This gun has just appeared on Gunbroker:
https://www.gunbroker.com/item/1018115069

It is a Singlebarrel 8 bore Reilly U-L, hammer gun, shotgun, 13.5 lbs, 44" barrels, fixed full choke .031". Damascus barrel reproofed after 1983. It has a straight stock so was probably (not certainly) was an original shotgun, not a converted rifle.

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

Here is the problem:

SN 10952 (which would date to 1859) - is on the barrel flats, water table, and forend:

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

SN 26333 (dates to 1884) - is on the trigger guard tang. The Damascus barrels are clearly 1880's not 1850's from the pattern alone, the address on the rib,16, New Oxford Street, London, is post November 1881, there is a proof mark on the barrel "not for ball" (1875-1887).

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

There is one number under the barrel 0644 which doesn't fit the other numbers:

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

There is a Reilly muzzle loader with the SN dating from 1858 which was transformed totally into an U-L center-break hammer-gun in about 1880 - SN 10354
http://www.icollector.com/Cased-Eng...by-John-Fry-Derby-400-Kynoch-2_i19846957

However, I can't figure this one out. How can there be an 1859 SN on water table, barrel flats and forend, but the barrel and general layout of the gun (U-L, center-fire, etc.) or even the fact it has a detachable forend be 1880's? Any ideas?

Last edited by Argo44; 11/14/23 09:54 PM.
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