OK, Chris, here goes, but stop me if you've heard this before. When I was eleven or twelve, my Uncle sent me my Grandfather's Lefever, which had been in NYC purgatory since Granddad's death in 1929. My Uncle had not hunted for many years and lived in Brooklyn. It was my only gun at the time, so I immediatedly found that black powder and the other neccesities could be bought at the Rockville Trading Post. I had been told that the Lefever had "soft barrels" and couldn't be shot with modern shells. A friend of Dad's on Staten Island sent me a roll crimper and some primitive decappers and recappers. The wad seating tool was the other end of the decapper. I still have all those tools. I shot some clay birds with it, but didn't hunt with it much because PA pheasants were serious business in our family, no place for black powder and tissue paper wads. However, one day I was off with my Pointer, Ranger, for a day alone in the heavy brush of a McSherrystown farm within sight of the Bethlehem diggings and mean Angus cattle on one side and the Hanover Shoe Plant on the back. The third side of the farm had no end that I ever found, although it was not all owned by my host. I was carrying the Lefever.
The Lefever has a "pigeon safety" which has the SAFE engraved at the rear of the button, and the auto safety feature works just like on a regular auto safety except the safety is off whenever you open and close the gun, instead of on. You move the button back to fire the gun.
Now I never got a lot of chances for a double on cockbirds because we hunted the heavy stuff, not the corn, because of the dogs. You guessed it, that morning going through a creek bottom, the dog pointed, and without fanfare two cockbirds got up right in front of me and I almost bent the gun in half trying to push the safety forward and pull the front, then the rear, then the front triggers, while the birds disappeared. It was late into a long successful season, so opportunities were not plentiful, and that may have been about it for the morning. I believe that was about the last time I attempted to fire the Lefever.
Granddad bought the gun new in 1887 as much as I have heard. He was a successful businessman and 31 years old by that time, so I assume he didn't buy any used guns. It was probably built in the first year of pivot lever hammerless Lefevers. I know it isn't the first pivot lever gun, because the Lefever Collectors list one 562 numbers earlier as the first pivot lever Lefever made. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the "first one", listed by the LACA, is in my collection, not because I knew it was, but because I liked in and bought it years ago. Granddad's Lefever is a great gun with some ownership provenance, well cared for, so I should probably shoot it a bit.
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