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As someone above said, it depends on many things, like the steel used, and the hardening process! However, it depends more on the method of attachment of the lump on the barrels, than any of the other things mentioned.

The hinge pin is not necessarily smaller on a Jones lever, but in many cases the camming lump is of the shoe lump veriety (soldered on the barrels), and this isn't exactly the strongest system. If the Jones is fitted to a chopper lump barrel set,or a true Mono-Block, and is fitted properly, it is stronger than the Purdey sliding barr!

Addtionally, the jones has far more camming than the sliding barr, working exactly the same way a two lug bolt rifle does, by camming into a recess for to longtudinal mateing bosses. This caming is done with a very long lever, and pulls the barrels down on the watertable very tightly. The draw back to this type is, they are very slow to load, and require more use of both hands to accomplish!

The advantages are: #1 the action is closed tighter. #2 the "rotating open" is nonexistant with the Jones lever, and the forward thrust is stopped by the hinge pin, if the conventional hinge pin where the lump is in dirrect contact with the hinge pin!

I have a Jones lever cape gun, where the fore end iron, is one piece, and stays with the action when the barrels are removed. The lump on the bottom of the barrels, hooks into the rotateing fore end block. The hinge pin is perminently pressed through the barr of the action, and the fore end iron. This is a very strong system!

The Purdey barr has, by design, to be fitted loose enough so the barr will slide into the bites,on closing, by spring pressure alone. The camming pressure is handeled by a very much smaller, and shorter lever,and is only used to open the action, so doesn't have the leverage of the Jones lever. Additionally, the Jones pulls the barrel set down tightly against the Barr of the action, where the Purdey only holds it when the barrels try to rise, but doesn't pull the barrels down at all! The Purdey is more expensive, because it is more labor intensive, to fit properly,and is more convenient, not because it is stronger!

The third fasteners, for the most part, are simply a safety "BACK-UP". In some cases they also cam the barrels down. This is accomplished by a cam on the end of the top lever, which camms into an angeled bite in the end if the
rib extention, usually a "Doll's Head" type! The doll's head also serves to resist forward thrust of the barrel set to go off face on fireing. If the doll's head has the camm, or "SCREW BITE" as well, it also pulls the doll's head down slightly.

The Greener cross bolt has no camming effect at all, but is simply fitted very closely, to avoid movement in any dirrection. A "SAFETY" more than anything else!

I would say, if all are either real MONO-BLOCK,or CHOPPER LUMP, both made of the same steel,surfaces hardened the same, the Jones lever is not stronger, but closes tighter then the Purdey barr system. If you add a doll's head, then either will be stronger yet. One thing about the Jones Lever is, they are usually only on sidelock hammer rifles,and usually back action, this lets the action barr be left with much more steel intact, because no long slott needs to be cut longetudinally for the slideing barr, or cocking levers. The only cut being one shallow slott for the cam lump, and one hole through the bottom of the barr for the lever cam to go through. This leaves a lot of steel in a one piece action barr!

Many people mistake the snapp action for a Jones lever, and they are not the same at all. The snapp action is simply a Purdey slide, that is opperated by a bottom lever, rather than the top lever. The one thing that can be done with a snapp action is, it can be made where the lever can force the slide into the bites. This give the snapp lever a camming effect, in addition to the spring pressure of the top lever,

As someone said, all the types are addequate for what they were made to do!

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..........Mac >>>===(x)===>
DUGABOY1, and MacD37 founding member of DRSS www.doublerifleshooterssociety.com
"If I die today, I have had a life well spent, for I've been to see the Elephant, and smelled the smoke of Africa!"