A Very Rare English Breech Loading Flintlock Rifle by Benjamin Griffin.
Missed out on this item? Click to view all current Antique Muskets, Rifles & Sporting Guns Free UK delivery on all items
50 ½” overall, 35 ½” 18 bore rifled barrel with 12 grooves, top flat engraved ‘Griffin London’, London Gunmakers Company Proofs and ‘F’ foreigner’s mark of B. Griffin. Standing rear sight & plain tang. Trigger guard operated rising screw barrel plug to expose loading port. The flat bolted lock faintly engraved ‘Griffin’, swan necked cock & spoon shaped pan. Walnut hand rail full stock with plain iron mounts with later brass side plate There is no provision for a ramrod.
A very rare gun in well used condition, engraving very rubbed.
Circa 1740.
Benjamin Griffin. Apprenticed to Samuel Harrison, 1719; gave up apprentice and worked as Foreign gunmaker allowed to prove guns by Gunmakers Co., 1724-31. Told to give up work by Gunmakers CO., but traded as gunmaker (Successor to Samuel Garrison), Bond St., 1735-70. Registered silversmiths mark, Goldsmiths Hall, 1743. With son, Joseph, took out Sun Ins. (No. 159594) on goods at Cross & Griffin, New Bond Street., 1757. Died 1770.
Isaac de la Chaumette invented this form of breech-loading action in 1700 and patented it in England in 1721. pre dates Ferguson's patent, but is similar in operation in that the trigger guard rotates to expose loading port. Ferguson's patent allowed a turn & a half of a lever to expose the loading aperture on top of barrel, in this adaptation, trigger guard & plug must be completely removed from the bottom & then screwed back into place. Each operation takes 8 turns.