A Few Doubles

[Bruce Day]

Now we push the lever further to the right and the bolt swings left and further out of the slot.

[Bruce Day]

Finally we push the lever all the way right and the bolt swings all the way left and fully disengages from the slot, now allowing the barrels to be opened.

It was this swinging movement that I mistermed rotary. I suppose there is a difference between swinging into a slot and rotating into a slot.

I trust this is clearer now. This Lefever was made in Syracuse in 1900 and the catalog from where you took the diagram would be of this gun


See the small screw head at left toward the end of the top tang and by my hand. That is interesting. That is a safety selector . you screw that one way or the other and select either manual safety or automatic safety. Neat.

[Bruce Day]

As requested by Mark Garrett.

[Bruce Day]

Other side. See the small screw head on the bottom left corner of the photo. Each side has one of these. That is a trigger sear engagement screw. You adjust it to have more or less contact with the sear arm, which means the trigger has more or less pressure on it to move to disengage from the sear and release the hammer to drive a firing pin. Very simple and ingenious I think.

[Gary Laudermilch]

I'm not a student of engraving. I like what I like and the engraving I have seen on Lefever's is certainly more to my liking than most Parkers. The dogs, especially, are more lifelike while, to my eye, Parkers are more abstract.

Thanks for posting!

[Researcher]

Ahhh... Lawyer Day has made the case that the Lefever bolt does in fact "rotate" but still not the generally accepted idea of the Alexander T. Brown designed "rotary bolt."

Thanks for the great Lefever pictures.

[Dean Romig]

Those dogs on that Lefever look an awful lot like Joseph Loy's work. The "tell-tale" is the dog's faces looking more realistic and he always included eyelashes.





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[Daniel G Rainey]

Thanks for lessons in fine doubles and look at great gun.

[Bruce Day]

I am no expert on guns and know nothing about any Alexander Brown rotary bolt. My knowledge and understanding is very limited, I will be the first to admit. You guys are the experts.

I don't know who the Lefever engravers were. I've heard that many of these companies used engravers who worked for one then another or who freelanced.

[Mark Garrett]

Thanks Bruce for posting those , To me the Lefevers are most beautiful and tastefully engraved of all guns , with LC Smiths running a close second . I think they used the same engravers . And that one with Chain Damascus WOW!