Double Gun Bolting Systems

Spindles, Bites and Underlugs

- Terry Wieland

The modern world of double rifles was shaped by three critical patents taken out in England in 1863, 1865 and 1875. Any high-quality double rifle you buy today, regardless of origin, will use at least one of these, probably two, and more than a few will use all three.

Not to stretch out the suspense, the first is the sliding bolt that locks into the barrel’s underlugs, patented by James Purdey (1862); the second is the top lever and spindle down through the frame to operate this sliding bolt, patented by William Middleditch Scott two years later; the third is the Anson & Deeley boxlock action developed at Westley Richards.

Obviously, a sidelock rifle will not use the third feature, but the first two are so ubiquitous on side-byside double guns and rifles of all descriptions, grades, makes and countries of origin that many shooters today don’t even believe they were ever new, revolutionary and subject to patent protection. “But that’s so obvious,” many riflemen will say. “Why would you do it any other way?”

Why, indeed? Well, like fire, the wheel and the whale-stay corset, truly brilliant ideas are characterized by the fact that to the generations that follow they look painfully obvious. What is not widely known is that, after Casimir Lefaucheux awakened English gunmakers to the possibilities of the break-action mechanism in 1851, it took more than a decade of intense activity to develop systems of bolting them closed that were workable and durable – never mind convenient and ergonomic – and another 15 years before the systems we now recognize as “obvious” came into general use.