Can a .12ga SxS, exposed hammer damascus barreled shotgun be somewhat easily converted to a caplock or Flintlock?
Some of the early breech-loaders were "switch hitters" in that they could be loaded from the muzzle and/or breech. They used a Maynard-type "pin hole" brass shell and were externally primed with a common musket cap on a nipple connected to a flash tube aligned with the pin hole in the center of the shell's base. Wm. Miller's Nov. 1866 T-Latch patent described Charles Parker's first shotgun as both a breech- and muzzle-loader.
Converting a breech-loading hammer gun to a cap-lock could (on the first level of analysis) simply involve removing the firing pins, fitting nipples and converting brass or steel central-fire shells by modifying the primer pockets. The only advantage of this, so far as I can see, would be to use an old double shotgun for the muzzle-loading deer season???
In reality, the conversion, to be craftsman-like, would involve some TIG welding to: (1) modify the hammers to have cups to shield the eyes from shattered cap fragments, (2) adding fences to the bolsters for the same purpose, (3) reconfiguring and taping the firing-pin tunnels to accept the screw-in nipples and, perhaps, (4) narrow the tunnels into more efficient flash tubes, all of which would involve some stress relief and re-case-hardening. None of this would be rocket science. The only-known Parker breech-/muzzle-loading T-Latch s/n 06 is pictured in both of my "Parker Guns" books. EDM
