Product Details
W. W. GREENER, BIRMINGHAM
A 14-BORE SINGLE-SHOT RIOT-GUN, MODEL 'GREENERS POLICE GUN MKI/14', serial no. 15170,
circa 1910, with unsighted 26in. barrel, 'Martini-Henry' style underlever action with farsi markings to the nocksform, the top of breech marked 'GREENERS SPECIAL BORE', walnut butt-stock, iron heel-plate with central sprung trapdoor, full length walnut fore-end and iron barrel-band, worn externally and brushed bright
Other Notes: After W.W.I, the Egyptian Government sought a weapon suitable for arming their police force. W.W. Greener of Birmingham won the contract with their submission of a handy, smoothbore Martini actioned shotgun with a full length wood fore-end, which became known as the Greener Mark I/14 with the "14" referring to the bore size. One of the clever features of the new shotgun was that it used an odd sized 14 1/2-bore straight sided shot cartridge which prevented the weapon's use with commercially available shotgun ammunition. Thus, if the weapon fell into the wrong hands, it couldn't be used against the Egyptian Police. Greener referred to this cartridge as "14 bore for use in Mark I guns". Kynoch were chosen to load the cartridges and most were produced with smokeless powder, but some have been noted with black powder loads. By 1922, over 30,000 'Greeners' had been supplied to the Egyptian Government but in the 1930s, it was discovered that stolen Mark Is were being used against the authorities by wrapping a thick piece of paper around a standard 16 gauge cartridge in order to size them up to 14 1/2 gauge! Greener answered this problem with the Greener Police Gun Mark III, Patent Number 463628/35. The Mark III could be ordered in three different chamberings: the original 14 1/2 bore Mark I cartridges, standard 12-bore 2 3/4in. cartridges and a special bottle-necked round sized .782in. diameter at the base, necked down to .740in. at the tip with an overall length of 2 7/8in.. The new bottle-necked form of the cartridge was enough to prevent the weapon's unauthorized use, but Greener went a step further by adding a large annular groove in the base of the cartridge. When a round is chambered, two lugs protruded from the face of the breechblock and engaged the annular groove in the base of the cartridge, meaning that the gun could only be fired if the correct, grooved ammunition was used.
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Estimate £100-200