The Greener Police Shotgun

The topic of today's study will be an unusual firearm, the Greener police shotgun.

The history of this unusual firearm dates back to shortly after World War I, when the British ruled over very large portions of the planet and the sun never set on the British empire. In several colonies around the globe, the British set up police forces employing locals to handle ordinary law and order issues, with British army garrisons to put down major rebellions and uprisings. There came a need to equip the local police forces of countries like Egypt, India, Hong Kong etc., with weapons to put down riots and jail escape attempts, without the need to involve the local army garrison. Therefore, the British government issued a specification for a new firearm for these police forces.

The requirements of this new firearm type were a bit unusual. First, many of these police forces were not well trained or educated, therefore the firearms had to be extremely simple, sturdy and reliable. They were expected to need minimal maintenance. Since there was a chance that the guns could be used against the British troops themselves, the guns had to be short-range weapons and single-shot only. Another request was that the cartridges used for these firearms should not be easily available. That way, if the police forces decided to rebel themselves, the British garrison could easily take them on.

Greener police shotgun. Click on image to enlarge.

With these requirements in mind, the firm of W.W. Greener, a well known manufacturer of firearms from Birmingham, UK, came up with the Greener police shotgun. The action chosen for this firearm was the Greener improved Martini action that we studied a couple of years ago. This reliable action was known for its simplicity and ruggedness. It was in the Martini-Henry rifle since 1871 and the Martini-Henry rifle was already used by many local militaries, which meant that many locals would be familiar with it. In addition, the barrel, springs and action were made of heavy-duty steel for extra strength and durability. The wood stock extended all the way to the end of the barrel, to prevent damage to the barrel. In addition, note the solid steel nose cap at the muzzle end of the barrel in the picture above. This cap served as extra protection for the end of the muzzle, so even if the gun was placed vertically with the muzzle-end on the floor, the steel cap kept the barrel about 1/4" off the floor. In addition, a bayonet could be attached to the steel cap. The butt-end of the stock also had a steel plate at the end, so it could be used as a club. The stock also had a compartment to store cleaning tools. The barrel of this shotgun had no rifling, so it could only be used as a short range weapon and since it used the Martini action, the user would have to manually unload and reload a new cartridge, each time he desired to fire it. The cartridge that this shotgun was designed to fire was a proprietary 14-gauge shell manufactured by Kynoch Ltd.

The original Mark-I model of this shotgun was released in 1921, mainly to colonial police forces in Egypt. However, it was soon discovered that unauthorized users could use a smaller commonly available 16-gauge cartridge in this gun and stuff the extra space with paper. In response to this, Greener released the Mark-III model shotgun, which had some improvements to prevent this:

New improved cartridge for the Greener Police Shotgun Mark III

In this newer model, the shotgun chamber was altered to take an unusual shaped cartridge. The base of the cartridge was the same diameter as a 12 gauge cartridge, but the front of it was narrowed down to 14 gauge. With an unusual bottle-necked cartridge shape like this, this cartridge could not be used with any other firearm.

In addition, the striker of the shotgun was also modified so that it could only be used with these unusual cartridges. Instead of a normal needle shaped striker, the new striker on this shotgun was shaped like a trident, with the outer two prongs longer than the middle prong. Note that the base of the new cartridge has a deep circular groove around the primer cap. The reason for this groove is so that the two outer prongs fit into the groove and the shorter middle prong can strike the primer of the cartridge. Therefore, the Mark-III shotgun could not use any other ammunition, except for this type of cartridge. If any other cartridge was used, the two longer outer prongs of the striker would strike the base of the cartridge first and prevent the shorter middle prong from striking the primer.

The end result of this was a cartridge that could not be used on any other firearm and a shotgun that could only fire a particular cartridge type. The British authorities were very careful to issue these cartridges in very limited numbers (about two or three per person). Therefore, if criminals stole these weapons or if the local government revolted, these guns would be useful only while the ammunition was available for them.

A lot of these shotguns were issued to colonial police forces in Egypt, Malaya, Hong Kong etc. Some of them were imported into the US in the 1930s, to be used in prisons. Greener continued to manufacture these shotguns even after British colonial rule ended in many parts of the world, until about 1975 or so. Used examples can be found on sale even today.

What is a Best Gun?

Some readers may have heard the term "best gun" being used sometimes, especially in older books. So what is this "best gun" and what is it better than? We will study all about that in this post.

It turns out that the term "best gun" doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means. It is actually used to describe a very specific type of firearm in the industry. A "best gun" is a double barreled shotgun usually with side lock actions, a specific style of stock, intercepting sears etc. It should have a high quality of workmanship and finish and is usually a top-grade gun model that is offered by the manufacturer. It is intended to compete with other manufacturers products in factors such as quality, workmanship and finish, not on price. Many of these "best guns" are custom made for a particular customer, as can be seen in the video we saw earlier in the making a custom shotgun post. Such customers are willing to pay the extra price to have a high quality product made by highly skilled craftsmen. They are not only high quality products, but literally works of art as well.

Some of the most famous "best guns" were made by British manufacturers, such as Holland & Holland, J. Purdey & Sons, W.W. Greener, Westley Richards, Boss & Co., Joseph Lang etc. These manufacturers pioneered the standards in the mid 1800s for what is regarded as a "best gun" today and many of them are still in business currently. To this day, a "London Best" quality firearm is regarded as one of the highest quality firearms made and is usually one of the most expensive shotguns around, some costing more than the latest Ferrari or Lamborghini sports car! Even used "London Best" shotguns are expensive.

A "best gun" manufactured in 1925 by Boss & Co.

The above example is a shotgun manufactured by Boss & Co. in 1925. The gun is a 12 gauge double barrel shotgun with barrels arranged one over the other (known as "Over/Under" or "O/U" type). This is currently worth about $50,000 today.

A recent "best gun" made by J. Purdey & Sons.

The next example we have above is a modern shotgun made by J. Purdey & Sons. While they used to produce different grades of firearms over the years, they currently concentrate on producing very high-end firearms mainly. Purdey's basic price for a entry level shotgun is $52,000 and a double barreled "best gun" starts at $90,000 or so and additional engraving and inlays such as those in the image above can add tens of thousands of dollars to the price. The current master engraver, Ken Hunt,who started as an apprentice at Purdey in the 1950s and is now an independent artist, charges $90,000 for his work alone and only does 4 guns a year currently. The fit is incredibly precise to about 1/1000th of an inch tolerance. It takes 500 hours or more to produce one shotgun and Purdey produces only about 100 guns a year currently.

While London is known for its "best guns", they are also made in other places around the world. We will take a look at these in future posts.

Spurious Guns - 3

In our last couple of posts, we examined the subject of spurious guns. We will study the topic further in this post.

As we saw in the last couple of posts, many of these firearms were stamped with names very similar to those of well-known and reputable manufacturers. Since trademark laws weren't as strict then as they are now, it was considered completely legal in some jurisdictions. The same idea is now seen in China these days, where they sell knock-off goods with names similar to well-known companies ("Sorny" instead of "Sony", "Polystation" instead of "Playstation", "iPed" instead of "iPad", "Pizza Huh" instead of "Pizza Hut" etc.)

So why did they do it? For this, we go to W.W. Greener's The Gun and Its Development, 9th edition, which is now in the public domain. In his words:

From the affluent position most of these dealers and getters-up of spurious guns enjoy, makers of reputation prefer to suffer rather than engage in what they know must be a disagreeable and very probably a most disastrous prosecution. The author believes that he alone has instituted criminal proceedings for this species of forgery; the result being the imprisonment of the offender. And although the method of procedure is distasteful and expensive, the author appeals to those who have been deluded into the purchase of a forged Greener gun to communicate with him at once, in order that an effort be made to stop this nefarious trade.


What this means is that trademark laws weren't strong enough at that time to prevent this practice and many reputable manufacturers didn't think that they could win the case. Note that the author mentions that he won one of the cases, not that he won multiple cases. Therefore, offenders could use this method of evading trademark laws without much fear of consequences.

However, this wasn't the only way that many people skirted trademark laws. Mr. Greener also goes on to mention another deceitful practice:

There is another more subtle form of deceit commonly practiced in Liege and on the Continent. It consists of engraving the gun conspicuously with the name of the patentee of one of the parts of the mechanism. The most notable instances are "Greener" upon cross-bolt guns, and "S&W" upon the Smith & Wesson type of revolver. In a case tested before the Belgian courts the defense advanced was that the weapons were of the type associated with the plaintiff's name, and that the name was intended to refer to the system, not to the maker, of the weapon. When "Greener" is put in bold gilt letters on the top rib, and other words, if any, in small insignificant characters, the name is certainly misleading, whatever the intention; but unfortunately there is no way of stopping the practice.


In Great Britain, under the new Merchandise Marks Act, makers of spurious guns may now be prosecuted; and the sooner the chief clauses of this Act are made international law, the better it will be for foreign sportsmen. In the British colonies, the sportsman is fairly protected by law: but probably the most flagrant instance of trading in spurious guns occurred at Melbourne, where a Jewish firm of gun importers, in a very large way of business, selling to all the Australian colonies, had long practiced a most impudent fraud. If a customer inquired for any well-known make of gun, an unnamed Belgian gun was forthwith stamped with the name of the maker demanded, and usually a sale completed. For making such unwarrantable use of the author's trade name an action was brought, in the year 1895, and the author was awarded £5,500 damages; but it is doubtful whether this covered more than a fraction of the real  injury wrought, and was, of course, no reparation to the sportsmen who had been deluded into purchasing spurious weapons. Unfortunately the defendants appealed against the verdict, and litigation proceeded for more than a year afterwards. The evidence obtained showed that many of the best-known firearms manufacturers had been victimized by this one firm, four members of which were subsequently prosecuted criminally and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.


This method of evading trademark laws is no longer possible in most westernized countries these days, as the trademark laws have become more strict.

Spurious Guns - 1

While we have dwelled on the manufacturing process and cost of manufacture of firearms, there is another interesting related topic that we will study today: spurious guns. Our note on spurious guns comes from W.W. Greener's "The Gun and its Development", a book that was published a long time ago and is in the public domain. In one of its chapters, he devotes a small section to spurious guns.

During the latter half of the 19th century, as some English firearm manufacturers were becoming famous worldwide for their quality of product, fake copies of their products also began to hit the market. Many of the fake manufacturers were based in Belgium, though some were based in England as well.

In W.W. Greener's words:
The spurious gun may be either a gun represented as being of quality it is not, or as the production of a maker other than the real one.  After taking all into consideration, it is the first class which is the most dangerous to the unwary buyer. The vapid platitudes of the salesman spread a glamour over the transaction, and the sportsman purchases a gun which will trouble him more and more as he gets to know it.  Against the purchase of this class of gun the sportsman must always be on his guard.


The second class of gun is simply a forgery.  Belgian guns are sent to England to be proved, or the English proof marks are imitated; "English fine twist" is engraved upon the rib, or any maker's name is put on to the order of the importer.


Some makers do not scruple to state in their lists that they will put upon their productions "made in London, or in Eibar, or in Brescia," or in any other town whose manufacturers have a better reputation that their own. Never buy a gun without the maker's name upon it.


All the leading makers or their retailers now advertise, so that the exact name of the maker wished is easily obtained; see that the gun bears this name, and rightly spelled, for the change of a letter is often made, the maker of the forgery thereby thinking that his liability is lessened, and foreign forgers make dreadful havoc with English names, whereas probably no careful maker has ever turned out a gun wrongly or incorrectly named, so far as his name goes.  As to the more general forgeries, they will be found to be changes run upon the name of a maker of reputation.  No one would forge "Smith" or "Jones", and happy the gunmakers who possess such names; but names as "Greener" will be spelled "Greenen," "Purdey" as "Purdy," "W.C. Scott & Son" as "J.N. Scotts Son," whilst of the imitations of "Westley Richards" the name is legion. The alteration in initials, or the Christian name, or the address is more frequent, and all "Horace Greener," "Albert Greener," J.H., W.H., A.H., and other H. Greener guns are practically forgeries.


Let us now look at some of these forgeries. First up, we have a Greener imitation shotgun, made in Belgium:

Click on images to enlarge.

First thing to notice in the first image is that the name of the maker is "C. Greener", not "W.W. Greener". Secondly, there is no address on the top rib: A genuine W.W. Greener of that era would have been marked with the manufacturer name AND address (e.g. "W.W. Greener 68 Haymarket London & St. Mary's Square, Birmingham."). The second big giveaway is in the second picture. Those are Belgian proof marks, not English, the oval with the letters "ELG" and the other mark that looks like a pole standing on a pyramid show that it was proved in Belgium. But W.W. Greener was an English manufacturer, so it would have had marks of either the Birmingham or London proof houses if it was genuine. These proof marks are normally hidden by the stock when the gun is in an assembled state (as the proof marks were usually put there in order to not mar the beauty of guns), so the buyer would not necessarily notice them until much later on.

The next image we will look at is a fake Westley Richards:

Click on image to enlarge

This one is pretty tricky because the engraving on the plate says "W. Richards". However, a real Westley Richards shotgun would say "Westley Richards", not "W. Richards." To complicate matters, there was a genuine firm named William Richards based in Liverpool, who manufactured shotguns under the name "W. Richards". This company made some quality shotguns and is still in business to this present day. However, there were also many more Belgian made "W. Richards" fakes made during the late 1800s. Usually, guns with barrels marked "London Fine Twist" are fakes.

The problem got so bad that in 1887, the British magazine, "Shooting", conducted interviews with genuine English manufacturers to identify the markings of genuine guns. As per that article, some of the details are:
W. Richards, Liverpool: "All my guns have 'W. Richards Old Hall Street' on the barrels, 'W. Richards' on locks, Guards are numbered."
W. Richards, Preston, Lancashire: (Editor's note: This is another branch of the same firm above. At one point, they had a branch in Preston as well as Liverpool) "All my guns have 'W. Richards, 44 Fishergate, Preston', on the top rib, 'W. Richards' on the lock plates, all guards are numbered."
Westley Richards, London and Birmingham: "'Westley Richards' and appropriate address on rib (or Westley Richards & Co on lower grade guns). All guns have 'Westley Richards' on lock plates and bear the 'Westley Richards triangle' trade mark."

Therefore, a gun that doesn't have some of the details above is likely a fake.

Many of the fake Belgian-made W. Richards guns were imported into the US by H&D Folsom Arms Co. of New York, which was a large American sporting goods retailer in the late 1800s until the 1950s or so.

Now, we will look at some more fake Westley Richards products:

Click on images to enlarge

As we can see in the first picture, the lock has the word "Richard" instead of "Westley Richards". In the second picture of the same firearm, we can see Belgian proof marks, as in the fake Greeners above (i.e. The letters "ELG" in an oval and the pyramid with a pole on top).

Now for a whole slew of fake Westley Richards products:

Click on images to enlarge

As was mentioned by W.W. Greener above, the imitations of Westley Richards are legendary. Observe the variants of the brand name on the lock plates: "W. Richard of Belgium", "A. Richard", "Rikard" and "Rickard".

In our next post, we will study more spurious guns and the strategies developed by unscrupulous manufacturers in trying to sell them.

Custom Fitting a Stock

In our last post, we studied how a high end custom shotgun was made. In there, we noted that the shooter was measured for a gun. So what is the need for all this? We will study that in this post.

When a firearms manufacturer makes a shotgun (or any other type of firearm, for that matter), the general rule of thumb is to make it so that it fits a large percentage of the customer population. In the case of shotguns, they assume that the buyer is male, right-handed, about 5 foot 9 inches tall, weighs between 160-170 lbs. or so, is right-eye dominant etc. (i.e.) the ergonomics of an average male human in the particular country that the firearm manufacturer is based in. So what happens if the buyer does not meet this standard -- for instance, the buyer could be left handed or above 6 feet tall or below 5 foot 5 inches and weigh more than the average weight, have a shorter neck etc. Female shooters are usually shorter, have longer necks, shorter arms, breasts, higher cheekbones etc. In such cases, the shotgun doesn't fit the customer so well.

We already studied some of the basics of stock design many months ago in this post. The reader is advised to read that first, to get familiar with some of the terminology of the various parts of a stock.

Some of the many factors that make a shotgun comfortable are balance, weight, cast-off (e.g. if a person has fat shoulders, the stock may be angled to one side to allow them to aim properly), length of the person's neck, eye dominance (right or left eye) etc.

In the 19th century, most firearm stocks were made of wood, so unless the stock was custom made to fit a certain individual, anyone who was not of average dimensions had to make do with a firearm that didn't handle so well. In the latter part of the 20th century, firearms manufacturers did make some improvements to help people who did not meet the average dimensions. One way they did this was by making stocks of different sizes to satisfy more of the population (such as guns made for women and youth models). Another way was by making adjustable stocks.

Click on images to enlarge

The first stock we see in the picture above is made by a German company called J.G. Anschutz, and the second one is made by an American company called McMillan. The stocks are made of different materials (laminated wood vs. fiberglass). However, they both feature adjustable combs and butt pads, that can be adjusted for different shooter preferences. Many shotguns also feature adjustable triggers that can be moved forward or backward.

In extreme cases, one may replace the adjustable stock with a precision fit stock, such as the one shown below:

Click on image to enlarge

With a stock like this, the user can adjust the comb angle (not just the height) to adjust for any face, adjust the recoil pad angle and distance to fit any shoulder, adjust for any cast-on or cast-off etc.

Another way is to visit a good gun-smith for a custom stock fitting. Any good stock maker usually has what is known as a "try gun" in the trade.

Click on image to enlarge. Image taken from W.W. Greener's The Gun and its Development 9th edition, which is now in the public domain.

This is a gun-maker's tool, that allows the maker to adjust the stock to any length, bend, cast-off and butt shape. This can be used to fit anyone who needs a custom built stock. The try-gun is adjusted until it fits the customer properly and then the measurements and positions of the various movable parts are noted and given to the stock maker to carve a custom stock to these measurements. Famous high-end gun makers from the 19th century, such as Purdey, Greener, Westley Richards etc. used such tools to make custom stocks for rich customers and still do so to this day.

Shotguns: Chokes and Choke Boring

When a shotgun fires multiple pellets, they spread out in a cloud of pellets upon leaving the barrel. This is known as the shotgun pattern or shotgun shot spread. We've already studied how to determine the shotgun pattern earlier and the reader is advised to refresh their memory from the earlier article.

Now the key is that the largest number of pellets must penetrate in a 30 inch diameter circle, such that if a bird silhouette was to be placed on the circle, that the silhouette cannot be placed anywhere where at least 3 pellets are not going through it.

In order to increase the number of pellets within the 30 inch circle, a choke is often employed. Chokes may be built into the barrel, as part of the manufacturing process, or the end of the barrel may be threaded and the user can screw on a removable choke to the end of the muzzle as needed. This way, the user may be able to use different chokes depending on the number and diameter of the pellets used.

Since removable chokes are more modern, we will now study the history of choked barrels (i.e.) barrels manufactured with a built in choke.

The basic principles of choke-boring seem to have been invented by Spaniards, as we find the first mention of improving shooting patterns by various boring methods in Spanish books. M. de Marolles in his book, La Chasse au Fusil, states that some gunmakers in his time maintained that, in order to throw shot more closely, the barrel diameter should be narrower in the middle than on the breech or the muzzle end; while others insisted that the barrel must gradually contract from breech to muzzle. He goes on to describe methods to achieve these results, as were in vogue during his time. J.W. Long, an American author, in his book, American Wild Fowl Shooting, claims that choke-boring was an American invention and attributes the discovery to one Jeremiah Smith of Smithfield, Rhode Island, who was making choke-bored barrels, as early as 1827. The first known patent was granted to an American gunsmith, one Mr. Roper, on April 10th 1866, who preceded another claimant, an English gunmaker, Mr. Pape, by just six weeks.

While these early inventions were by American gunsmiths, they had not fully understood choke boring and therefore, a lot of their guns would lead, shoot irregular patterns and not shoot straight. It was left to an English manufacturer, W.W. Greener, to invent a method of choke boring that became the most widely used method in the later part of the 19th century. It was because of the popularity of the Greener method of boring that some authorities falsely give W.W. Greener the credit for inventing choke boring, though he himself never claimed to invent it.

W.W. Greener was a well-known gunmaker in Birmingham in the 19th century (the firm is still around today). His first intimation of a choke formation was from a customer's letter in early 1874. This customer had ordered a custom gun and in his special instructions to Greener, he described a choked barrel, though he did not specify its size or shape, or how it was to be obtained. However, W.W. Greener was intrigued enough to conduct many experiments to determine how to make the best profile and size of the choke for any given bore diameter. He also invented new tooling to make this boring possible. After many months of experimenting, he figured out how to make appropriate choke profiles for any bore of shotgun.

The Greener choke consists of leaving the barrel mostly cylindrical, but creating a constriction in the barrel towards the muzzle end of the barrel, as can be seen in the figure above. Before this method was invented, most people would either make the breech end of the barrel of a slightly larger diameter for up to 10 inches of barrel length from the breech, or they would bore the middle of the barrel to a smaller diameter and make the breech and muzzle of a larger diameter, or they would simply leave the barrel as a true cylinder (no choke).

On December 5th 1874, Mr. J.H. Walsh, the Editor of Field magazine,  mentioned the Greener choke in an article, that read:
"We have not ourselves tested these guns, but Mr. W.W. Greener is now prepared to execute orders for 12-bores warranted to average 210 pellets of No. 6 shot in a 30-in. circle, with three drachms of powder, the weight of the gun being 7.25 lb. With larger bores and heavier charges, he states that an average pattern of 240 will be gained. As we have always found Mr. W.W, Greener's statements of what his guns would do borne out by our experience, we are fully prepared to accept those now made".

The article created a sensation because the very best 12-bore shotgun in the London public gun trial of 1866 could only generate an average pattern of 127. The very next issue of Field magazine contained an ad from W.W. Greener guaranteeing a pattern of 210 on his 12-bore guns. There was also a letter to the Editor in the next issue, from a reader of the magazine, confirming that his latest purchase from W.W. Greener did indeed meet this claim and more. Naturally, such statements created a huge controversy among gun manufacturers and readers, and the Editor of Field magazine was compelled to send a Special Commissioner to witness and verify the shooting of  Greener guns. The Special Commissioner not only verified the claims, he actually got an average pattern close to 220 during his testing! After that, several other manufacturers claimed to be in possession of the same method of boring as W.W. Greener and therefore, the proprietors of Field magazine decided to conduct a public trial, the London Gun Trial of 1875, to verify various manufacturer claims. Greener-made choke bores won overwhelmingly in this trial, as well as the London trials of 1877 and 1879 and the Chicago trials of 1879 and led to the fame of his company spreading.

The Greener method of choke-boring was later adopted by other manufacturers and became the dominant form of choke boring. Modern chokes today are usually screwed on to the muzzle end of the barrel and slightly change the diameter of the muzzle in much the same way.