I guess that since there is no subform titled "Compulsively Accumulating Single-Shot Rifles," this one will have to do.  Found this last week at a Gun Show.

It is kind of a cute little thing, looking sort of like a Hopkins & Allen 922, only without the receiver ring.  The barrel slides back against the breechblock with a lug on the barrel and a mortise at the bottom of the action, and the assembly is locked in with the lever setscrew shown.  The breechblock and lever is reminiscent of the H&A as well, except the rear of the block is shorter and more hemispherical than the later rifle.

I had found a loose breechblock, identical to this one, that didn't fit any of my H&A wrecks, with a serial number 2308; nicely finished, and I wondered why it didn't fit any of my accumulation of H&A receivers.  It drops right into this one, but since the major parts are serial numbered, it won't be substituted.

I've seen a couple of the later, loop-lever versions of this rifle (called the "Brownie"), but I can't recall  ever seeing one of these "hook-lever" versions before.  The stock is a good deal more svelte than the average boy's rifle.  The forend has a sketch of checkering on it, almost invisible in the hardened oil finish, but there is no checkering on the wrist of the stock.  The buttplate is a piece of thin sheet metal, with the countersinks for the screw heads stamped in.  The receiver may have been nickel plated originally as there are shiny areas around the edges. 

The serial number is in the low 200s on this one.  One might say it is "early," but since there don't seem to be very many Davenports around, maybe they're all "low numbered."

Davenport was quite an innovator and inventor, holding many patents in firearms.  This model has all coil springs, very unusual for the 1880s.  The only thing that doesn't work is the extractor, which needs building up to catch the rim of the cartridge.  The bore is gone, of course, but a Super Kolibri did fly pretty close to the point of aim at 50 feet or so.

Yes, Davenport had left H&A and formed his own company.

According to Perkins’ book, the “hook-lever” rifles were made from 1891-1897, and then the loop-lever Brownies” took over.

Perkins says the “hook-lever” rifles won't shoot accurately because of an extremely tight rifling twist.  But what’s left of the rifling in mine looks pretty normal, though I haven’t measured the twist.

I’ve seen more Page-Lewis’s at gun shows than either of the Davenport designs, and they’re not common, either.