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Mossy and Small Bore, here is an 1875 Remington Whitmore , Grade 5, made for the London market. It is marked like your gun, only in London. Note the proofs are the same, except mine has a 13, where your's has a 12. Bores of this gun, 9" from the breech, measure .722". Smallbore must be correct . By the way, the Remington's proof may have been done in Birmingham. It is very hard to read the Proofhouse mark.

OK...does that signify that my gun was rechambered/rebored from a possible original 12 bore chambering? Hmmm...the plot thickens...

Mossy, you really need that measurement , the bore diameter 9" from the breech. From the looks of your gun I would not guess it to be altered, but anything is possible.

The Field gun illustrated is either a 10.G incorrectly stamped at the Birmingham proof house as a 12.G or a gun made in Belgium with fraudulent, incorrect, Birmingham proof marks.
My opinion is that it is a 10.G of Birmingham origin.My reasons are as follows:
1/ The gun is typical of the export guns made by the Birmingham trade in the 1880-1900,s A very similar, "export gun", is pictured on page 412 of W.W.Greeners book," The Gun."
2/ The application of proof marks to the barrels, rather than the barrel flats, was a practice used in this era by the Birmingham trade and the proof house on guns destined for export.
3/The finish on the gun is superior to that seen on Belgian guns imported and marketed by Folsom.
As for the possibility of opening up the bore of a 12.G that has barrels with the normal outside 12.G profile,it is simply impractical.The net result of an attempt at this magnitude of bore enlargementwould be; thin barrels at the proof diameter & paper thin barrels, approx; 7-8 inches from the muzzle.I Cannot believe a gun modified in this manner would have any prospect of passing legitimate proof!
As recommended by others I would not consider firing this gun until a competent gunsmith has checked all barrel dimensions.
A possible maker is:
William Field, 1881 @ 118, Unett Street, Birmingham. William field is identified in published records as being the manager of the Field Rifle Co; Birmingham 1885-1898.

Roy,

I believe you and Daryl are correct. What is interesting is the name on the barrel, "The Field Rival". It would be interesting to find another so named to see if that name applied to English made guns. As opposed to "Rival" for Belgian made.

http://books.google.com/books?id=3HMCAAA...esult#PPA397,M1


Greener spends several pages degrading any "export gun".

Pete

Roy, those are good thoughts. I just cannot think that Mossy's gun has been altered. Do you know, in that time , if they used the bore designations of even numbers ? Later we see 13/1 etc for designations, sort of narrowing the diameters related to proof. By the way, I have seen a two barrel set, British hammer gun, with one set with 10 Chamber and 12 bore. I guess the maker would try lots of things in those days.

Pete, this fellow has one marked the same.

http://www.coondawgs.com:80/forum/viewtopic.php?t=53656&sid=0bf2540e38eb347af9d2bed49041d6e9

I need to say that Mossy has a very unusual gun , in that the condition is super for that type of weapon. I , and lots of others would be glad to have an example like that.

I have a side lever opener W Richards with Birmingham proofs of the same era. This gun has a 12ga chamber with the bbl marked as a 14 (.693"). As on this gun there is no chamber mark, just the provisional, definitive & view marks along with the 14. The bores on it now measure very close to a 13 (.710"). At this point in time (pre 1887 as I recall) the bore was only marked with whole sizes, no intermediates (ie 12/1 etc) being used. This bbl could have been any size which accepted the 12 (.729") plug but not an 11 (.751") one at proof. It may quite well have originated having a bore just under an 11 with a 10ga chamber & been subsequently polished/honed out to the .758" size. May well be cylinder bore, mine is.
The construction of this bbl would have been alternating layers welded, then rolled down to size leaving the layers quite thin & then wrapped around a mandrel with the layers on Edge. There would have been no twisting in the rod prior to winding (Twisting) around the mandrel. This was often called Wire Twist, but each piece which has the appearence of a wire on the outside, actually goes entirely through to the bore. If you can imagine, take a piece of laminated shim stock & cut off a strip of it. Place it across a rod with the edge showing the laminations against the rod & the outside, then procede to spiral wrap it around the rod. Each lamination would thus be visable to the outside & go through to the inside. For damascus one end of that strip would have been fastened, the other end twisted round till it looked like a threaded rod, then hammered back flat & then wound around the mandrel. You then have the so-called "Finger print" pattern rather than a plain spiral appearence. For 2-strip, 3-strip etc damascus more than one of these twisted strips would have been welded together edge wise prior to winding.

Interesting gun with a lot of history. If I understand the timing correctly, the McKinley Tarrif circa 1890 clamped down on the importation of these fine pieces from Birmingham. Mossy, you're lucky to have one in such good condition.

I just hope the boys at Cabelas didn't take him for too hard a ride.