Fishtail Top Levers

[Dean Romig]

Originally Posted by Brian Dudley

Another benefit that I, at least, have noticed in the hooked lever is from a point of irgonomics. The hooked lever puts the end closer to a right hand shooters thumb, thus making it easier to reach and easier to open. Since the thumb does not have to travel as far over the top of the receiver as with a straight lever.

This is one benefit or function that I have not heard mentioned too much, just a thought of mine.

Oddly enough, the authors of TPS suggest the ergonomic advantage of the hooked lever to left-handed shooters.

[Dean Romig]

Originally Posted by Ray Masciarella

Of course, I don't know anything about this but it would seem to me that, regardless of grade, Parker just used up old stock. Hammer gun production slowed a lot after 1890 or so. No reason to discard them. Grade was dependent on engraving rather then style of lever. Today, companies just throw old parts out because their lawyers (like me) tell them to do so but back then that didn't happen. Since Parker still offered a hammer gun after hammerless came out, they were probably not just used up in all early hammerless production because they still needed them for hammer guns.

We share similar opinions and I think that, due to lack of any evidence, the authors correctly state "it cannot be said" that a common assumption be the last word.

[Richard Flanders]

I sure can't see how the fishtail lever could be of advantage to left hand shooters but do think that, purely as a safety issue, every hammer gun should have one that allows opening the gun with the right hammer cocked. I would really like that on my hammer guns, especially when I'm in a crowded duck blind with other hunters and a dog and my hands are frozen stiff.....

[Smoothebore]

Rich, I can only speak of my own experience. With the hand wrapped around the wrist of the gun, the thumb, of either hand, has an easier reach and grasp to the lever with a fishtail, than a straight lever. Whether it opens when cocked would be an advantage, but not all do, means to me, it was not intended.

Dave

[Wild Skies]

Originally Posted by Dave Purnell

At this point I have one hammer gun with a fishtail lever. It does NOT allow the action to be opened with the hammer cocked, so I don't believe that was a consideration at all. If it ever did work this way, I think it was just happenstance. I think the fishtail was for aesthetics only, plus being an easier reach for either right or left thumb on opening.

Above all else, Parker Brothers were innovators. They were not afraid of trying a new idea. If it worked and took off in popularity (and sales), then it was continued. If it didn't make a measurable difference in sales or popularity, then old stock was used up, and they moved on. This was just good business sense. It was then and it is now. And Charles Parker, in the day, was an extremely savvy businesman.

IMHO, Dave

Well I'll be a sonofagun, right up until the moment I read this I had always been under the assumption that the fishtail toplever was so that one COULD open the action with the hammers cocked...I learn something new everyday around here.

[B. Dudley]

Originally Posted by Dave Purnell

At this point I have one hammer gun with a fishtail lever. It does NOT allow the action to be opened with the hammer cocked, so I don't believe that was a consideration at all. If it ever did work this way, I think it was just happenstance. I think the fishtail was for aesthetics only, plus being an easier reach for either right or left thumb on opening.
IMHO, Dave

TPS does mention that 1 frame Hammer parkers still have interference. Even with the hooked lever. The one hammer gun that I have owned with the hooked lever was able to open when cocked. And with how close that lever was to the hammer, it would surely not have been able to be done with a straight lever.

[Dean Romig]

From what I've read, both in TPS and by Forum posters, the larger frame (bigger bore) guns were less apt to be affected by the interference of the straight lever and the right hammer.

I have three sixteen-gauge, 0-frame TA hammerguns with the fishtail top lever and all three open easily with the right hammer cocked and on these three guns it would not be possible to do so if they were equipped with the straight lever.

Every serious Parker shooter/collector/afficionado should have both volumes of The Parker Story.
A good amount of new information has come to light since publication but TPS truly is the very best source of compiled Parker information for the Parkerphile.

[Smoothebore]

Well, y'all forced me to dig out "The Parker Story", and I must say you are right in all your quotes. I was speaking from supposed experience with my gun, but as TPS says sometimes a smaller frame gun would not open even with a fishtail lever. My gun in question is a one frame gun.

In answer to the inquiry of the original poster, buy the gun if you like it, even though it's not written in the Parker Story, the fishtail lever is "sexy as hell!"

Dave

[B. Dudley]

You said it right.

[Blind Dog]

All two of my hammer Parkers are lifters; no problem. Why did the Brothers give up on a good thing? A marketing fad?