Product Details
P.W. PORTER, NEW-YORK
A RARE .40 CAL PERCUSSION LEVER-ACTION REVOLVING AND REPEATING RIFLE, serial no. 131,
second New-York model and manufactured by G.P. Foster of Taunton Massachusetts circa 1852, with octagonal 28in. barrel, the top right-hand flat signed 'ADDRESS P.W. PORTER NEW-YORK' and 'P.W. PORTER'S PATENT 1851', off-set sights, rectangular receiver with radiused sides surrounding a vertically mounted nine-shot drum magazine, the right hand side of receiver with 'mule-ear' hammer and hinged to access drum, spring steel rotating cover concealing a 'snail' type capping device also on the right side of receiver, detachable iron 'wheel-cover' top-guard mounted to top of receiver along with a top-barrel mounted loading lever, walnut straight-hand butt-stock with iron crescent heel-plate, finger-loop cocking lever automatically indexing the drum and cocking hammer, traces of finish
Other Notes: An icon of American repeating arms collecting, a number of myths have grown up around the distinctive Porter turret-rifles. The first is the urban legend that the inventor shot himself dead whilst demonstrating the mechanism to Samuel Colt. This was dreamt up by a pre World War Two auction catalogue to imply rarity and add excitement to the sale. The second is that all these arms were pill lock. This un-truth came about because the touch-holes in the drum magazine are tiny and look like they should have taken the small priming fulminate pill of the day. In fact all these rifles took conventional percussion caps, fed in turn by the side mounted spring loaded snail magazine, and once they had been fired by being crushed against the drum magazine, fell out of the bottom of the rifle via an aperture provided for this. Approximately 1250 rifles were produced across all models, a remarkable achievement considering the shooter is faced with loaded chambers most of the time! Few survive to this day however, and most are missing the detachable magazine safety guard present with the example presented here.
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Estimate £3,000-5,000