JavaScript is disabled
Our website requires JavaScript to function properly. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser settings before proceeding.
My grandfather gave me this shotgun about 40 years ago. He found this and some old black powder hunting rifles in a log cabin up in the woods in the Oregon coast around the late 1920's or 1930's.

It's either a cheap American or Belgiun knock off or a W. Richards (not Westly) from Liverpool England shotgun. The only markings I can find are the words W. Richards below the hammer on the side plate and London Fine Twist on the top of the barrel with the letter's CR under the barrel. It was cleaned up when I got it and I think the wooden rod was replaced at the same time. At 58" long end to end I can barely fit it in my safe. I took it to school my freshman year as a show and tell for our speech class.


image.jpeg
 
Nice shotgun ... Looks like a Belgium gun with spurious English markings.
Many a Belgium gun had W. Richards stamped on it as well.
Have you shot it? ... It might make a dandy grouse gun.
Andy
 
Last Edited:
For you large bore muzzle stuffers. :D
Stop by your local toy store and check out the glass marbles.o_O
They make a fun, low power, lead free, short range load in the .60 -.70 muskets, or pistols.:rolleyes:
And, they make a very satisfying splatter mark when they hit something solid.:eek:
 
My grandfather gave me this shotgun about 40 years ago. He found this and some old black powder hunting rifles in a log cabin up in the woods in the Oregon coast around the late 1920's or 1930's.

It's either a cheap American or Belgiun knock off or a W. Richards (not Westly) from Liverpool England shotgun. The only markings I can find are the words W. Richards below the hammer on the side plate and London Fine Twist on the top of the barrel with the letter's CR under the barrel. It was cleaned up when I got it and I think the wooden rod was replaced at the same time. At 58" long end to end I can barely fit it in my safe. I took it to school my freshman year as a show and tell for our speech class.


View attachment 349070


So let me get this straight?

They didn't refer to it as a ''Home robbery'' back in the 1920's/30's? :D
 
W.Richards may have made the lock, but who made the rest? ALL Belgian-made firearms from 1810 on were proofed by law, usually in the main town associated then, and now, with gunmaking - Liége.

As a result, they are copiously stamped with numerous proof marks -

3112_12_27-belgium-kal.jpg

As a percussion gun that does not, from the one pic you have provided, seem to have been converted from flint, it may therefore be post-1850 and is very reminiscent of a Hawken-style arm rather than anything British. The gun I showed you belonging to John IS a British style gun, with its splinter forend and style. The other oddness is what seems to be dark iron furniture - NOT English at all. Every English-made lockplate [and furniture] I've ever seen is bright, unless, of course, it's brass, in which case it's, uh, brass.

More pics needed, please.

tac

PS - can't quite make out the form of the barrel - is it round or octagonal? Round = shotgun for sure and octagonal = [99% of the time] rifled.
 
I'm just going through a whole bunch of older DGW catalogues, and see that Pedersoli once made a shotgun that bears a remarkable resemblance to this, based on a high-grade 'gentleman's sporting gun of the 1840's, and made by Mortimer of London. The lockplate and the trigger guard are both colour case-hardened with a fine and colourful mottled finish. It was priced at $615.00 in 1997.

So I got it wrong, for which I apologise. However, I'd still like to see every mark on the gun, assuming that you've had the barrel out of the wood to check underneath.

tac
 
I found this over on our sister forum - muzzleloadingforum.com......

A_zpsiewehnwj.jpg

Not quite the same, but not a million miles away, eh?

Gallyon, BTW, was a gunmaker and retailer operating down the road from us in Cambridge, UK, and the image above depicts a replica of a sporting shotgun imported into the USA by Investarms/CVA in the seventies.

Ignore the screw-in chokes - they were an a/m addition.

Gallyons, as a business, are now one with Troy and far Illium.......

tac
 
I found this over on our sister forum - muzzleloadingforum.com......

View attachment 349535

Not quite the same, but not a million miles away, eh?

Gallyon, BTW, was a gunmaker and retailer operating down the road from us in Cambridge, UK, and the image above depicts a replica of a sporting shotgun imported into the USA by Investarms/CVA in the seventies.

Ignore the screw-in chokes - they were an a/m addition.

Gallyons, as a business, are now one with Troy and far Illium.......

tac

Wow - that is pretty darn close. I really cannot find any other markings, but I will try to get some more pics up soon.

Thank you for your help.
 
looks like a late period ( circa 1850's and later ) percussion fowler or trade gun.
It appears to have a "hooked breech" .. which is handy when cleaning the bore.
Have you taken the barrel off to see what if any marks are on the underside of the barrel?
Andy
 

Upcoming Events

Centralia Gun Show
Centralia, WA
Klamath Falls gun show
Klamath Falls, OR
Oregon Arms Collectors April 2024 Gun Show
Portland, OR
Albany Gun Show
Albany, OR

New Resource Reviews

New Classified Ads

Back Top