Cal 8 shotgun by Jackson

[runastav]

Hi all!
Can anyone tell me more about this perc shotgun made by Jackson. Cal 8 ( ca 21,5mm)  barrel lenght 32"  damask. Wat is the funny thing og the hammer?
Runar

[mountainman70]

Looks like it may be an early Pill=Lock,using percussion "pills"before?caps were used.Just a guess,looks like pills were fed from the slide bar on the side of hammer.This is just my guess.I have only seen one other at a gunshow a Long time ago.cheers,Dave

[Avlrc]

Never seen a hammer like that before.

[Majorjoel]

The lock on this shotgun has the finest engraving that I have ever seen on a back action lock! Very nice and I hope someone will come around with information about Jackson.   Thank you runastav for showing it.

[Buck]

I like the hammer also, looks like   ......................................... a hammer!
Buck

[oakridge]

Looks like it takes a spanner to remove the nut to get the hammer off. I've seen English back-action locks made like that. Haven't seen this hammer though. Could be by Thomas Jackson, London.

mountain70, I think you're on to something with the "pill lock" idea, or a capper of some type.

[Mike Brooks]

I believe it to be a patch lock. Feltwad will know for sure.

[mountainman70]

I had a nice book some years,and lifetimes ago,with a shotgun similar to this one,same kind of hammer,and the caption said it was a Pilllock early percussion.Wonder if a search on internet would turn up anything-getting ready to find out.More later.Dave

[Canute Rex]

Bill and mountainman are onto it. At the very beginning of the percussion age there were a variety of pills, patches, and tubes filled with fulminate of mercury, all competing for the market. Tape primers stayed in the game right up into the Civil War era.

Could it be some weird variation on a Forsythe scent-bottle lock?

[runastav]

Hi Folks! And thank you all
Jos.Manton use similar hammer on duelling pistol. But the hammer I have is missing a thin spring pressing on the removable nose so must be turn and then out? Maby they use pellets in the nose?
Runar

[Bob Roller]

Runar,
That is an unusual back action mechanism but finely made.
The recent thread about a sear spring for one of these can
be helped with this picture.Just imagine the little single leaf
spring as never being there and extend the lower limb of the
mainspring as being thinner and there is the sear spring in
some of these locks.
Thanks for showing this.It is a very interesting lock and a fine pistol.

Bob Roller

[mountainman70]

Hey Bob,I will fix my b/a lock this way.You never know what's going to show up here.Dave

[Feltwad]

The lock in question is the Early type of back-action fitted with an early patch lock hammer.I would date the lock 1825-30 and the hammer 1815-20,this type of hammer has a detachable nose so several of which would be loaded with a patch to be fitted when the existing one was fired.most of these hammers were made  and resembled the  same type has Joe Mantons tube lock hammers .Which Jackson was the builder is hard to pinpoint has there were several Jackson working in Birmingham at that period and just has many in the  provincial towns.I have enclosed a couple of images of this type of hammer one on a sxs flintlock conversion and the other on an early back action patented 1815
Feltwad

[Curt J]

I once owned a percussion double shotgun with hammers like this. It was made by N. N. Wilmott, on the Isle of Wight.

[Feltwad]

I once owned a percussion double shotgun with hammers like this. It was made by N. N. Wilmott, on the Isle of Wight

My records show a Nathanial Wilmot, Andover,Hants , England 1829 which could be the same man
Feltwad

[Dphariss]

When looking at early percussion guns we must remember that the percussion cap as we know it today was not patented until years after the percussion system was invented and came into use.
There were quite a number of percussion systems used before the system became "standardized" with the "modern" percussion cap. So if we see a gun originally designed for the percussion cap we use today then its unlikely it predates 1828-1830. Though there is some guess work involved on my part here.
Even well after the cap was "standard" tape and pellet type primers were common on percussion military arms in America until the advent of the self-contained cartridge. For example, the Maynard tape primer 1855 Springfield Rifle Musket and the Sharps straight breech percussion carbines/rifles  which all had pellet locks and both pellet and tape primers have been used on earlier models.
Dan

[eddillon]

Looks like a very fine Birmingham made gun to me.