doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT: How does one use the "search" feature here?

Lloyd, I'm wondering if your very fine (look at how sleek that stock is) Lang is in fact an original center fire. It looks like it might be a modified pin-fire. The key will be the tops of the barrel chambers.

In my investigation of Reilly guns (and there are 608 serial numbered and now dated guns in the database) center-fire shotguns did not really appear until the primers invented almost simultaneously by American Berdan in Feb 1866 and UK Boxer in October 1866. And center-fire shotguns did not supplant pin-fires in numbers (of extant guns) until 1872-73. Stephen is obviously the expert but these are observations from the peanut gallery.

Gene

For comparison, here is the earliest known Reilly original center-fire shotgun SN 14115 from my dating chart early 1866:



And this is not unusual - boat-loads of pin-fires were changed over/upgraded. Here is a gun which I think is similar to yours - written about numerous times over 20 years by Terry Weiland in various magazine articles. He never would give me the serial number but I managed to resurrect it - I think - or a facsimile or it to be close enough: SN 14281 - which dates to 1866. And I concluded that after all the transformations it might have been originally a pin-fire.