Side by Side by Side

[Kilrymont]

Here's a shot of a three barrelled shotgun by John Dickson of Edinburgh.

The pic isn't slr standard; this was taken with a 6Mp Konica/Minolta compact some years ago.

It's not an art shot, just a record of a singular piece of work.

The gun is one of four known to survive from a total of 27 three barrelled guns made by Dickson, built in 1882 and at a sale by Christie's it fetched $43,622 in 1995. What might it fetch now?

It's pictured at the annual Game Fair at Scone, near Perth. The gun was in a display cabinet and was readily taken out for a few photographs to be taken.

I posted some more information beside it on Flickr. It's a round action side lever non ejector game gun with browned damascus barrels, chambered for the 2.5inch black powder Eley cartridge of the time. It's a sixteen-bore. This one was built for the inventor of the action, patentee of the design; AG Murray, also director of Dickson's at the time.

On Flickr there's about five pictures posted of it, showing a selection of details.

 

[Texas T]

You might want to cross-post this to the Gun Porn thread too. Very cool. I've never seen or even heard of a SxSxS.

 

[Jack Giesecke]

Wow, bet it's heavy.

 

[Kilrymont]

Wow, bet it's heavy.

My feeling was the weight might have dictated the bore, ie that's why it's not a 12. I know the bores are very close in ballistic behaviour, but perhaps a x3 12 would have taken the handling qualities outside tolerable limits? Since the makers and the customer have been dead for a century or more it's all guesswork anyway...

I'm not sure what use it was designed for; at the time the most moneyed guns shot driven grouse with a matched pair of guns, and were accompanied in the butts by an experienced loader so that they didn't waste time reloading and miss too many opportunities as a result. In those days grouse were shot in huge quantities on top grouse moors in the UK, far more than is sustainable these days.

Also, it's a non-ejector - so would have been comparatively slow to reload compared to assisted-opening selective ejectors.

Overall I think the fact that only 27 were ever made tells the story. If it had been more effective in the field than a conventional double in combined terms of weight, handling, and shooting performance, there would have been a lot more customers wanting one despite the expense - there was no shortage of wealthy clients wanting "best" guns in those days.

 

[RedPill]

That's the first of those I've ever seen. It may have been made just to be unique.