . . . .by Mr. Forsyth, and to have the Rifles carefully and accurately tested,
. . . . .so as to warrant their performance.”*57a

If a customer wanted it, Reilly would build it.

======== *57 1863-65: Reilly’s Sporting Gun Business END TEXT ========



============= *58 1863-73: Pin-Fire vs Center Fire TEXT =============

*58 1863-73: Pin-Fire vs Center Fire

Center Fire inventions were available early in the history of break-action breech-loaders, Lancaster's patent from the late 1850's being an example. However the pin-fire won out for a variety of reasons.

In 1861 Daw took out his center-fire patent 203, a copy of Pottet’s French patent. And by 1862 in John Rigby’s assessment of London Exposition breech-loaders, the advantages of center-fire system were obvious. (Rigby bet on Lancaster;*58a The British gun-press on Daw.*58b)

By the mid-1860's the advantages of a center-fire system for center-break guns became more and more evident. Eley broke Pottet’s patent for center-fire shells in 1865. This coupled with the 1866 invention of the shotgun center-fire primer shell by Berdan in America and almost simultaneously by Boxer in the UK made center-fire shotguns practical and viable along with certain other inventions such as the Anson fore-end. In the 1867 Paris Exposition Reilly featured center-fire long guns.*58c However, center-fire systems did not apparently supplant pin fires until around 1872. Extant Reilly pin-fires far out number center-fire guns until that time.

. . . . .-- Reilly’s first newspaper advertisements for “Direct-Action Center-Fire” appeared in 1865.*58d
. . . . . . . . . .1865 – ad in “The Life of Lord Palmerston”
. . . . . . . . . .03 Jul 1865, “London Daily News”

. . . . .-- SN 13688 (1865) - The first existing Reilly center-break center-fire long-gun is a 20 bore single-barrel under-lever hammer-gun shotgun (converted from an original rifle) with a Joseph Brazier action dated 1865.*58e

. . . . .-- SN 14115 (1866) - Reilly's first extant center-fire shotgun is SxS 12 bore U-L non-rebounding hammer gun dated 1866.*58f

Note: One other invention from this time helped cement centerfire primacy, the invention of rebounding hammers patented by Stanton in February 1867. Most surviving Reilly guns both pinfire and center-fire from this age were later converted to center-fire with rebounding hammers. One would think this was the type of patent that would be immediately adopted. However, the majority of existing, original condition Reilly's up to the 1870's have non-rebounding actions. In fact there continued to be non-rebounding hammers on extant Reilly built guns up until the 1880's (just as there were Reilly built muzzle loaders). The London gun trade was extremely conservative.

=========== *58 1863-73: Pin-Fire vs Center Fire END TEXT ===========

Last edited by Argo44; 06/05/22 09:25 AM.
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