The Anson & Deeley-style boxlock is one of the most successful shotgun designs of all time. It’s has been used by gunmakers worldwide to build SxS, and imitations of it include some of the most successful doubles ever built. Here’a a piece I wrote about it for Project Upland magazine.
How the Boxlock Shotgun Became a Standard
For every first place there is a second, and for every top dog there are others snapping at its tail. In the nineteenth century, London was the capital of first-rate gunmaking. Birmingham, 100 miles north, was the runner-up, and the major gunmakers there–W. & C. Scott, W.W. Greener, Westley Richards–were doing all they could to develop new guns that would put them on top. Today, you and I owe a huge debt to this struggle and to the shotguns it created….
The Fox is the odd man out in this group as it’s not an A&D. The Fox cocking system owes its design to that of Greener’s F-guns. The only American boxlocks that were A&Ds were the H&R and the Remington 1894/1900.
Interestingly, only Sauer and Daly managed to make an actual A&D with a truly round action bar, which immeasurably improves on the look of the typical “square-ish” A&D.
True – but it’s still a boxlock, and boxlocks are the focus of the story.
Gregg