Hello Steve,

This seems to be wandering away a bit from the original shoe-lump thread, but thats proberbly my fault, sorry about that. I'll try to make it a quick answer.

IMO the hidden or concealed third bite as done by Purdey, Holland etc. is an excellent system. The fit of this system as done by these makers is always of the highest quality, as it needs to be. It works exactly as it it intended, which is to stop the tendency of the bar from bending through the angle of the standing breech, not to stop the barrels from opening on the arc of the hinge pin as is commonly thought.

The dolls head and the Greener cross bolt, when correctly fitted, do exactly the same thing. Basically it's three different ways of achieving the same result. Some are neater than others and some people prefer the one that don't interfere with loading.

My opinions friends, hope I haven't offended anyone.

Regards

Alex

alexbeer.com