POTD: Slide Action, Not Pump – The Burgess Folding Shotgun
Sam.S 06.02.21
Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have a photo of the Burgess Folding Shotgun which is one of my favorite lesser-known slide-action shotguns of the late 1800s. The shotgun literally folds/breaks in half by a hinge. That isn’t the weirdest part. As part of avoiding any sort of slide action or pump action patents, the sliding action is actuated in the grip. You pull the trigger guard as an entirety to the rear and then back forward.
“Andrew Burgess is known as a major firearms designer of the 19th century. He designed lever action rifles for Whitney and Colt and by 1892 he established his own company and began making slide action rifles and shotguns in New York. Some of the Burgess Firearms in the collection here at the Cody Firearms Museum were even displayed at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
The rifles and shotguns have a slide mechanism and they are hinged so that it can be completely folded back against the rear stock. One could even carry the gun folded in a special holster. The Burgess shotgun was patented in 1893 and was intended to be used by police, troops, bank guards and more. The Burgess Gun Company was bought by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1899.
The first image features the Burgess’ Patent Repeating Slide-Action Folding Shotgun that is a 12 gauge and dates to 1893 (1988.8.585).”
Burgess Folding Shotgun [Photograph found in Photos, Cody Firearms Museum’s Facebook]. (2016, August 2). Retrieved May 21, 2021, from https://www.facebook.com/CodyFirearmsMuseum/posts/2069519463272222
