Way off topic again

[charlesp]

My search for an English Hammer Gun continues. I still haven't found what I'm looking for, but I have had several very near misses. The last near miss was a William Moore & Grey 12 bore, damascus barrels, clean bores, recent nitro reproof, enough steel in the barrel walls, almost long enough in the stock, and with a lovely bar-in-wood sidelock confgiguration that had me saying 'Oh yes, that's the one..' But of course a major snag appeared on closer inspection - a crack in the stock at the hand simply put the thing into the 'dont want it' category.

So I'm continuing with what I have, and as soon as this heat wave is over (for our overseas members we really do have a heat wave here!) I shall be starting up the casual clay shooting again. Boy do I need the practice.

I'm going to concentrate on really getting used to my Beretta Over 'n Under, and give the Greener a rest. But I have a problem with the Beretta being an ejector, like they all seem to be these days. I would like to convert it into a non-ejector so it'll just extract the spent cartridge case rather than snap it off into the undergrowth. Naturally I would like to put it all back together just as it was when and if I want to take it game shooting, ie no permanent work.

Before taking it apart does anyone have any practical experience of doing something similar to a Beretta?

[Horsley-Anarak]

No experience with Berettas sorry, I am more of a Winchester and Browning man.



If you disconnect the ejector mechanism, how will you remove the spent cartridges?


H-A

[charlesp]

I don't want to stop it extracting, just ejecting.

I'll get down to it next week and have a look.

[david doyle]

Man when you finally find that English gun you are going to find little use for the berretta. Pure joy shooting a proper gun. Did that Moore fit you? Everyting else perfect? priced to reflect the stock work required? I completely understand the 'only buy minty guns' philosophy but if this gun is suppose to be a shooter then a stock wrist repair (if priced properly) aint a really a show stopper, Lot easier to find wood then good locks and damascus barrels.

Paper cartridges and BP I assume?

Any way sorry, I am 40 days away from waterfowl season and have tube guns on the brain big time Below is a link to thread over on shotgun world.


http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=191038

To convert a Beretta 68X action to extractor mode, the fore-end iron levers will have to be modified. Never work on the extractors themselves, because they are expensive to buy and need extensive fitting work and hardening/tempering should they ever need to be replaced or if the gun should be retrofit to ejector mode.
The fore-end iron levers or cocking levers [22] located in the fore-end iron [13] work on the cocking rods [47] to cock the hammers [57; 58]. When cocking the action, the resistance of the hammer/cocking rod makes the cocking lever swing upwards where it will engage the hook of the ejector [5; 6], thus preventing the ejector from being released until the action will have almost fully opened. To prevent the cocking lever from engaging the ejector hook, the engaging upper edge of the cocking lever needs to be dressed down a tad with a grinder or stone; 1 mm would probably be sufficient. You can observe the interaction between the lever and ejector by installing the fore-end iron only to the barrels, without the wooden fore-end attached; I would do this with the ejectors installed in the barrels, but with the ejector springs [3] removed. I would install the fore-end iron to the barrels only, without having the barrels attached to the action because it can be pretty difficult to remove a tight fitting fore-end iron from barrels and action without having the wooden fore-end in place.
The cocking levers may need some minor fitting should they be replaced with new ones to retrofit the gun to ejector mode again, but this is easily done, just save the existing levers as a pattern. You'll see a little cutout ground off the lever portion where it engages the guiding button of the action body; new levers will need to be dressed accordingly. Replacement levers are not expensive to buy.
Basically, the ejector springs [3] could be shortened a tad in addition to the cocking lever modification, but I would prefer to leave them alone rather because every once in a while you'll encounter one of those sticky hulls where the full strength spring will help with positive extraction.

H-A Your brilliant.

[1650bullet]

Ive said it Before Charles. But the Churchill is a real workhorse in my opinion. Lot of our champion track and skeet shooters in Oz use them for practice because you just keep putting rounds upon rounds threw them and they keep going and going. Smooth bores are getting more popular because of the different types of rounds you can buy for them. As much as we are so careful with things, There is a possible chance of the gun ending up on the ground or in the mud. The churchills down this way get dusty at times, but a good dusting with a rag and they will be fine. You have a few options to choose with churchills. Just putting it out there for you. Its your choice in the end,

[charlesp]

Bullet the only Churchills I come up against are usually sidelock ejectors made by EJ Churchill, and most of those are 25" barrels. Now I don't want to argue the toss with Mr Churchill about the merits of short barrels but to me they just don't feel right! I have come across just one Churchill hammer gun, which was very ordinary and didn't float my boat.

David you're quite right of course about proper English guns, I would say British because our Scottish and Irish cousins have made some fine stuff too. I have shot all my life with these things, of many flavours. The Beretta was scratching an itch to try an over & under, and while it's no quality compared with a good classic British side-by-side it does the job and the engineering and design is good.

The William Moore & Grey stock was cracked, and as far as I'm concerned that's it. I don't want a cracked stock, and I don't want a repaired one. And the price of having a new one made (for a bar-in-wood gun) is astronomical, way more than the gun is worth. A second rate gunstock on a good gun is money wasted.

I've had a look at the parts diagram now and I can see why the extractiopn as well as the ejection requires the ejector springs to be present. I shall ponder further about making up some sort of modification when I take the thing apart this week. But getting used to catching the empties is looking favourite at the moment!

Not BP, David, the people standing next to you tend to worry when they can't see! And not even paper cases; I'm fine with modern plastic, so long as it's a lead load rather than steel for damascus barrels.

By the way - earlier you mentioned the esteemed Mr Lee of SMLE (and Lee-Metford) fame, citing that he was an American. He was born in Scotland!

[david doyle]

He was born in Scotland!

I am very pleased to learn that! It always bothered me a bit. On my wish list is a LEE navy 6 mm tough to find though. Maybe it was his US patents that confused me or did he emigrate? Either way I like my SMLEs alot better now knowing that a Glasgow education led to the reliability and not blind luck.

[lakeviewlad]

Ah,now we're talking! I do a lot of game shooting over here and use a 1923 Fred Williams sl sbs with 30" barrels. My grandfather passed it on to me when he retired from active hunting. This is a good quality English gun and shoots well. I use it for wildfowling during the "duck days" but I've never did any clay shooting with it. I have stripped the gun many times for cleaning the action etc and would say that any sportsman should be able to strip down any of his guns and know how they work. If you feel confident and have proper tools then it is a straightforward job.

[1650bullet]

Hi Charles. How did you get on with what you were going to do.

[charlesp]

Hi Bullet.

I got the gun on the bench and started stripping the fore-end down, then stopped. I realised that in doing this type of conversion I was going to have to modify (aka 'destroy') one or more components, leaving me with a gun that when my widow eventually sells it will be simply described as 'ejectors not working'. So I put it back together and decided not to bother.

Far better if I invest the time, and possibly money, in more practice. At one time I was a respectable shot, but recently it's all gone to pot. High birds and approaching birds and crossing ones are OK, or will be with more practice, but qauertering/going away just has me stumped at the moment. This has happened since I had a stroke a few years ago. I have completely recovered, but a very small number of things still aren't back. Names of people I met during a defined period of my life are difficult. I can tell you where they live, what their job is, even what sort of car they drive and how many children, it's just the names. Another such oddity is this quartering/going away birds. And another is a completely blank spot regarding the single selective trigger on the Beretta, including which barrel has the choke! I can sit there with a pair of snap-caps and play for ages until it's second nature, and ten minutes later it's all gone again!

The other project - find myself a nice Victorian hammer gun - still hasn't borne fruit. I have come close a few times, but never close enough. I know I'm not going to find one that is perfect in all respects, but I will compromise on some things. Of course I'll probably never find one with an original stock that's the right length - I'm a six footer and most Victorian chaps were rather less, and shorter stocks were the order of the day.

Who knows, I may trip over exactly what I want this afternoon! Meanwhile if I need a non-ejector I'll take my Greener out. And with that one I know the choke is the left barrel and it's fired by the back trigger. And being a damascus barrelled gun it sounds nicer than the Beretta, too...

[1650bullet]

You never know what is around the corner that's for sure. Stick with it and you will be at the wright place at the wright time I reckon. As for modifying, Your only going to wreck a good gun as you said before. Seen to many people do it.

[Daryl]

Charles as this is a Seagull site I was just wondering how many Seagulls you have brought down with the shot gun??

[charlesp]

Happy to confirm that my total lifetime Seagull (feathered, all types) score with a shotgun or indeed any other weapon is zero!

My score recently at clays isn't far off that, come to think of it.