How
to tell the age of your gun
Telling
the age of any gun, when you don’t have the maker’s records, is never easy
and it is unlikely that the precise year of manufacture can be established.
Unfortunately the records we do have access to do not show us the complete dates
when the Perrins family were working at each address, but it does give us a
guide.
Proof marks can also help date
a gun and we are indebted to Diggory
Hadoke
Who has
allowed us to reproduce a table of proof marks from his fascinating book 'Vintage
guns for the modern shot'. I have only reproduced the Birmingham Proof House
marks as it is likely that Perrins would have used this facility rather than the
London House. Re-proofing, where the gun is re submitted for proof, can cause
confusion as a second or even third set of proof marks will be stamped on the
gun and may make the original marks difficult or impossible to read.
We can tell from the type of gun approximately which period they belong to.
Percussion cap muzzle loaders obviously come from an earlier period and started
making an appearance by the early 1820s.
Breach loading guns introduced
from
France
at the Great Exhibition of 1851 used a pin fire cartridge (where a pin
protrudes from the collar of the cartridge, through a notch at the rear of the
barrel. As breech loading guns evolved rim fire and needle fire cartridges were
manufactured as the industrial revolution took hold. These were soon superseded
by another French invention, acquired by George Daw, which heralded the modern
centre fire cartridge in 1862.
Breach loading, centre fire
hammer guns were perfected over the next 20 or so years before being eclipsed by
the evolution of the hammerless gun progressively
from 1871. Hammer guns have the
advantage that an onlooker can see whether the gun is cocked or not. Hammerless
guns cannot be seen to be safe unless they are open. Some early hammerless guns
had dummy hammers which acted as cocking indicators showing the gun to be cocked
or safe.
Between 1858 and 1870 over 170
UK
shotgun patents were registered. Patents had to be acknowledged for 15 years
from the time of registration so this can narrow the window a little. Once we
have some patent marks to look up it will be another line of research.
By way of example some of the more important developments are listed below.
1. The rotary screw grip
under lever dates from Henry Jones patent of 1859, which coincides with the
development of the breach loader.
2. Rebounding locks (i.e.
where the hammer rests clear of the strikers and has no half cock position)
date from around 1863 but were not perfected until
Stanton
’s patent of 1867.
3. Although choke boring was recorded in Papes patent of1866 it did not become
widespread until the mid 1870's and lead to the stamping ‘Not For Ball’ by
proof houses from 1875. This was to avoid the gun being damaged by the use of
solid rounds.
4. Hammerless guns will be
post Murcott’s patent of 1871 (prob. post 1875 when the boxlock was
introduced.
5.
Needham
made a workable ejector in 1874 but the Perkes ”over centre” of 1878
formed the basis for the efficient ejector systems that became favoured from
the late 1880s.
6. Early forends used a
‘key’ or ‘wedge’ escutcheon, carried over from the percussion era to
lock them to the barrels. Anson push rod forends date from 1872, Deeley &
Edge from 1873 and Hackett ‘snap’ forend from 1878 following their
respective patents.
7. W C Scott back action side locks (which look like a leg of mutton)
were introduced in 1878.
Earlier guns appear to be marked ‘Perrins’ while post 1855 they are marked
‘Perrins & Son’. Very Late guns have the name Henry Perrins, which we
suspect will date them after 1892, when the business at
59 Broad Street
was sold to Pollard.
John
Clements
gun for example has proof marks including ‘Not for ball’
which was stamped on the barrels between 1875 and 1887, it also has ‘59 Broad
Street’ on the barrel, so we know it was made between 1879 and 1887
The 20 bore example Lynn Hennessy has appears to have post 1896 original proof
marks with over-stamping when the gun was sleeved at a later date. This
indicates that Henry was still working from the
St George Square
address as late as 1896.
We also have two 14 bore muzzle
loading percussion cap shotguns on the web page of Peter, one marked
‘Perrins’ and the other marked ‘Perrins & Son’ with the latter
clearly showing the 14 bore stamp indicating it is post 1855.
I would like to thank Peter
Long and Diggory Hadoke for their
help in preparing this page.
