I have just spent an absorbing couple of hours looking through the second edition of John Griffiths' excellent Encyclopedia of Spring Air Pistols and noticed that he still lists the 7th Series Titan air pistol as being smoothbore with some possible rifled examples. Mine definitely has a rifled barrel and I wondered if any others owned by forum members may also be rifled. The rifling isn't very pronounced, but is certainly present.
Brian
Thought I would add a picture of the rifled barrel fitted to my Titan. Although not brilliant, it does clearly show that the barrel is indeed rifled. I know the Titan was only ever advertised as being available in .177 smoothbore, so interesting that a few rifled barrel examples must have also been produced. This final version of the Titan bears a remarkable resemblance to the Webley Mk1, Webley's first venture into airguns and we know the Titan's inventor (Frank Clarke) received royalties from Webley for his contribution to the design. I particularly like the grip safety feature which meant the pistol could only be fired when the grip was firmly grasped. The 7th Series Titan is my favourite model having been significantly upgraded in both quality and appearance from the earlier models which were clearly aimed at the cheaper end of the market. I don't include the 1st and 2nd Series Titans in this as they were well made but entirely different in appearance. Made for just a short time in the early, 1920s these pistols were typical example s of the genius of Frank Clarke.
Brian
Hi Micky,
That’s at least two then, so maybe there were more rifled barrels fitted to the 7th Series Titan than we might have imagined. Being rifled would have precluded the use of steel darts for fear of damaging the rifling so one can understand why smoothbore would have been preferred for this class of air pistol. Anyway in my experience, the difference in accuracy between smoothbore and rifled barrels at their intended range of 6 - 10 yds is minimal to say the least.
Brian
nice looking pistol