[falnovice]

Hello all.

I was chatting with a friend last night and the disucssion turned to Black Powder as we both have an interest. However, he raised an interesting question that I do not have an answer to. When was the first break-open shotgun? I've done some searching but I think the words are too commonly used for google to come up with good answers. I believe all of the Civil War shotguns were muzzle loaders, but not certain for how long after that.

Anybody know?

[rcmodel]

The first shotgun to use a cartridge was introduced in France in the late 1840's as the Lefaucheaux pin-fire system. (Patented in 1838)

By 1852, Charles Lancaster begin marketing an improved breechloading shotgun that lead to the development of break-open breech-loaders by others.
They were in common use by 1864.

The first modern hammerless breech-loading shotgun was probably the English Anson & Deeley introduced in 1875.

rc

[Jim Watson]

Most shotgun development was in England and Europe.
Lefacheux had a pinfire break action shotgun out in 1852. It opened and closed by a lever under the barrels. Many of them had no separate forearm.
George Daw designed the centerfire shotshell as still used and a break action shotgun for it in 1862. It opened with an underlever coming back over the trigger guard.
The modern looking top lever shotgun came along about 1864.