Could this be a prototype for the T.J.Harrington Gat?

[ccdjg]

A while ago I showed the following unusual push barrel pistol on the forum (https://www.airgunbbs.com/showthread...-barrel+pistol). Tongue-in-cheek I tentatively suggested it could possibly be a prototype for the Harrington Gat. Having recently picked up a pre-war Gat, also pictured below, and now being at a loose end with my book re-write at the printers, I decided it was time to look into this possibility a bit more closely.







The mystery pistol is definitely British as it is based largely on imperial sizes and threads. It is constructed entirely of steel, with the exception the brass barrel and brass grip plates. The natural patina of the steel (the pistol was never blued) is indicative of considerable age, dating to at least the pre-war period, and could easily be of the same era as the first-version Gat .

T.J.Harrington developed his alloy Gat towards the end of the 1930’s, and evidently believed he had introduced enough novelty into the design to apply for a patent (although no patent appears to have ever been granted). Thus he would have made development prototypes, and these would certainly have been made in steel before committing to zinc alloy casting. So could the mystery pistol be one of his surviving prototypes?


Having dismantled the pistol and the pre-war Gat, and comparing them closely, these are my observations that support the idea:


1. The pistol has all the hallmarks of something that was made for experimentation and development, rather than something that was made to be a prized possession for actually shooting. Thus:

• The crude utilitarian appearance doesn’t gel with the time, effort and expert machining that has obviously gone into making it. The grip plates are too thin to make for comfortable grip, and the rear sight is rudimentary. It was never blued.
• The structure is obviously designed to be easily taken apart.
• There are built-in adjusters for both the trigger and the sear, something not found on other push- barrel pistols. These can only be accessed by dismantling the gun, and so were most probably used to optimize the geometry of the sear/trigger assembly.
• The main spring consists of three smaller (professionally finished) springs, so that the power can be modified by adding or removing one of them.


2. The pistol frame disassembles in a manner very similar to the pre-war Gat, and uses the same type of screw ((4BA) :







3. The barrel OD and muzzle nut threads are identical, with a 5/16ʺ BSF thread. This thread size is unique to the Gat, and no other commercial British push-barrel pistols used such a thread.






4. There are distinct similarities between the sear arrangements of the two pistols, notably (a) the use of a pivot pin that rotates with the sear rather than one that remains static with the sear rotating about it, and (b) the positioning of the sear spring within the grip.







The close similarities between dimensions and threads used on the two pistols, which are not shared by other push-barrel pistols from the same era, are summarized in the following table.






Are these points enough to raise its status as a Gat prototype from a slight possibility to a reasonable probability? Or am I reading too much into this?

Your comments would be very welcome!

[edbear2]

Could it not just be a home / homer at work made effort also?

You would think a prototype might have some mark of some sort, and be a bit better made, especially the trigger / sear area which really look home / very average school metalwork level and not smith / skilled made.

ATB, Ed

[evert]

Could it not just be a home / homer at work made effort also?

You would think a prototype might have some mark of some sort, and be a bit better made, especially the trigger / sear area which really look home / very average school metalwork level and not smith / skilled made.

ATB, Ed

Thats what I'm thinking too. Home made project by someone who had access to a Gat they copy.
The adjustability in the trigger/sear could just be to get the gun working easily without having to alter the parts.

I've been thinking about making something like this for years....

[Garvin]

Another thing in favour of it being a genuine prototype GAT is why would anyone bother making it when GATs are/were so cheap and, let's face it, for all the effort making it, you weren't exactly producing something with stellar fit-for-purpose performance?!

[edbear2]

Another thing in favour of it being a genuine prototype GAT is why would anyone bother making it when GATs are/were so cheap and, let's face it, for all the effort making it, you weren't exactly producing something with stellar fit-for-purpose performance?!

Or the polar opposite, someone looked inside a Gat / pop out and just fancied making one of their own so it was "theirs"

I did exactly the same when 16 years old, copied a Barnett type crossbow as a combined metalwork/woodwork school project spent ages making all the rocking sears /trigger /prod (leafspring) and 3 piece laminated stock!

Truth is no-one will ever know, but as someone who has seen all sorts of stuff made at various factories by all sorts of folk who spent bleedin' weeks fettling away during breaks and quiet times to make something they could have bought cheaply***, trust me I reckon it's a home made job!

*** one notorious guy I worked with was a brilliant engineer and mechanic, and was in F1 from the time of Jackie Stewart, he cound never "waste time" as he called it, so always was making stuff / fixing stuff /improving stuff, especially during the Winter months as was not a newspaper reader or canteen banter type.

He had a pretty basic strimmer and used to get annoyed at the cap thing getting damaged, so spent days forming one from Titanium!

One another occasion he made some roof bars for his the car from a defunct stock of highh tensile tube, forming it into an aero oval section to reduce drag (on a 15 year old Peugeot estate!), all made from 4130 steel and took dozens of hours of work.

Both totally pointless but kept him happy, and I could recount dozens more similar tales from my 50 years of seeing this (and doing it myself!).

ATB, Ed

[ccdjg]

All interesting observations. Purely in the interests of stirring up a bit of discussion on here (things have been too quiet lately), I will make the counter-arguments:

POINT 1:

"Home made project by someone who had access to a Gat they copy."

"Or the polar opposite, someone looked inside a Gat / pop out and just fancied making one of their own so it was "theirs"

I disagree with this idea, as the pistol (IMHO) dates more from the 1930's than 1950's. So when this was made, the Harrington Gat would not have been around long to copy (the pre-war Gat was only available briefly ca. 1939). Look at the patina to see its obvious age:




Another factor is the design of the breech plug (pictured below). The use of one with a female fitting is unique for pop-out pistols, so if someone was trying to make a copy of the Gat, they were introducing quite a bit of their own ingenuity. I think it much more likely that this was a Harrington concept that was later dropped when he finalised his design, perhaps because it involved more machining costs than a conventional breech plug.

POINT 2

Could it not just be a home / homer at work made effort also?
You would think a prototype might have some mark of some sort, and be a bit better made, especially the trigger / sear area which really look home / very average school metalwork level and not smith / skilled made.

When I look at the pistol closely, yes there are aspects of the build that suggest expediency over finesse, but you have to remember that T.J. Harrington was not your Webley or BSA company, but was a one-man band. If he was in a hurry to get a money-making pistol to the market, why would he not cut a few corners?

Having said that, there are other aspects of the gun that do show professional expertise, like the quality of the brazing throughout, as exemplified by the front sight below, the quality of the machining on the brass grip plates, and the attention to detail with the breech plug:

[harvey_s]

Are these points enough to raise its status as a Gat prototype from a slight possibility to a reasonable probability? Or am I reading too much into this?

Your comments would be very welcome!

With the greatest respect there is no provenance to suggest it's status is anything more than a homemade project apart from a few similarities that may or may not have been copied from an original.

It could equally even be a competitor's prototype...?

Without any provenance, I don't see its status being anything other than an interesting curiosity.

[Powderfinger]

James Harrington lived a long life and died relatively recently. I have read a press interview with him. He was a colourful and creative character to say the least. Did he leave any written account of his work?

[ccdjg]

With the greatest respect there is no provenance to suggest it's status is anything more than a homemade project apart from a few similarities that may or may not have been copied from an original.

It could equally even be a competitor's prototype...?

Without any provenance, I don't see its status being anything other than an interesting curiosity.

I agree perfectly with your last point.

However, I am always surprised by the general feeling among collectors that there was a plethora of amateurs out there making their own prototypes, and creating confusion. I have been collecting and researching air pistols now for 45 years, and I can count on one hand the number of unidentifiable British-made pistols that have come to light in all those years. So on the very rare occasions that they turn up I don't think we can just shrug them off as 'just another cobbled together project'. We need to seriously ask the question, what motivated the creation of the gun?

[micky2]

When l owned this pistol. l bought it as a home made one. l just thought it seemed a lot of work to be a protype of any kind. but l liked the construction of it and the thought that had gone into making it. l also have a few other what l class as home made guns, which l admire the skill and the thought of coming up with ldears of making an airgun. just my take on it, we will never for sure.

[ggggr]

I think as Ed has pointed out, it is possible for someone to make one of these. With some of these things you have found John, it is/was quite possible for a skilled engineer to make them. You have made guns from scratch! from patents you have found and have made a much neater job than most of them. If the guns you had made, were "prototypes", they would probably be lot rougher than they are. Look at that Slant gripped Webley modification you have.

A skilled worker could turn out most of the rough "prototypes" you have found.
People will tinker. You make guns. That bloke Grant Stace? in New Zealand makes guns. There is the bloke who has made tiny springers. I know someone who has made tiny pre charged rifles. In the 100years + of airpistols, dont you think some other skilled people will have made or improved things? AND dont you think some will have survived?

Being honest, pop outs are totally crap, with the firing cycle and the barrel and sleeve being able to move means they are not accurate at all. Plus the screw in probe gets on your nerves after a few shots. Im saying this from the point of view that why would anyone with the skills even bother to try to improve one? As Ed has said, some people are just like that (Loved the roof rack thing Ed ) . Maybe someone wanted to make the gun for his son or grandson. Those grips are pretty snazzy------but surely if you were doing a prototype, you would just put a plain wooden set on?

A few things make me think it is a home made job. Like Ed, that probe does look like it is off something else---------like a jet holder or jet off a carburettor.
Also, I believe BA thread is common in model building? I tend to tap things to 2 or 4ba if Im messing with something with dodgy threads. Also Bsf is common I think in model building and would have been in engineering years ago. I think the trigger is an attempt to improve a standard trigger to get a shorter pull, but I cannot see someone intending to put an adjustable trigger on a cheap budget gun like a GAT.

Sometimes we cannot find out about even more recent things, whether something was a prototype, whether a part was actually fitted to a gun or an after market or home made modification, so in over 100 years, what chance do we really have?

I like seeing some of these things no matter what they are.

Did Milbro ever make a .22 Calibre G4 pistol? A mate has one. His metalwork teacher did the barrel for him---back in the days when things like that happened.

You look at some other things like the Voere? And just wonder what was going on in someones mind.

Keep turning them up John.

[edbear2]

I agree perfectly with your last point.

However, I am always surprised by the general feeling among collectors that there was a plethora of amateurs out there making their own prototypes, and creating confusion. I have been collecting and researching air pistols now for 45 years, and I can count on one hand the number of unidentifiable British-made pistols that have come to light in all those years. So on the very rare occasions that they turn up I don't think we can just shrug them off as 'just another cobbled together project'. We need to seriously ask the question, what motivated the creation of the gun?

Even Dennis Hillier had one in his green book I recall, and commented on how "home made airguns" often turn up , and fetch either good or poor prices depending on the skill /quality of execution, I recall it was a rifle based on a MK3 that was featured , but I don't have a copy to hand, maybe someone could put up the text.

"Seriously ask the question" and "motivation" are as I explained earlier, I have made a couple myself from scratch, starting at school with cannons of course, then a airline fed bb SMG based on an Owen gun with a Stirling mag hiding a feed hopper and feed system a bit like a spray gun pick up.

Don't even know where that is now, made it in circa 1985 at work for breaktime plinking with workmates.

Just idling away time usually surrounded by the facilities that make such projects easy to do in my case. It's what folk do I would say for various reasons, mine being just because I could and had the time and equipment to do it quite quickly as worked in engineering.

As Guy righty says loads of folk have made all sorts, like the metalwork teacher who did the Lee Enfield / BSA "Milpats", or someone who put a brass .25 rifled barrel into a BSA standard owned (a while ago) by a guy near Stroud I bought a Airsporter MK1 off.

What on earth was the point of the latter?....It could not be confused for a real .25 as the wrong period, and the work was noticable at the crown, That was a serious bit of time and lining up etc. to get that done, and someone did it just because they could, or fancied a .25, a pointless exercise to 90% of shooters or collectors I would venture, but someone made the effort.

I knew a guy where I worked in the 1980's who was very skilled (he did action filing for Accuracy International) who made a perfect replica of a Gibson Mastertone Banjo, all sorts of other stuff but was a keen shooter, one one occasion I saw him patiently at the bandsaw sawing slowly through a lump of alloy steel.

This took a few tea breaks, he had bought an Urberti SAA and decided he liked the look of the Colt Bisley, so then spent weeks and weeks making a new drop style hammer, new grip frame, new grips, you name it, until it was 100% correct.

All colour cased or whatever, new front blade, whole gun to white and re-done......He could have bought a real one with the weeks and weeks of faffing about

That's out there probably causing confusion too! as maybe in 100 years a couple of my BSA efforts might be, although all the numbers of mine are out there online, in previous these little projects history normally died with the creator.

So if anyone has seen a air fed SMG with Premier grips and triggerguard, a sten MK1 like tubular stock, and a curved Stirling mag topped with a brass plate and BB feed, then it's not a prototype, It's just something knocked up to shoot the piles of tin cans discarded by the soft drinks transport hub once located in the Brooklands industrial park after they had a forlift mishap



ATB, Ed

[evert]

The use of 2BA and 4BA screws can be explained by looking at your average Mk3/4 Meteor.

[Jerry Cornelius]

I think we’re all missing the most important part of this thread:

with my book re-write at the printers

Exciting.

[ccdjg]

OK, now for some facts.

(Remember we are talking spring air pistols here, I don’t pretend to know a great deal about air rifles or PCP pistols). Our current state of knowledge of unmarked, fully functional British-made springer pistols made over the last 150 years boils down to just 11 examples. These are summarized in the following collage. This has been put together using information culled from years of research, involving access to numerous collections, magazine articles, books, auction catalogues, patent data bases etc. If anyone knows of a documented example not on this list I would be over the moon to hear about it, as they turn up so rarely (about one every 15 years on average, it seems).



Of these 10 pistols, three are definitely crude home-made jobs, two are almost certainly assignable to a maker (Bussey and Greener), and the rest are interesting subjects for discussion.

What is noteworthy is that of all these pistols that enthusiasts have chosen to make, only one is a pop-out pistol. Presumably all the time and effort needed to produce a working pistol is not something that the average amateur machinist would want to waste on what is little more than a toy. However, things would be different if there was a strong financial motivation in making such a pop-out prototype. Given the obvious age of the pistol, T.J. Harrington then comes to mind. Then when one takes into account the similarities between his first commercial Gat and the mystery pistol, I think one must admit that there is a at least a grain of possibility that he made it.