WW Greener , not a REAL lever gun?

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Chuck 100 yd
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WW Greener , not a REAL lever gun?

Post by Chuck 100 yd »

Thought you guys would like to see my old WW Greener 12ga. 32" barrel shotgun.
Navy Arms imported and rebuilt them back in the days when you could just send them a check and the mail man would drop it off at the front door. Paid $59.00 IIRC Remove one screw and the barrel unscrews. A take down!! :D
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The receiver turned gold color when they blued it. Must be Nickle steel or the like.
Anybody know when they were made? I guess late 1800`s. :wink:
I have killed about 40-50 Moles with it in my yard. :D
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Post by C. Cash »

Very nice Chuck. :P :P Looks like it was made yesterday. I'm betting early 1900's-1920. I'd say it's worth a sight more than 59 bucks today!
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Post by Griff »

Very nice! Love them plum colors! :oops: That looks an awful lot like the Martini-Cadet. Here's a project one on the TreeBone Carving site. I'd love to see that finished!

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Someone once told me that it was an error in the bluing process that produced those plum colors, unless the metal was "browned", which I understand is a bonefide process. Your's looks very nicely polished under that finish. Mine is rather dull, even when not dusty straight outta the safe. :wink:[/url]
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Post by SmokeEater2 »

Nice Shotgun! I love the look of those Greener's.
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Post by C. Cash »

No flies on that Griff. Nothing wrong with a little contrast at all on either of these guns, even if it's plumb colored. :D
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Chuck 100 yd
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Post by Chuck 100 yd »

Nice gun Griff. :wink:
I think the Cadet is a smaller frame. I am not into these and have never tried to find out more about them.
I have thought about rebarreling to an old BP cartridge and restocking with a long military type of stock. Maybe some day when I NEED another project. The extractor would have to be changed and firing pin bushed if any other than a BP cartridge was to be used (I think). :wink:
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Post by gamekeeper »

Good solid and reliable gun, over here thay are called the "Greener GP"
You can pick up a fair one for about $195.

Webley & Scott were making them in the 1980s but I don't know when production finished.

You can sometimes find one marked Police Riot Gun, they fired a unique bottle neck shotgun cartridge that the public could not get, just in case a copper lost his gun in a riot. Most of these were rebarreled to 12gauge.
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Re: WW Greener , not a REAL lever gun?

Post by Nate Kiowa Jones »

Chuck 100 yd wrote:Thought you guys would like to see my old WW Greener 12ga. 32" barrel shotgun.
Navy Arms imported and rebuilt them back in the days when you could just send them a check and the mail man would drop it off at the front door. Paid $59.00 IIRC Remove one screw and the barrel unscrews. A take down!! :D
Image
Image
The receiver turned gold color when they blued it. Must be Nickle steel or the like.
Anybody know when they were made? I guess late 1800`s. :wink:
I have killed about 40-50 Moles with it in my yard. :D
Hi Chuck,
IIRC Navy bought them as the 14 ga bottle neck Police riot guns as GameKeeper said. They were configured like this.

Image

Then Navy cut them down and made them takedowns like yours. But they didn't rebarrel them. They just reamed the bottle neck out of it to make it a 2 3/4" 12ga.
These old guns started life as rifles dating back to the ZULU wars. I read somewhere that production stopped somewhere in the mid 1880's a bit before the Brits went to the enfield bolt guns. 1888 I think. That moth balled the martini's until just after the turn of the century when they had them rebarreled with nitro proof 14ga barrels for the colony police to use as riot guns. As Gamekeeper said this was a bottle neck round that only the police had access to. This propriatary round also had a anular ring around the primer to only allow the 3 prong firing pin to reach the primer. This prevented the bad guys from making short 12ga ammo and using it in the guns.


The gun picture above came to me configure as such. I reamed it with a 12ga long forcing cone reamer and trimmed the prongs off the firing pin. With that 14ga bore it was one tight shooting gun. I used it a few times at local fundraiser turkey shoots. It had a notch rear sight in the front receiver ring and a front sight on that muzzle cap. It didn't much matter what ammo that handed me. That ugly *** shotgun would knock the center right out of the little star target they used. It'd take a turkey or ham ever shot.

BTW, the last navy version I saw had the purple receiver like yours, too.
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Hagler
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Post by Hagler »

Gentlemen,

Those are some neat guns. :D

I was reading up on home hot bluing with a few basic chemicals. The author of one method claimed that to get rid of, or prevent, the purple/ plum color you need to raise the temperature of the solution several more degrees. Also, longer times in the bluing solution will produce darker coloring. Here is the reference, near the bottom of the page.:

http://www.blindhogg.com/homemadesalts.html

"Items that do not blue or appear plum colored usually need a little more time in the solution. Various steels blue differently, and contaminants on the surface can lend a hand in making the process go funky. Usually a good degreasing and return to the solution, use of a slightly higher temperature or a longer time will get them black.
"


That is a good tuorial on do-it-yourself bluing. When i finally get my new house, I will give it a go.

Shawn
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Post by Nath »

Thanks for the history lesson about the police only cartridge. Made me laugh desparingly, good ole Britain bearing arms on it's own people and making sure they can't shoot back!
I have often wondered if these would make a good platform to make a ball shooter ....!
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Re: WW Greener , not a REAL lever gun?

Post by FALPhil »

Nate Kiowa Jones wrote: These old guns started life as rifles dating back to the ZULU wars. I read somewhere that production stopped somewhere in the mid 1880's a bit before the Brits went to the enfield bolt guns.
Indeed. They were Martini-Henrys. Here is a blurb from www.martinihenry.com:
After W.W.I, the Egyptian Government sought a weapon suitable for arming their police force. W.W. Greener of Birmingham won the contract with their submission of a handy, smoothbore Martini actioned shotgun with a full length wood forend. These shotguns were known as the Greener Mark I/14. The "14" referred to the bore size. One of the clever features of the new shotgun was that it used an off size 14 1/2 gauge straight sided shot shell. This prevented the weapon's use with commercially available shotgun shells. Thus, if the weapon fell into the wrong hands, it couldn't be used against the Egyptian Police. Greener referred to this cartridge as "14 bore for use in Mark I guns". These cartridges were made by Kynoch. Most were loaded with smokeless powder, but some have been noted with black powder loads. By 1922, over 30,000 Greeners had been supplied to the Egyptian Government. In the 1930's, it was discovered that stolen Mark I's were being used against the authorities by wrapping a thick piece of paper around standard 16 gauge shot shells. Greener answered this problem with the Greener Police Gun Mark III. The Mark III was chambered for three different shells: the original 14 1/2 gauge Mark I shells, standard 12 gauge 2 3/4" shells and a special bottlenecked shell for the Egyptians. The Mark III bottle necked shell was .782" diameter at the base, and was necked down to .740". Overall length of the shell was 2 7/8". The new bottlenecked form of the cartridge was enough to prevent the weapon's unauthorized use by the bad guys, but Greener went a step further by adding a large annular groove in the base of the shell. When a shell is chambered, two lugs protrude from the face of the breechblock and engage the annular groove in the base of the shell. This meant that the gun could only be fired if the correct, grooved shells were used. Kynoch and Service Armament Co. made shells for the Mark III Special into the 1960's. Mark III Specials are commonly seen for sale in the US$150 neighborhood.
Chuck 100 yd
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Post by Chuck 100 yd »

WOW !!! :shock: Thanks guys for all the info. I will print it off and keep it with my gun records. :wink:
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Post by Bruce Scott »

Greener GP guns were being made up until 1967 when the company was sold. Webley, who acquired the gun making side of the business, continued producing the GPs for some years after that. The gun pictured does not have the cocking indicator and safety usually seen on the EG (Egyptian police model). GPs also came with a safety.

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Greener police guns and .45-70 conversion rifles and carbines are available from Odin Arms. http://www.yeoldgnsmth.com/odinarms.zkb ... ject-menu5
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Post by Nate Kiowa Jones »

Bruce Scott wrote:Greener GP guns were being made up until 1967 when the company was sold. Webley, who acquired the gun making side of the business, continued producing the GPs for some years after that. The gun pictured does not have the cocking indicator and safety usually seen on the EG (Egyptian police model). GPs also came with a safety.

Image


Greener police guns and .45-70 conversion rifles and carbines are available from Odin Arms. http://www.yeoldgnsmth.com/odinarms.zkb ... ject-menu5
Bruce, were these actually made from the gound up or just converted surplus rifles like the Egyptian and Indian police models.

It was my understanding the production stopped in about 1888. then everything after that was just conversions.
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Post by gamekeeper »

I went around the Webley Factory in Birmingham back in the early eighties and they were still making the GP from new.
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Post by Bruce Scott »

Steve,

As game keeper says, the GPs were being made new until quite recently. I have one that I believe is 1960s vintage.
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Post by Nate Kiowa Jones »

One thing I've learned about gun history is you should never say never. When you do somebody's going to hand you one to chew on.
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Post by JReed »

Those are cool. Thanks all for the history on these neet guns.
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Post by marlinman93 »

John Taylor in Washington is converting them to singleshot rifles, but with a twist. He turns down a barrel blank to fit inside the shotgun barrel, and adds period iron sights , so they keep their original appearance.
A friend of mine just had him do two Greeners in .38-55 and .40-65 Win. I haven't fired them yet, but they are nicely done, and he worked the triggers down to around 3 lbs. too!
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Chuck 100 yd
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Post by Chuck 100 yd »

Thanks guys! Marlinman, the trigger on this one is 10 lb +.
I took it to the trap club one day for a fun shoot and one of the events was everyone HAD to use it at one post. Some of the guys almost fell on their face trying to get it to fire. :D :D One old guy who shoots a release trigger gave up and took losses on that post instead of fighting that #@**^ trigger. :D
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