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I bought a Burgess rifle off the internet about 3 months ago, and while researching the gun I found a guy who had a shotgun in the same type of "takedown" configuration. I had to have it to go along with the rifle.

I took it grouse hunting last week and it is a fine shooting gun. It has a Damascus barrel, which was a $10.00 up charge back in the 1890's. It also has a solid rib, which is a rare option on an already rare gun...

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An interesting looking shotgun! I am curious about the gauge and what cartridges you are shooting out of it. Brass or paper hulls? Black powder? How long did it take to get used to the notion of cycling the action with your "grip" hand? How does it handle? With respect, I don't know that I would call it graceful looking.

Hats off to you for keeping her in the game! That you have the nerve and knowledge to take a century old gun of unique design into the field is remarkable.

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And did the action open by itself upon firing?



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I am shooting 12 gauge 2 1/2 inch B&P low pressure loads in it. They are not black powder. You are right about cycling the action with your grip hand, it is very unnatural, but it does work slick.

It is a well made gun, much as the rifle. Andrew Burgess had hundreds more firearm patents than John Browning. He was a very innovative man and most of all the Marlin patents used today are from Burgess.

Some people get all warm and fuzzy to go hunting with their dogs, I get the same buzz from my choice of old guns...


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Originally Posted by boltman
And did the action open by itself upon firing?


I only shot it twice, but I did notice the action was open about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch after the shot.


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I think its real damn cool, and if I ran across a decent Burgess I would be sure tempted to buy it..


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The question remains, would a higher pressure load open the action all the way - as has been claimed by the old literature. I don't think it opened partially because it is broken.



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Shrapnel, very interesting shotgun. Funny that you post this today - yesterday I was in a small gun shop near Jacksonville NC and noticed an old shotgun on the wall (for sale). It caught my eye because it was so unusual; it was marked as a "Burgess shotgun built by Bannerman" and looked a little more "complicated" externally than your shotgun. Don't really know what I was looking at.


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Originally Posted by Odessa
Shrapnel, very interesting shotgun. Funny that you post this today - yesterday I was in a small gun shop near Jacksonville NC and noticed an old shotgun on the wall (for sale). It caught my eye because it was so unusual; it was marked as a "Burgess shotgun built by Bannerman" and looked a little more "complicated" externally than your shotgun. Don't really know what I was looking at.
Odessa; If it was made by Bannerman than it was a Spenser and they were more complicated out side, Bannerman bought out Spenser when they went bankrupt and continued making the shotguns for quite a few years.

Originally Posted by shrapnel

It is a well made gun, much as the rifle. Andrew Burgess had hundreds more firearm patents than John Browning. He was a very innovative man and most of all the Marlin patents used today are from Burgess.
Shrapnel; First I would like to say the heck with the shotgun, I think that the rifle is the real rarity!!! I have two shotguns - I would gladly trade both of them and more for that rifle!

I have done a lot of research on Andrew Burgess over the years and I have ran across this same information - I do not think it's even close to being correct. In an old issue of COLLECTORS DIGEST there was an article about Andrew Burgess that was written by a relative of his, Elmer Burgess. This is where I believe it said that he was second to Browning in firearm patents with Browning haveing over 900 and Burgess over 600, I now think that was very exagerated!!! I have searched US Patents for several years and have only found 80 patents by Andrew Burgess, I think this is very close to being all of them. I have only 58 Browning patents in my data but I do not have any for handguns - of the 80 Burgess patent there a quite are few for handguns, in fact 15 just for semi-auto pistols.

As for Marlin's being based on Burgess patents I think the lever locking of the model 39 is the only Burgess patent still in use, the levers of the other rifles are basically the same design but are not used to lock the action so that might be considered a modified Burgess design. It appears Andrew Burgess was only involved in the design of the 1881 and all later designs were patented by others with L. L. Hepburn named on many of the pre 1900 designs.

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Gene,

Check out the next issue of "Rifle" magazine, it will be on the shelves near the first of December. Mike Venturino used my rifle and did some other research into Burgess and his patents. This should all be covered in the article in December...


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Great! I am not familier with that magazine and without your tip I probably would have missed it...I now will be looking for it!
I recently found out that a person I have gotten to know quite well from seeing him at gun shows has all of the later Burgess prototype auto pistols that were funded by Bannerman's. Hopefully I will get to see them someday, he has displayed them at shows a couple times in the past but stopped doing that because of 'lack of interest'... it amazes me things this rare seem to get so little attention.


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Great find! I like that you use these old hunters still.
They got game then, and they still will; it is a shame for ANY gun to end up in a collection and never see the field again.

cool cool

I also love a solid matted rib and covet my old 20ga Superposed with one.

Verrrrrry Cool!! Thanks for sharing.


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This is a follow up on some of my previous comments and on Burgess and his patents:

I went back through my patent data and rechecked as well as I could and looked at my procedures again to see if there were any obvious flaws - I did find about six more patents�I had completely missed one year �1879. I also found the old article "Andrew Burgess, Gun Inventor" by Elmer Burgess and Lynn T. Wakeling � Gun Collector's Digest, Volume II.�, in that article there is a list of Burgess patents (has 87 listed) and comparing to my list I had one not on that list (340479) and was missing two, one a reissue which I often had skipped over. I now have a list of 88 Burgess patents � this includes those where he was listed as a co-designer and 2 reissues. There is a footnote in that article:

(1) � Andrew Burgess held 894 patents, 599 for magazine firearms, the rest for single shots and automatics. John M. Browning held 950 patents, the majority for automatic weapons.�

I remember that statement and for many years did not question it, as I started to actually search patents several years ago I began to doubt the accuracy of that statement, I now feel it�s way off the mark. If a list of patents from years back and one that I produced independently in the last few years only can find 88 patents, and are the same except for 3 patents, I don�t see how there can be another 800+ out there that can�t be found by any resource available then or now! When I started searching patents I used the US Patent Office web site, recently there is �GOOGLE PATENTS� that gives some different options but both have features the other doesn�t � I now used both when I search; in fact it sometimes is easier going to the U.S. site through �GOOGLE�. This is only for U.S. issued patents, I would not think Andrew Burgess as likely to have foreign issued patents as John Browning, but I would think all would still be patented in the U.S. (Do patents for the same thing, in different countries, count as more than one?)

There is a recent article in � American Rifleman � about the reproduction Colt Burgess � it mentions the supposed 894 Burgess patents.


If you look up John Browning in the � WIKIPEDIA � the biography credits him with 128 patents but I could not get their link to the source of this info to work so this number is not confirmed in any way � but from what I have found it seems like a reasonable number � but certainly different than the 960 stated in the old Burgess article.

Here is the link to a � GOOGLE PATENTS � search for any patent granted to anybody named Burgess or with the Name Burgess anywhere on the patent (which would include witnesses, first or middle names, etc) � I set it to search from 1837, the year Andrew Burgess was born, until 1908 � two years after he died to allow time for any patents filed to be granted - only 419 patents were found with the Burgess name in them � less than 90 are Andrew�s, and only one (340479) that was not on the old list from the above mentioned article.


�GOOGLE PATENTS� uses text recognition software to try and �read� the scanned copies from the patent office, some of which are quite bad, so it misses a few and can give some really strange returns � like reading Andrew Burgess as �AXDEEW BUEGESS� � but it still found this patent because the name is listed more than once. I even did a search using the misread � BUEGESS � � it did not find anything �new�.


The "Andrew Burgess, Gun Inventor" article also mentions that one Burgess patent is still used in Marlin 39�s today, it was for the lever locking and was originally issued for the 1881 Marlin, it will be found stamped on 1881�s as well as on early 22 lever actions, it was issued Nov. 19, 1879 � 210091� pictured is an 1891. The other patents are April 2, 1889 � 400679 - issued to L. L. Hepburn (for the action) and March 1, 1892 � 469819 - issued to J. M. Marlin (this was just for the tubular magazine). There is another Burgess patent that looks closer to the actual gun design but I cannot find any reference to it ever being stamped on any gun 210181. The lever locking was not a new idea, it actually was patented in 1850 for a single shot breech-loader � this patent would have expired about 1867.
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From what I have found it looks like Browning had between 120 and 140 patents, Burgess had at least 88, but in my opinion probably no more than 100. Yes, this is much less than some sources state but if you think about it, it still is quite impressive. I have always been a fan of Andrew Burgess but have tried to find facts about him and not fiction. One thing I know is fact, is that he had a minimum of 88 firearms patents � these can all be looked up and the scans of the original file copies can be viewed. I cannot disprove that he had 806 more than this, but I would at lest like to see a partial list (and preferably a full list) of numbers!

This posting copyright 2010 by GeneB (who takes full responsibility for it�s accuracy�..or inaccuracy!)


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Last week I picked up a Burgess Shotgun at a gun show and have some 2.5" 12 gauge black powder shells on order. I am interested in the smokeless loads you mentioned. No mention of them on the B&P website. I am going to call them but wondered about your experience with them. How many have you shot, any signs of problems. I found several other low pressure smokeless 2.5" shells but was told by one manufacturer, Polywad, that they and the industry in general would strongly recomend against using smokelees loads in a Damacus barreled shotgun.

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too be safe, I would have a gun smith check out your gun, particularly the barrel wall thickness but if it were me, I would have little concern shooting the RST lite loads.

There was a test conducted by Sherman Bell in a resent Double Gun Journal in which he tested a damascus side by side versus a set of old steel barrel with increasing loads until catastrophic failure. Both went about the same and it was WAY WAY more pressure than even modern SAMMI specs. I don't recall exact numbers but it was somewhere better than 20,000 pounds and I think the RST are rated around 7000.


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Thanks for the info, I really want to shoot this interesting gun without breaking the bank.


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