TECHNICAL

Hammer guns are made to various patterns. The two seen most often are bar-action sidelocks and back-action guns, though the island lock (where the locks are set into the stock without fixing into the action bar or on plates abutting it) was popular with Purdey from the late 1860s. “Bar in wood” sidelock hammer guns may also be encountered. This gun is a bar action sidelock and it incorporates a variety of developments, including Purdey double lumps (now ubiquitous), a Scott spindle and top lever (ditto), and Stanton’s 1869 patent rebounding locks (seen on all modern hammer guns). Before this, hammer guns had a “half-cock” position and the hammers rested on the strikers if forward with potentially disastrous consequences if a loaded gun was dropped. Stanton guns are “rebounding”: the hammers cannot go fully forward unless the trigger is depressed. We now take for granted many of these developments, each a colossal step forward in its day.