GUN STOCKS
Probably no feature of a shotgun, not even the finest engraving, is
so beautiful or so ornamental as an elegant piece of highly finished
walnut in the stock. Gunmakers grade their stocks as carefully as the
weapons to which they are to be attached. Technically the various
grades of wood are known as plain American walnut, fine American
walnut, English walnut, selected English walnut, fine English walnut,
French or Italian walnut, and Circassian walnut. Whether these are
any more than technical terms I am not prepared to say. It seems
unreasonable that there should not be any fine grained and figured
walnut in America.
The imported stocks are bought roughly blocked out and in this shape
are admitted duty free. The rough blocks vary in price from one to
twenty dollars, while the finished article may cost anywhere from four
to fifty dollars. I have seen plain stocks of American walnut, turned
to shape, ready to be cut and fitted to the action, sell for fifty
cents each.
The plain walnut is certainly what its name implies. These stocks are
usually not built to order but are turned out in quantities for the
retail dealer. Ordinarily they are made entirely by machinery after
a fixed pattern from which the manufacturer refuses to vary. They
have the appearance of being turned by machinery, soaked in oil by
the thousand, and coated with varnish en masse. The varnish lasts and
keeps the wood looking half way decent until the arm is sold and then
it begins to wear off in patches. A finished stock of this kind could
probably be turned out for a dollar.
Selected American walnut is a considerable improvement upon the plain.
It is darker, better in grain, and is generally what the rifleman
terms fancily finished. It is well seasoned, strong, and lasting.
When thoroughly oiled, it will retain its handsome appearance through
considerable hard use. Such stocks are sometimes made to order with
necessarily some hand work, but the majority are machined out to a
regular pattern and placed upon arms kept in stock.
Imported English walnut is a stock adopted by our best manufacturers
for their knockabout or field guns. The quality of wood is sound with
often a very good grain. The stocks of this grade are oil finished and
hand polished to some extent, thus enabling them to withstand severe
service. Many of the arms with English walnut stocks are made to order
with hand checkering, etc. They probably cost finished from five to
eight dollars and retail at from twelve to fifteen.
Fine or selected English walnut is the quality of wood that we find on
guns costing from one to two hundred dollars. As a rule such stocks
are made to order only, and of any length, shape, drop, or measurement
that the purchaser desires. Much of the finishing is by hand, and they
are filed, papered, oiled, and rubbed until the grain of wood shows
handsomely. A rag and a bit of polishing will always bring out the
beauty of these stocks even after years of service.
French or Italian walnut is generally very dark wood which is finished
in its natural grain without being stained to color or discolor it.
These stocks are hand finished by a long and careful process, very
similar to that applied to Circassian walnut which will be described.
Italian walnut stocks are made to order at a cost of from thirty-five
to fifty dollars, and are to be found upon guns valued at two hundred
dollars or more.
The finest selected Circassian walnut stocks are the pride of the
gunbuilder’s heart. He goes over his best wood with the greatest care
to find a piece which he can grade as the finest selected Circassian
walnut. After turning a number of those he likes into shape he again
culls them for the one with the choicest grain.
The wood of this is subject to a repeated process of wetting and drying
to bring out the grain which is then papered down until it becomes as
smooth as it is possible to make it. Oil is then applied and rubbed in
again and again until the wood will hold no more. No varnishing follows
and the result is a dull though beautiful oil finish. The amount of
hand work that goes into the manufacture of one of these stocks is
greater than that required to build an entire gun of the medium grades;
in fact, the oiling and rubbing such a stock receives is apparently
unlimited. The result justifies the means for no more elegant piece of
wood can be found anywhere than an artistically finished gun stock.
The frame and grip woodcutting is not that of an artisan but an artist.
Such stocks, and the remainder of the arm in keeping, rank in artistic
quality with the paintings of a master of the brush--of the two, well,
give me the gun. The majority of manufacturers will refuse to place
these stocks upon any except weapons of the highest grade, no matter
what the inducement.
FORE-END
The fore-end of a shotgun serves three purposes. It affords a hold for
the forward hand which would otherwise come in contact with the hot
barrel; it serves to bind the barrels to the frame at the joint; and it
contains the mechanism of the ejector.
In the earlier makes of breechloading arms I have known the fore-ends
to loosen and shake or even lose off, but this so rarely happens
to-day, whatever the age or service of the gun, that little thought
need be given to the fastening of the fore-end. In some American arms
the Deely & Edge fore-end fastener is used. Others have adopted what is
known as the snap-fore-end, a heavy straight spring which passes the
point of greatest tension in clamping on and goes home with a snap. It
maintains a continuous pressure against the joint and at that point
would take up all wear automatically. A ball and socket fastening is
also a good one.
When the fore-end needs to bear some of the strain of cocking the gun
as in the Anson & Deely system or the Smith, it should be firmly fixed,
but this has been so well accomplished by the manufacturers that it
is hardly worth while for anybody to go into it except the student of
gunbuilding.
[Illustration: The snap fore-end]
THE SELF-EJECTOR
Self-ejectors are of such positive advantage to the sportsman afield
that it is a matter of wonder any shotgun of good or medium grade
should ever be made without them. It is very rare indeed for any gunner
to shoot a single day without being placed at a disadvantage and
missing shots or game should he lack ejecting locks.
A bevy of quail gets up in succession and the shooter works so rapidly
in pulling out and replacing the empty shells that he becomes rattled
and takes an impossible chance where he might have made an easy kill
had the arm assisted him by throwing out the spent cases. Many of us
have seen the wild ducks come stringing over the blind. Perhaps the
first one is at long range and a miss is scored; then while the gunner
is fumbling to get out his empty shells a bunch of mallards will fairly
fan him as they go by his head. He tries a shot after it is too late
and then the process is to be repeated again. The repeater and the
automatic owe their popularity in a great measure to the fact that so
many of our sporting double guns are built non-ejecting.
Possibly trapshooters have had something to do with the slow
development of ejectors on American guns. He can fire at most not more
than two successive shots and then has ample time to reload, so of
course does not require an ejector. The young sportsman is very liable
to follow the example of these veteran professionals, and since they
have no ejectors neither does he wish any.
Old time gunners, too, who have become set in their ways, have done
something toward retarding the popularity of this as well as of every
other invention that did not make its appearance when they were of an
impressionable age. They decry the ejector as being a complex piece of
machinery and liable to break down, as making the gun harder to work,
and so on.
The self-ejecting mechanism can be described as simply a miniature gun
lock, placed in the fore-end and striking against the extractor stem in
place of the primer. The pulling of the trigger of the real lock may be
said to pull the trigger of the miniature lock also, when it is ready
to act as soon as the arm is opened sufficiently. There is no more
reason for this ejector lock breaking down than the one in the frame
for they are made on similar principles and just as strong.
Ejectors are cocked by the extractor stem pushing against the ejector
hammer as the barrels are going back into place. In one of the simplest
and best forms with which I am acquainted there are five pieces, the
striker, mainspring, sear, latch, and push rod. When the gun is closed
the ejector hammer engages with the latch and remains at cock until the
arm is discharged, when the pushrod drives out the latch and replaces
it with a sear that trips as the barrels rise.
A high class English gun is similar in movement except that the true
sear engages with the hammer of the ejector and holds it in position
until the action of the main lock drives out a trip in the end of the
frame which catches the sear and springs the lock as the barrels turn
on the joint.
These arms have the correct mechanical principles for ejecting
spent shells, and other makes will differ from them only in minor
particulars. Some few guns are built with ejectors that exert a
continual pressure against the extractor rod; the sear in this action
is only driven into the notch of the ejector hammer when the barrel
is fired, retaining the hammer at cock until tripped by the barrel as
usual. This model works well enough but is wrong in that the barrels
must be closed against the pressure of the ejector spring whether the
arm has been fired or not.
A well liked European arm has ejectors that act as usual or may be
locked back, whereupon the arm extracts its shells the same as a
non-ejector gun.
In all self-ejecting weapons the cartridges are removed the usual
distance in the ordinary way, that is by a pin in the frame pushing
against the extractor as the barrels are dropped. It follows that
should the ejector mechanism fail to work the shells could be extracted
by hand exactly as in a gun without ejectors. However, ejectors of a
reliable make do not fail to act.
The simpler the form of ejector of course the better, if it does its
work without lost motion and without friction. I should be inclined
to judge an ejector mechanism more by the strain it puts upon the
gun and its owner than any other way. One gun works so smoothly that
you are hardly aware it has ejector locks while another may keep you
emphatically reminded.
Our ejectors are now being built with both flat and coil springs, and
while both are behaving satisfactorily, a critical judge might be
disposed to favor the coil, for the reason that it is best adapted to
bearing a constant compression. In addition the striker of the coil
spring with its direct push occupies less room than the flat with
its hammer moving in the segment of a circle; this is a matter of
importance in view of the necessarily limited space in the fore-end.
Nearly all American guns use coil springs in the ejector even though
the main locks have flat.
[Illustration: THE PARKER EJECTOR]
[Illustration: THE ITHACA EJECTOR]