sxs with trigger guard release

[Revolver Ocelot]

I'm looking for recommendations for a 12ga sxs shotun that has a trigger guard release as opposed to the thumb lever release. Any suggestions on a good brand that has something of the sort?

this will probably be an sbs someday.

 

[JohnBT]

I can't think of any. The last one I saw was French I think, and about 100 years old.

I had to look it up, the top lever was patented in 1883 and quickly became the standard. Ljutic uses a button on the front of the trigger guard to open the gun, but they make expensive o/u trap guns.

John

 

[oneounceload]

There are also side lever guns, like from Atkins, Grant and Lang - but they are expensive as well. Working the top lever is not hard to do once you practice a little

 

[Revolver Ocelot]

Working the top lever is not hard to do once you practice a little

yeah, thats what I'm more framiliar with, however I found something interesting, it was a soviet russia single shot that had been turned into an sbs and it had the lever on it. I really liked how it worked, it just felt right i guess. but alas my searches only turn up the french one, i had been hoping there was something a little more modern around.

 

[mnrivrat]

Savage Arms at one time produced a break open via button/lever at the front of the trigger gaurd. A version of the M94 in I think the 1970's .

 

[dprice3844444]

basically,all the sxs have thumb safeties because of the hammers located in the upper mechanism .pumps and semi's, in most cases, have the hammers located in the trigger guards,hence why they have the push button to block the hammers.

 

[mnrivrat]

Savage/Stevens trigger guard latch .

 

[JohnBT]

But the Stevens 9478 is a single barrel, not a double. I've never seen one for sale, they only made them for 5 or 6 years around 1980.

 

[mnrivrat]

But the Stevens 9478 is a single barrel, not a double.

For some reason my head was stuck on single shot - my bad !

I know of no modern side by side guns with trigger guard area break open function.

 

[JohnBT]

Hey, at least you remembered one modern gun with a funky barrel release. I couldn't recall it immediately even after you posted the pic.

 

[Fred Fuller]

There were side levers, underlevers and Stevens even made a double barrel model once that a third "trigger" in front of the usual trigger guard that opened the action. Wyatt Earp used one of these, in 10 gauge - borrowed from Wells Fargo detective Fred Dodge - in the gunfight at Iron Springs that followed the OK Corral fight. Fourteen years later lawman Heck Thomas used the same gun - borrowed from Dodge again - in a fight with outlaw Bill Doolin. There's a picture at http://www.imfdb.org/w/index.php?title=10_Gauge_Double_Barreled_Shotgun&oldid=497722 ...

But modern versions of any of these? Good luck... can't say there aren't any available, but they sure aren't widely advertised.

 

[evan price]

I think Husquvarna had an underlever double. It's on the fore-end not the trigger guard.
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=273725242

The reason there's not so many like you describe is because it was discovered that putting the lock on top let it resist the forces that would loosen the gun up. I think LC Smith was the first to figure that out and the entire market shifted that way as fast as possible.

"The most interesting of the American top fasteners is the L.C. Smith’s patented by Alexander Brown in 1883. Where all the others used either Greener’s transverse bolt, some sort of flat bolt or hook on the front end of the top lever, or both, Brown designed his bolt as a steel cylinder that turns on a horizontal axis. A slot filed into the cylinder forms the actual hook, which fits into a slot in the rib extension. The cylinder also engages a lip at the rear of the extension as a secondary bite. L.C. Smith described this arrangement as a double cross-bolt, although double rotary bolt would be more accurate."

In 1921, Charles Askins wrote in The American Shotgun "It remained for America to have the final word in bolting mechanisms. Lug bolts located on or as part of the barrels were in the wrong place. The hinge-joint of the barrels acts as a fulcrum of a lever, upon which, the barrels rest and pry at the bolts. It takes three times as much strength in bolts, to withstand the pressure if they are placed an inch from the joint, as it would should the fastening be accomplished three inches further away. Alex Brown moved his locking bolts from the lug and placed them in the extension rib, which is undoubtedly the right position for them mechanically."

(Borrowed from here: http://www.lcsmith.org/faq/rotarylocking.html )