lancaster 500 b.p. express, oval bore

Description coming.

description coming.

W.J. Jeffery & Co was founded by William Jackman Jeffery (1857–1909), who started his career in the gun trade in 1885 working in the front shop of Cogswell & Harrison. In 1887 Philip Webley appointed Jeffery manager of Webley and son's London showroom.  Webley later abandoned their London operation and in 1890 Jeffery formed a partnership with a man by the name of Davies and Jeffery & Davies. This partnership was short lived and in 1891 the firm was renamed W.J. Jeffery & Co, still operating out of the Queen Victoria Street store. In addition to building new firearms, W.J. Jeffery & Co was a trader in second hand firearms, by 1892 offering over 1000 for sale. In 1898 the firm opened a shop at 13 King Street St. James and by 1900 the company was a full-scale gunmaker with a workshop at 1 Rose and Crown Yard, near to the King Street shop.

Martini-Francotte rifle is system of the English weapon Martini-Henry, improved by Auguste Francotte, manufacturer of weapons in Liege.

This rifle Martini system is itself an improvement of the weapon of Peabody, it was adopted, initially by the English government for its army, then by Turkey and Romania; it is known under the name of Martini-Henry rifle.

Martini is the inventor of the meeting of the mobile mechanism of cylinder head, of extraction and percussion, these mechanisms functioning together by means of the same lever. All the various bodies of which this mechanism is composed are assembled separately on and between the walls of the box of cylinder head, joining together the gun and the stick.

Henry is the inventor of the stripe, and it is for that that its name was joined to that of Martini, to name the weapon joining together the two inventions.  The only serious disadvantage of this excellent rifle is the difficulty, not to say impossibility, for the gunner, to dismount the mechanism, either to clean it and lubricate it, or for any other fortuitous.

The improvement due to the invention of Auguste Francotte counters this serious defect completely. It consists of what the whole mechanism of the mobile carcass, the turntable and the extractor is adjusted on a mounting being embedded in the box and maintained in place by only one pin. By withdrawing this pin or pins, one removes box the whole mechanism of only one part, which makes it possible to clean the gun without deteriorating the mechanism.

oldguns.ca, virtual museum collection.