This Isn't A Levergun, But It Does Shoot Cast Bullets

[shrapnel]

I bought this Burgess rifle about 2 years ago. I had never seen one before, never heard of one. It is a wrist/slide action, take-down gun with 2 barrels. Both are in 44-40 and it is a real work of Genius built by Andrew Burgess in the mid 1890's.

This is truly an extremely rare gun, less than 10 known to exist...

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/100_4309.jpg

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[GARCIA]

Shrapnel

That the one big Mike V did the article on?

Love the way it looks and the way it breaks down.

Tom

[shrapnel]

Shrapnel

That the one big Mike V did the article on?

Love the way it looks and the way it breaks down.

Tom

Yes that is the one he wrote about...

[TXGunNut]

Fascinating piece, may have to find that article. Can't help but wonder how you came across this little gem and if you've fired it, how's it shoot? Nice pics too!

[dsbock]

Wow! That is a fantastic collector piece. :o

How did you find something like that. Please don't tell me how much it cost, that would just make me sad. More pictures, especially of the mechanism, would be appreciated, however.

Thanks.

David

[shrapnel]

Fascinating piece, may have to find that article. Can't help but wonder how you came across this little gem and if you've fired it, how's it shoot? Nice pics too!

Here is one article on it, he did another where he compared all the rivals of Winchester including a Whitney Kennedy, Marlin 1894 and a Colt Lightning I have...

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/Burgesscover-1.jpg

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/Winchesterrivals.jpg

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/Winchesterrivalsb.jpg

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/winchesterrivalsa.jpg

[ajjohns]

Ah yes, I remember reading about this one. Very interesting for sure. Funny thing about that groove dia. being big and still shooting pretty darn good! I remember MV saying how funny it sounded when you shot it.

[shrapnel]

How do you like it?
Is it a reliable accurate firearm?
What size is the groove diameter?



Ah yes, I remember reading about this one. Very interesting for sure. Funny thing about that groove dia. being big and still shooting pretty darn good! I remember MV saying how funny it sounded when you shot it.

I like the gun it shoots accurately and like ajjohns said about the article, the bore is oversized, the gun sounds different than any other I have. The groups were all very acceptable even though the bullets were too small for the bore diameter...

[W.R.Buchanan]

I have never seen a "tongue and groove take down system" like that.

Very cool and at the time that gun was made very very difficult to execute.

Maybe that's why there was only ten of them made.

Also the wrist section of the rifle doesn't look like a walk in the park either.

One way that designers keep others OFF their designs is by making designs so hard to duplicate that no one wants to try or can't figure out how to do the manufacturing even if they wanted to.

This guy was competeing with John Browning. Browning routinely patented other designs when he saw them while he was designing a given gun,,. just to prevent others from competing with him.

He might have even seen this Burgess but figured it was too complicated to be mass produced, so no need to cover the patent.

Some guys will build somethng just to show that it can be done. I'm building a scratch built Cummins powered one off Jeep Scrambler, so the idea is not far fethched.

Interesting gun and the rifling definately would grab anything . Could have been made that deep to combat BP fouling?

Randy

[bearcove]

Very complicated for a pump action. I like the motion a pump action gives for a follow up shot on birds. A little slower than a semi but I hit better with them. I can't quite get a grip on how this would feel, my first idea is that you would tend to pull the gun away and out of position while operating the action.

[shrapnel]

Very complicated for a pump action. I like the motion a pump action gives for a follow up shot on birds. A little slower than a semi but I hit better with them. I can't quite get a grip on how this would feel, my first idea is that you would tend to pull the gun away and out of position while operating the action.

This is actually a modification of an earlier gun he built that was a shotgun. I have one of those too, it is of extremely high quality in machining, considering the day with no CNC equipment or the milling machines of today.

It is a 12 gauge damascus barrel takedown, with a solid rib and an ivory bead halfway down the barrel. I have shot grouse with it...

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/113_1816.jpg

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/113_1822.jpg

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http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/103_0100.jpg

[bearcove]

Very COOL!

[TXGunNut]

Wow. Awesome examples of the gunmaker's art. Thanks for taking the time to share them with us.

[ajjohns]

I think I'd like to come hunting with you Shrapnel. I'll bring a few guns to trade you before I head for home. Jk, looks like fun.

[Lefty SRH]

Beautiful guns! Really neat way to cycle the action. Do you stick with blackpowder loads in that Damascus barrel?

[shrapnel]

Beautiful guns! Really neat way to cycle the action. Do you stick with blackpowder loads in that Damascus barrel?

Damascus steel isn't as susceptible to coming apart as people might think. The good Damascus steel of those days was very well made and holds up to modest pressures easily.

I use 2 1/2 inch shells that I loaded for another Damascus gun I have. It is a Hume sidelock, sidelever gun and it shoots the same smokeless loads with no issues...

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/100_1108.jpg

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/100_1094.jpg

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[hightime]

Thanks for the views into the past. Great guns!

Owen

[Four Fingers of Death]

Nice firearms. I especially like the shotgun.

[TXGunNut]

Awesome pics of the shotgun, amazing detail in the engraving. Awesome piece of art. Thanks again for sharing!
I spent over four hours in the Davis Museum in Claremore, OK Saturday and saw few guns that rival those in this thread. And yes, it was an awesome museum collection.

[Four Fingers of Death]

What I meant was I especially like the Burgess shotgun. An amazing piece of engineering.

I have an old Damascus double. An old gentleman bought it into a gunshp I used to frequent and said that it had been handed down for several generations and was used on the family farm for many years and on rabbitting and duck shoots for food and fox shoots for skins. The shop didn't really want it and offered him $100 (my mate felt sorry for him and didn't mention he had about thirty similar old guns out back)as it wasn't a real flash gun, althought it was very serviceable. The old guy was well into his 80s, still pretty sprightly, but said there was no one in the next generation with any interest in it. Before he left, I said I would buy it off my mate and see that it saw an active life. he was very pleased it was going to a good home and stressed that it should only be used with black powder, etc. When I looked in the case, there was some shells with it, a couple old black powder ones and a half dozen paper cased smokless shells. Obviously it handled them ok, but I won't be stretching the friendship and will shoot black powder as I don't mind loading with black powder. No doubt you could develop smokless loads for it, but black is foolproof.

The only marking on the gun apart from some very worn engraving is 'London.'

[duck hollow pete]

My dads westernfield shotgun(made by savage for monkeyward


My dads westernfield shotgun(made by savage)30s-40s has the same breakdown






.

[KCSO]

A friend of the family in Ceresco use to collect Burgess guns. He had a plain rifle and a few shotguns, including a cutaway. He died a while back and I always wondered what happened to the Burgess guns. I got to handle them but never fired one and always wanted too. I have never seen a swap barrel set like that but that takedown system was later borrowed by Browning when he made up the Stevens 520 shotgun.

[duck hollow pete]

stand corrected model 30 made by stevens

[shrapnel]

The rifle is accurate enough to shoot them in the head...

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/100_4325.jpg

[Four Fingers of Death]

That's a winning combination!

[grubbylabs]

Those are some very nice guns you have there.

[larryp]

Awesome pics of the shotgun, amazing detail in the engraving. Awesome piece of art. Thanks again for sharing!
I spent over four hours in the Davis Museum in Claremore, OK Saturday and saw few guns that rival those in this thread. And yes, it was an awesome museum collection.

Went there as a teen. I was in seventh heaven! Saw guns I'd never heard of.

[shrapnel]

Awesome pics of the shotgun, amazing detail in the engraving. Awesome piece of art. Thanks again for sharing!
I spent over four hours in the Davis Museum in Claremore, OK Saturday and saw few guns that rival those in this thread. And yes, it was an awesome museum collection.

Thanks for the compliment, I have a few more worthy of note...

A McAusland Sharps made in the late 1870's and hunted buffalo in Montana. This also being quite rare and few are known to exist...

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/115_2158.jpg

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/115_2165.jpg

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http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/115_2159.jpg

[TXGunNut]

A McAusland Sharps made in the late 1870's and hunted buffalo in Montana. This also being quite rare and few are known to exist...Shrapnel



Would love to hear the stories that rifle could tell. Can only imagine. Seems to be a very heavy barrel and .40 bore, care to enlighten us? Thanks again for sharing!

[shrapnel]

The gun was originally shipped to J.G. Dowe in Bozeman, Montana Territory in 1878. There is little doubt that it went to Walter Cooper in Bozeman, as Dowe was a banker in Bozeman and handled Sharps rifles for Cooper as he and Sharps had some differences in how bills were being paid.

How it ended up in Miles City is hard to say, but the late buffalo hunts of the northern plains were winding down and this was no doubt used there. The gun was rebarreled in Miles City by A.D. McAusland in the 40-90 Sharps Bottleneck cartridge , which was a preferred buffalo caliber of the day.

The Mcausland stamp is a rare configuration and quite desirable due to it's rarity. I also have a Walter Cooper 40-90 Sharps Bottleneck which was also used in the buffalo hunts of the same era.

I haven't got them shooting to their full potential yet, but I will get the McAusland Sharps hunted this fall.

Here are a few pictures of the Cooper Sharps...

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/100_0353.jpg

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/100_0693.jpg

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http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/114_1450.jpg

[TXGunNut]

Not familiar with early Sharps, what's the rearmost dovetail for?

[shrapnel]

Not familiar with early Sharps, what's the rearmost dovetail for?

That dovetail is for a scope, which I hope to find one day and put an original scope on the rifle...

http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee202/bridgershooters/115_2166.jpg

[TXGunNut]

That was my first thought but it seemed too early to me, was wondering if I missed the front one or if they used the one for the rear sight. Wow.