Thread: an old one but a bloody good one

this is my 1887,thomas horsley ,12 gauge,hammerless ejector boxlock.it accounted for 5 cock pheasants this year.the picture shows off the feature thomas horsley had the patent for,cocking indicators, the words,' loaded' written in gold.when fired the slide moves forward and covers.the gun is a boxlock and is built on the anson deely action under patent.it is a wonderful old gun and yet quite modern.the damascus barrels are in perfect nick,and it is proofed for 1 1/4 oz although i use only 1 oz loads in it. it is a lovely gun to shoot.

Lovely, got a full length photo you could post?

Some old guns are works of art, nice to see another old shooter being used as it should be!Have you got the pair? This being # 2 gun?

I did a bluing job not that long ago on a Greener that had the damascus pattern on the barrels. Its interesting as you sand the steel back to being totally clean i.e. no sing of any pattern, but when you drop the steel into a certain chemical the pattern comes back up.

Without being rude, are you sure that its genuine damascus ? I ask as it looks exactly like the barrels that I did and it wasn,t the real deal

no,this is the only one i have.i have corresponded with david baker who wrote the book "thomas Horsley-Gunmaker of york", a copy which i have.in his book he says the last known use of the patent for 'loading indicators" was in 1883, of course i flicked him an email to say i have one made in 1887,and it was built on a anson deely action,as he had also said there were only 6 known examples of t.horsleys using this patent.he emailed me back confirming the date of manufacture and also the name of the chap who commissioned to have the pair built.i bought from someone who had ye old grandfathers gun. as to the damascus,i am not about to see whether it is false or not.i do have a bloody interesting gun,a french 24ga. which has false damascus barrels,the pattern sands off as does ordinary damascus.i agree with you chop3r the patterns are similar.the gun is an ideal(id-dee-al) made by manufrance,-again i have a booklet showing all the models, and yes you could order a gun with false damascus barrels.however i am not sure whether this fashion extended to english guns. i will put up a picture later on of the horsley.i do have a 1877 greener with damascus i shoot with,2 1/2 loads 1 oz and never a problem.

Nice! I have never seen that style of 'loaded' indicator before.

I've got a j Mayne,quite agricultural compared to your beauty, l load black powder for it and that annoys some people. What do you load for yours as I want it to be more socially acceptable.

Cheers. With true damascus you will see the lines where the barrel was wrapped so to speak. Still an interesting shotgun though

If you look at true Damascus it will look like a tape wrapped around a pipe. And the amount of folds will be seen in the little spiral patterns. I haven't seen many fake damasucus barrels in NZ but then again I'd never buy an old french or Belgian gun. They were the main perpetrators. I have no doubt this would be the real deal

there is all types of damascus.i have had a good look at the barrels,the pattern is consistent.if they were fake i think there would be wear spots after 128 years,after all the fake damascus was only painted on.i have had a look at thomas horsley's advert and he did offer damascus or steel barrels, all his guns were bespoke,models did not start in the english gun trade until the 1890's.this gun is the start of the production line systems.the 1870,s saw the continual evolution of the shotgun,when westley richards patented the anson deeley action,a superior design that remained unchanged for he next 100 years,other gunmakers purchased the action from westley richards (in the case of t.horsley) or from other gunmakers who were licenced to produce it. so gunmakers like horsley who previously made the complete gun in-house, brought in parts,and this started the birmington gun trade.which brings up the point that marty henry made about his J.O.Mayne gun.this was the name of a retailer who purchased guns off various birmington makers, called himself j.o.mayne London and sold guns to the rising new business classes who aspired to join the landowners and shoot a bit.the quality is mixed but generally he sold for the budget minded.i do have one of his guns,a 16 ga hammer gun,damascus barreled,and blackpowder proofed in birmingham.the chamber size for these 16 ga. is 2 9/16's.i was lucky to buy a few slabs of ammo with fibre wads when barry foster imported some from Hull about 6 years back. now pressure is pressure in guns whether it is blackpowder or nitro/modern, so after a discussion we testfired a few rounds with the gun secured and the trigger released by way of a string.the gun handled them fine and i have shot it occasionally since,although i am not endorsing this method as it is a case by case situation and you may have to live or not with the results. with regard to french and belguim makers,there are some who are outstanding makers,the french 24 ga gun i have is outstanding,light years ahead of the english guns of the period by way of innovation and design and i have an outstanding belgain hammer gun which is virtually unfired, and the quality is wonderful.you cant generalise.i will certainly be checking out the horsley damascus!