Picked up another old gun to work on. LGS said this Thames Arms Co. .38 revolver is an antique, its not, probably around 1902.


After getting home I realized some on has drilled and tapped a hole in the top of the frame, ran a screw down into the cylinder and then very crudely cut the head off the screw locking the cylinder in place.

You can see it in the bottom of this picture.

I also notice there is no marking from the case rubbing when the gun is fired or carried with a loaded chambers.


The trigger spring and hand have been removed.
Other than the screw locking the cylinder the gun functions fine and could be fired as a single shot. Rifling is excellent. Why would some body take a perfectly good revolver and make a single shot out of it? Oh, its 5 shot, and a 3 1/4" barrel.

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Daniel
SWHF 616

first thought, Idiot. Then thought about it, no still idiot.

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"I'm feeling MUCH better now"

Sounds like someone wanted a non firing display gun so they went above and beyond to disable it.

Dueling pistol?

Could have been inerted for theatrical use. Never heard of Thames Arms Co. Sounds British, but probably American. These old top breaks were sold under numerous names.

They could have ground down the firing pin in much less time and still had a non firing gun that does everything but ignite a primer.

Deactivated, probably to make it legal somewhere where a real handgun would be illegal. Or could be a prop gun, as suggested. and for good reason. Brandon Lee was killed with a prop dun that hadn't been deactivated, firing a blank, IIRC.

Weren't so many of those breaktops
sold for $2.50 more than a hundred
years ago and now they are worth
$2.50?

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Ubi Est Mea

Maybe like a lot of these, it didn't work very well as far as timing, DA, SA.
Broken, missing part(s) perhaps.
So someone made the mod to a single shot to get some use out of it.
(***I'm assuming the screw mod only locks the cylinder in place like a set screw and doesn't drill into and enter into a chamber of the cylinder itself,,,but I may be wrong of course.)

I've seen a few T/Break revolvers that I figured had a burned out bore and probably other problems with mechanics made into single shots with a liner that extended from the muzzle right down and thru one chamber of the cylinder.
Locks the cylinder in place. Hand and cylinder bolt is removed.
The liner end is chambered.
Most had a thumbnail cut in the edge of the chamber to work as the 'extractor'.
Again just making use of something that probably wasn't of much use before.

I had an Iver Johnson .22 break top, Trailsman 66, that would not index correctly after two trips to the factory. So I'm on board with 2152hq. At least the cylinder would be correctly aligned for one shot. Better than none.

Everything gets old soon or later just a fact.

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Life is short,live it fully.

Create a non firing display gun is the best bet.

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S&W factory revolver armorer

Just because it would have been valuable now doesn't mean it was always valuable.

Sounds like a display piece, most likely sold or purchased in a country where it is illegal to own a functioning firearm.

If you think this is bad, I've seen pristine examples of classic firearms such as Lugers and the Walther PPK deactivated in even more extreme ways including filling in the barrel and milling out the frame internally so that it couldn't be restored to working order at all.
Why anyone would want a deactivated firearm when it would be much cheaper to simply purchase a replica or a high quality airsoft is beyond me.

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

A chopped up revolver good for one shot up close and personal. I could see things being made like that in tough times and tougher places.

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Dum vivo cano

Looks like something my Dad or Granddad would have done to make a toy out of it for me to play cowboys & Indians.

With it being outdated, worn and maybe already needing repairs, a simple screw would have made sure it was safe.

Pretty neat wall hanger like that though.

Daniel's post says that it's a functional single shot, so that should preclude it from being either a toy or a prop.

My guess is that it was modified to make something useful that was not so previously. It started out as a cheap gun that may have become significantly out of time, as such Saturday night special's tend to do. Making it into a single shot would have made it safe to shoot (….hopefully) for at least the first, and most likely its last shot.

Either that or its owner was/is extremely frugal (which is not necessarily mutually exclusive to my first guess) and maybe wanted to stretch his ammo budget. Either way, it was done deliberately and for a reason IMHO. -S2

I have two old H&R top breaks that don’t function. I can see an old timer making a single shot from one just to have a working gun. One shot is better than none. It was 30 year old gun about the time of the depression when people couldn’t afford anything let alone a functioning gun.

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No gold. Only lead. Bobby

Got the floor in my den painted so now I have to wait few days for it to dry good.

Then I can get things put away again and start working on this little 38.
Once I get that screw out and plug the hole I can start looking for the missing parts and get it working again.

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Daniel
SWHF 616

That hasn't stopped people from insisting that certain firearms like the Taurus Judge/S&W Governor are "just toys" and those fire 5-6 shots.

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

The odd part to me is, how did you not notice any of this when you were picking it up? Did they tell you they had a gun to sell you, you took their word for it that it was a gun, and they dropped it in a box. Then when you opened said box after you got home, you were like Dang!!!
That revolver is jacked up though....

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Proverbs 21:2

Bubba strikes again !

Have an old 22 short top break and have thought about doing the same to. The hand spring broke and there are none to be found. Dont have the ability to make one so why not make it a single shot. It sits right now on top of the safe as display piece. If I could find parts would go that route but....

I purposely buy the ones that are "Jacked Up" so I have something to work on. This one I got from an on-line auction so only had pictures to look at. I knew it was in need of some help but did not know about the screw through the frame.

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Daniel
SWHF 616

I believe that the Thames revolvers were made by Hopkins and Allen in Norwich Conn. I don't know if any parts are swapable between the two brands or not. If nothing else I would use it single shot.

Me and my brothers played with and destroyed all my dad's and my aunt's WWII gear and uniforms. That stuff would have been worth something now.
I shot a 22 through my aunt's helmet to see if it would stop it. It did not.
My dad was in the S. Pacific. My aunt was a nurse in N. Africa.

When I was about 12 I bought an old break type Andrew Fyrberg revolver and of course it was my greatest possession even though the trigger mechanism had been removed I found a toy holster that fit and wanted and did carry it with me every where. I was warned that it technically was a gun as if loaded the hammer could be pulled back and dropped and possibly fire it. I of course did not have any ammo but an adult ground off the hammer nose so it could not possibly be fired under any circumstance. Thus the adults thought it was all right for me to have this "Real" gun as a toy. The original posted gun may have been modified under similar circumstances.

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Gun Safety is no accident.

Saw some wonderful guns demilled to be right with regulations. I thought it a travesty.

my late FIL had one in 38 S&W - it was so sloppy it was unsafe to fire. they were made in the USA.

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Merle, retired
western PA

Thames was a name used by Hopkins and Allen and parts do interchange. I think this one is a good candidate for a shadow box. It could be fixed but with its age and that hole in the frame it will never be safe to fire.

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Daniel
SWHF 616

Ahhhh...That makes good sense now. There is constantly a ad on Armslist here in the Denver area for someone who always wants to buy people's broken or unwanted guns. I always thought along the same lines, apparently it's somebody that wants to buy him to see if he can get them to work again. I used to know a guy that was really good with computers and he used to buy peoples old tablets and cell phones off of eBay, to see if he could extract any of the information out of them after they had been wiped clean. Just as a hobby and a challenge though. I never knew of him using anything for fraudulent activity. But then again, you really don't ever know people completely do you....

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Proverbs 21:2