The
venerable Greener GP 12 Gauge
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| The venerable 70 year old Greener GP seen here tricked out with precision sights for Cowboy action shooting |
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| A Greener GP MkII busting clays at Hilltop Shooting Grounds in Wicklow 10 years ago |
Back around 1900 when, in the immortal words of Shane Mac Gowan:
Their mark on this land is still seen and still laid
The way for a commerce where vast fortunes were made
The supply of an Empire where the sun never set
Which is now deep in darkness, but the railway's there yet.
Our Shane was celebrating the Irish Navvy's contribution to Imperial Railway History in his inimitable and slightly boozy style but the spirit of the verse equally could be applied to the Greener GP Shotgun. The British needed a cheap and nasty gun for riot control by native police in their colonies, principally India and Egypt, where the locals had a long and honourable tradition of rioting in response to British atrocities. The specifications called for a military/police shotgun using proprietary ammunition that could not be acquired through commercial channels. The thinking behind this was that in the event of the native police themselves turning riotous/mutinous and attacking the Army they would immediately encounter firepower and resupply problems. The memory of the brutality of the Amritsar massacre and the savage suppression of the Indian Mutiny loomed large in the Imperial mind. Only recently a Skull was discovered in a London pub; formerly the property of and attached to the neck of "Havildar Alum Bheg, 46th Regt. Bengal N. Infantry who was blown away from a gun, amongst several others of his Regiment. He was a principal leader in the mutiny of 1857 and of a most ruffianly disposition". The British tradition of tying people to an artillery barrel and "blowing them away" was a messy if mercifully quick method of executing pesky native revolutionaries and did little to endear them to their Indian subjects who eventually gave them the heave around 1947. The skull which had been on display in the pub is now a source of embarassment to the British who have since repented the error of their old imperial ways and have embraced tolerance and political correctness. There is talk of repatriating it.
The Greener police gun mark I appeared in around 1921, and tens of thousands were delivered to organisations like the Egyptian colonial police. However, it was soon discovered that locals, who managed to get hold of Greener guns, with classic underdog ingenuity, used standard 16 gauge shells, tightly wrapped into paper or tape to fire from their stolen Greeners. To make commercial ammunition completely unusable, Greener responded with an improved design; the Greener Police Pun Mark III. This gun used proprietary ammunition with bottlenecked cases made of brass, with thick rims. The base of the case was roughly the same as standard 12 gauge case, but toward the forward end of the shell it has reduced diameter equivalent to 14 gauge shell size. To further complicate illegal use of its police shotgun, Greener provided its Mark III guns with trident-shaped strikers. Greener police shells had grooved bases and recessed primers, and attempts to fire any commercially available shell from a Greener gun would fail every time as the side projections of the striker would hit the flat base of the shell, stopping the central part (the firing pin itself) before it could reach the primer. Some Greener Mark III police guns were also made to fire standard, commercially available 12 gauge ammunition or Mark I 14 gauge straight case ammunition. Typical 14 Gauge cartridges available for Greener police shotguns were usually loaded by Kynoch with 30-36 grams of lead shot of small or medium size
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| The Greener Police Shotgun was developed for use on rioters by British colonial police forces. This model has both a safety catch and a cocking indicator |
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| The Riot shotgun loaded with birdshot or in extremis, buck, baton or ball remains a popular choice today with police forces as this photograph from South Africa shows. One cannot but wonder what state the unfortunate victim was in after this incident. |
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| In 1951 a Greener GP cost around 14 quid. This represented two weeks wages for a member of the labouring classes and doubtless many made the sacrifice to acquire a really practical "pot gun" |
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| The Greener Harpoon Gun is one of the stranger variants. It is designed for fishing and line launching. It functions by sliding a hollow harpoon over the barrel which is propelled by firing a specially made .38 Special high powered blank. It was used for whaling, and also for commercial harvest of tuna and other large fish. A Greener harpoon gun is used by Quint in the 1975 movie "Jaws". |
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| Isandlwana 1879: the Zulus' finest hour when they successfully resisted the empire and its Martini Henry rifle. Unfortunately their experience was identical to that of the sixteenth century Irish after The Yellow Ford and Benburb when decisive victories were not followed up and led to escalation of the colonial war and ultimate defeat. |
The GP range of shotguns have a less imperial pedigree as the name GP (general purpose) implies and they are the linear descendants of the Police model. In 1965 Webley and Scott acquired the Greener business and continued to make the GP for a few years and many of the used Greener GP's available today are from this period. These were not expensive guns and still aren't although it is possible to pay quite a lot of money for pristine models or ones that have been customised. They are of course, Martini actioned, and quite elegant compared to the cheap break-barrel singles. Some come with multi or adjustable chokes and some have even been rebuilt as harpoon guns. Milord probably didn't use a GP but his gamekeeper might have found one useful for controlling the numbers of the local equivalent of colonial troublemakers - the fox, magpie, weasel and hooded crow. Collector's don't place much value on them - they are a bit, well, you know, "working class" for that but they are robust and thanks to the Martini action, fast in operation. The back sight is a fixed "V" and they have been successfully used to fire lead balls and slugs. Their attraction for enthusiasts is the strong, fast Martini action and its links to past glories (and defeats). The Martini Henry rifle was the weapon of the Empire during the Zulu wars and carries still the whiff of Isandlwana and the memory of an entire British army annihilated by pesky assegai toting natives. For these and other reasons the modern owner of a Greener GP can feel he has acquired an authentic piece of history. Critics claim it is a shoulder-buster as indeed are most 12 gauge singles.
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| This .303 Martini Henry was used by the old Royal Irish Constabulary and closely resembles the Greener. It has a completely ruined bore and rebarreling is not practical and is now just a collector's piec. Note the absence of a safety catch. The lever on the side is not a safety but a cocking indicator |
The original Martini Henry rifle of 1871 used the dropping-block action first developed by Henry O. Peabody (in his Peabody rifle) and improved by the Swiss designer Friedrich von Martini, combined with the polygonal barrel rifling designed by Scotsman Alexander Henry. The Mark IV Martini–Henry rifle ended production in 1889, but remained in service throughout the British Empire until the end of the First World War. It was seen in use by some Afghan tribesmen as late as the Soviet invasion. Early in 2010 and 2011, United States Marines recovered at least three from various Taliban weapons caches in Marjah. The Martini–Henry was copied on a large scale by North-West Frontier Province gunsmiths. Their weapons were of a poorer quality than those made by Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield, but accurately copied down to the proof markings. The chief manufacturers were the Adam Khel Afridi, who lived around the Khyber Pass. The British called such weapons "Pass-made rifles" and today some of them are considered collector items. The Martini action has endured and is found today in a range of target rifles and Ruger even produces a range of hunting rifles with the similar Farquharson falling block action.
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| The versatile 12 gauge smoothbore can be used with everything from no. 9 shot to a 570 grain ball and a 1 ounce slug shown here with a Pedersoli mould and magtech 12ga brass case. An English colonial aristocrat once claimed to have shot everything from snipe to Elephant with his Purdey. Today the Aristocratic English are the champions of conservation and the slaughter of African game is carried today out by native people with the ubiquitous Kalashnikov |
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The 12 gauge round ball
The 12 gauge shotgun loaded with round ball is not popular as a hunting firearm today. The reasons are probably legal and practical - it is difficult to licence a shotgun for use with solid ammunition and modern rifles are more efficient anyway. This was not always the case and a lot of game was taken in the past with smoothbore guns that fired both shot and ball. A 12 gauge ball measures about .73" or 18.5 mm and weighs around 575 grains and travels at around 1,000 feet per second with around 1,200 foot pounds of energy. Figures are approximate because there is latitude when reloading although one should be aware of the thinness of shotgun barrels and the danger of a burst. My uncle, God rest him, back during the Second World War when ammunition was frequently unobtainable, experimented with solid balls for larger game and blew out the right chamber of his old English side by side. Admittedly he was firing a steel ball bearing but the lesson is a good one. At least he had the sense to load the right, not the left barrel and was even then very lucky he didn't lose a hand. The fact he used a steel and not a lead ball was unfortunate as the latter will compress fairly readily although it is still of the greatest importance to choose a lead ball diameter that fits the barrel snugly. Moulds are available from suppliers that will throw either balls or slugs in a variety of diameters and when the barrel diameter has been carefully measured at its narrowest point it is not difficult to match the two. The lead ball, when used for hunting had a reputation for rapid expansion - being round it did so more readily than a large calibre round nosed bullet. It was not necessarly as inaccurate as some writers would have us believe and smoothbore pistols and long guns were capable of excellent accuracy. The main problem was the gas seal which was not very reliable as one would expect with a projectile having such a small bearing surface. If the ball was a good fit and was followed by a nice tight wad then the smoothbore would put venison on the table at short range. For the likes of the old trappers who walked huge distances the dual-puropse smoothbore musket/shotgun was a very practical firearm. In the USA where the legal emphasis is on "Do" as opposed to "Don't" here on the western fringes of Europe, hunting with shotguns and slugs or balls is allowed and even mandatory in some areas of high population density. The logic is that thereby the range of the firearm but not it's killing power is limited. A 12 gauge projectile at 1,500 feet per second is capable of 3,000 foot pounds of energy which equals a .308 hunting rifle. Rifled barrels are permitted on shotguns in some countries and accuracy is very, very good. Closer to home the official mind sees a large round ball as converting a shotgun into a lethal weapon more likely to be fired at a agent of the state than a quarry animal by an untrustworthy and homicidal citizenry. Smooth bore shotguns firing round balls or slugs can produce velocities from 1,100 to 2,500 feet per second and kinetic energy readings from 1,000 to 2,400 foot pounds depending on the ammunition used. A load of black powder and ball would be at the lower end of this range and the Brenneke rifled slug at the top end. This places a shotgun slug on parity with many rifle bullets up to .30 calibre and as such are perfectly adequate for large game at short range, the main limitation being accuracy a t longer ranges.
IF the Greener GP were legal to use with slugs or round balls, which it is not unless one applies for a special permit, it would make quite a good meat gun. As it is we have to rely on the experience of transatlantic friends and a few practical shotgun shooters to testify as to its effectiveness. The "V" back sight is precise enough for most purposes or factory sights could be fitted. Shot spread at 50 yards is in the region of 2 inches with the right ammunition which is adequate for large game. Saboted slugs are the most accurate and some experimenters have achieved spectacular results. A quick search on "Greener GP slugs" produces some interesting case studies. Reloading for the Greener is easy eough if you happen to live in the UK, Europe or USA; in fact anywhere other than Ireland south. When I researched components I found brass cases could be purchased online for £0.50 each. Wads can be purchased or manufactured using a wad punch. Henry Krank supplies lead moulds. Shotgun powders which are really fast rifle powders or slow pistol powders are available by Vectan, Hodgdon's and Vihtavuori and of course black powder can be used if desired. Most manufacturers produce shotgun reloading tables which should be adhered to. It is not absolutely necessary to buy a set of shotgun presses as large rifle primers can be inserted in brass cases with the appropriate shell holder and a top wad to retain the shot in the case. If ammunition is required just for clay shooting then the best and cheapest option is commercial trap cartridges. If the shooter happens to have a permit that allows slugs he can use commercial slugs such as are manufactured by Brenneke but are expensive or he can cast his own round balls and slugs and load them himself allthough great caution is advised. It is sad that reloading is denied to the majority of shooters in Ireland south as it is an activity that is challenging and rewarding in itself. | |
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The brenneke slug is a serious piece of ordnance and police authorities are understandably concerned about it falling into the "wrong" hands. There is some justification for this as it gives a shotgun the same killing power as a quite powerful rifle with a reputation as a car-stopper when fired into the engine block. The Brenneke slug was developed by the German gun and ammunition designer Wilhelm Brenneke (1865–1951) in 1898. The original Brenneke slug is a solid lead slug with ribs cast onto the outside. There is a plastic, felt or cellulose fiber wad attached to the base that remains attached after firing. This wad serves both as a gas seal and as a form of drag stabilization. The "ribs" impart a small amount of rotation to the projectile as it travels down the bore. This rotation does not impart gyroscopic stabilization, rather it improves accuracy by correcting for manufacturing irregularities. Additionally, the ribs decrease contact surface with the bore, reducing friction and increasing velocity. The ribs also deform through the choke more readily than a solid slug would, thus reducing pressure and wear on the choke to safe levels. Being solid this slug deforms little and delivers considerable penetration. Such slugs are specified by law for deer dunting in some US states, especially in populated areas but are frowned upon on this side of the Atlantic and generally require a permit of some kind.
One question that is always asked is whether round balls and slugs will damage a smoothbore shotgun (as oposed to a shotgun fitted with a rifled slug barrel). The answer is that they can and sometimes do. The literature on the subject is totally confusing and contradictory but it comes down to common sense. If the projectile is larger than the choke then there is the potential for damage, even catastrophic damage. Most writers caution against full chokes and recommend cylinder bores of light chokes. As the projectile travels down the barrel it may encounter little barrel friction until it approaches the muzzle and the choke. A full choke measures about .685" (17.4 mm) while a cylinder bore measures about .725 (18.42mm). It stands to reason that a .729 projectile runs the risk of getting constricted by the choke with a consequent buildup of gas pressure. When this happens "something has to give" as any mechanic will tell you, so either the projectile gets resized by the choke and leaves the muzzle or the barrel bursts as hapened with my Uncle and his ballbearing. Home loading shotgun slugs and round balls can be a dangerous business unless you know what you are doing and even then there are sometimes inexplicable bursts, referred to as "Kabooms" by online cognoscenti or as I prefer to lable them, "googlesperts" who recycle endlessly the contributions of people who may actually know what they are talking about
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| The Greener is a take-down design similar to most singles except the barrel is threaded into the receiver; a nice feature that required workmanship |
My first Martini-actioned Greener was acquired for twenty pounds and it did sterling service among the rabbits and pigeons around the village of Rhode for a whole Summer forty years ago. A stint on a building site in Manchester and a "float" from my mother produced enough to purchase a semi-automatic Remington 1100 and the local Guard bought the Greener and I still regret parting with it. I was more savvy with the Remington and I still have it. More recently I was approached by the family of a deceased Church of Ireland clergyman who wanted to dispose of his guns as no-one was interested in shooting them. I became the owner of a very nice 1940's Greener GP and a side by side Webley and Scott which I presented to a sheep farmer and a close friend who continues to use it on hoodies and foxes. The Greener languished in storage for a few years until I took up Cowboy Action shooting which does not permit the use of semis. I felt as though I had re-united with an old friend.
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| My £4 Chinese borescope does not deliver top grade images but those I captured showed a degree of pitting in the barrel of the Greener 12 ga. One would prefer not to have pitting but as many owners of vintage guns will testify its presence does not greatlly affect performance |
The 70 year old Greener showed some slight pitting of the bore when examined with a bore scope. I had it inspected by Gunsmith Fabian Connolly who recommended a torough cleaning and polishing. Fabian also handled the paperwork and importation. Luckily I had an old tub of Motty Paste on the shelf that I had acquired thirty years ago from Al Conroy in Tullamore. It's severe stuff and should only be used on badly fouled bores. It is a grinding / polishing paste and does a good job of polishing a slightly pitted barrel and restoring some of the shine. I applied it with a traditional shotgun cleaning rod and a patch impregnated with paste. A greenish sludge came out of the barrel when I ran through a patch soaked in Brunox. This could have been carbon and lead or just oxidised steel but the bore certainly looked brighter afterwards. It also showed up scumming that had been previously invisible. None of the pitting was deep and the Greener barrels are heavy anyway so there was no question of weakening. A couple of 28 gram trap cartridges showed a nice tight pattern at 20 yards with recoil only slightly heavier than my Remington 1100. The woodwork showed evidence of use and I decided to refinish it during the Summer. Varnish remover and sandpaper would get rid of the remnants of the old varnish and I could then rub in a few coats of Tung oil. The original bead and notch sights were adequate for most purposes but I decided to mount a removable peep sight for close range Western Action shooting. This gave it the appearance similar to its cousin the heavy BSA Martini .22 Target Rifle.
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| The addition of a Pedersoli Creedmore Tang sight for Western Action Shooting made the Greener-Martini look more like its cousin, the Martini actioned .22 target rifle by BSA |
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