Greener PG MK III Questions

[vas]

Hello fine folks of pigeonwatch,

I have recently acquired a Greener PG MK III, and I have been trying to piece together its history. You all seem to know quite a bit about Greeners so I figured I'd ask for your help.

What I have been able to determine so far is:

• 5000s serial number, which means it should be a 1924 gun (incidentally, for anyone else trying to date their greener --> info.pdf (wwgreener.com))
• Proofed in Birmingham (the proof marks are either 1904-1925 or 1925-1954)
• Sadly deactivated in Birmingham in 2001...(barrel plugged, rivet driven through chamber, large slice of barrel removed, front face of breech block ground off at 45 degrees, firing pin face ground off, screw to remove firing pin assembly welded in place)

And the things I am unable to make sense of:

1. Sold as a 13 bore, for the proprietary "triple firing pin" cartridge: The proof marks indicating bore and chamber size seem to disagree? I didn't think the proprietary cartridge existed for 2.75" chambers
2. This greener was sold as a Section 58(2): Why would it have been "deactivated"? (quotes because there is no deactivation certificate - but the barrel, body and breech block are all marked correctly)
3. Not sure what the T133 marking on the barrel means
4. Has an E.G. marking on the lever, like some purported Egyptian contract PGs, but nowhere else

 

Any information would be appreciated thank you

 

[enfieldspares]

The clue is in the "12" as these things were made to customer specification and whilst the Egyptian Contract may have demanded the noted odd cartridge that it used these were also made in standard 12 bore for the few British police contracts that Greener fulfilled. You can see one such in the late Colin Greenwood's book "Police Use of Firearms".

So yes if

1) one of that pattern it won't have been within the compass of s58 by calibre. And

2) if made after 1939 will fall outside by virtue of date of manufacture regardless of chambering.

11. To be regarded as an antique, a firearm must have been manufactured before the date specified in regulation 4 of the Antique Regulations, which is 1 September 1939 (see also section 58(2D) of the 1968 Act).

Edited September 2 by enfieldspares

[ditchman]

many of the 2nd hand Greeners ended up in India as POLICE GUNS.....Gallyons i believe were one of the main collectors and exportors..

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Welcome to Pigeon Watch.

[vas]

16 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Welcome to Pigeon Watch.

Thank you.

23 hours ago, enfieldspares said:

one of that pattern it won't have been within the compass of s58 by calibre

According to the Greener records it is definitely a 1924 gun, I think proofed in 1925 - because the shot size stamp is closer to the 1925-1954 pattern

What I don't understand is if the nominal bore size is 12, and chamber is 12 bore (12 / 2 stamp), and the chamber length is 2 3/4" then how does it qualify as a S58 exemption?

Surely it would need to be sold as a deactivated with a matching certificate? or am I missing something

[enfieldspares]

The two crossed swords will have a letter or number in the angles. These are B'ham "secret" marks that now have been made public and will reveal when the barrel was subject to proof. From the internet:

These marks are also not to be confused with the crossed flags (pennants) stamp of the miltary proof markings, which may carry similar letter codes identifying the country and/or place of inspection.

 

From 1921 to 1951 Figure 1 applies, and for firearms proved between mid 1921 and mid 1922 the code letter is A.

Lest they were confused with other characters, I and Q were not utilised, so the date letters to 1941 were as follows

 

 

1922/23 - B; 1923/24 - C; 1924/25 - D; 1925/26 - E; 1926/27 - F; 1927/28 - G; 1928/29 - H; 1929/30 - J; 1930/31 - K; 1931/32 - L; 1932/33 - M; 1933/34 - N; 1934/35 - O; 1935/36 - P; 1936/37 - R; 1937/38 - S; 1938/39 - T; 1939/40 - U; 1940/41 - V.

The alphabet was restarted several years post-war in 1950 with A, but now each letter change was made at the beginning of the year.

The mark was modified to that shown in Figure II, with D to the left representing 1953,

and the B to the right identifying the Birmingham Proof House.

The number below identified the inspector.

 

 

Thus the year codes have hitherto been understood to be 1950 - A; 1951 - B; 1952 - C; 1953 - D; 1954 - E; 1955 - F; 1956 - G; 1957 - H; 1958 - J; and so on through to 1974 - Z; ................ we also believed that Q was then used in this series for 1965.

From 1975 a further modification was made to the mark, as in Figure III, with another adjustment soon after to Figure IV.

 

 

The date code letters were thus 1975 - A; 1976 - B; 1977 - C; 1978 - D; 1979 - E; 1980 - F.

 

Edited September 3 by enfieldspares

[vas]

Thank you @enfieldspares

My Greener seems to be missing proof date marks. It's not easy to tell well from my pictures unfortunately but mine only has what I believe are the de-activation markings

I've reproduced what the marking looks like below. It's the same in 3 places (barrel, body, breech block).

 

Edited September 4 by vas