J.H. Foster and F.J. Abbey 10 ga Hammer Gun
 

My most recent acquisition. It is a 10 ga hammer gun made by J.H. Foster in Chicago Illinois. I believe this company has some relation to G.T. Abbey. If anyone has more information on this company I would love to learn. The gun is made on the patent made by J.H. Foster using a bifurcating bolting top bite and a purdey thumb lever. The bores measure very large around .780. I do not know if this is from being honed or if this is the original bore size. I see that is marked 11 which would be .751. I shot it yesterday using the load of 19grs red dot and 1 1/8 oz of shot.

Some more pictures

Last ones.

There is a post dealing with these guns on the Double Gun Journal forum. Use the Search feature. It discusses the relationship between Chicago and England and illustrates the patent bolting system. There should be more of these out there looking at the serial numbers. I have a Abbey 10 and have seen 1 other. They are well built guns and are good shooters. (Search for Abbey and Kilby).

cool gun

good looking gun....charlie

Very neat gun. I like the unusual.

Foster and Abbey patented a "rising bite" and this shows on some guns. I think part of the work, at least, was done in England. Ten years or so after the Foster /Abbey patent, the rising bite was patented by Bissell/Rigby in England.

I have a Patent Model for the Foster/Abbey patent application.