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Mike: did you see this?
"Shotgun Review" in the 1912 Hunter-Trader-Trapper http://books.google.com/books?id=Uy7OAAA...gun&f=false
Scroll down to the page 75 and click for the article.

"They are claimed to have barrels of special bore with choke commencing at the breech and extending to the muzzle" with "five different styles of bore"

More 1915 cool aid for Wonko

http://books.google.com/books?id=lRMcAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA317&lpg

�The LEFEVER system of taper boring is now famous, because it gives longest range, greatest penetration, the least recoil and the most evenly distributed pattern possible. It�s a taper bore and unlike a �choke� bore it makes all sizes of shot pattern well�.

The 1908 Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog contained this whopper regarding �The Great A.J. Aubrey Gun�: "The shooting qualities of these guns are unequaled for long distance killing, long range shooting, for penetration, pattern or target. Both barrels are full choke bore, so firmly constructed that unlike other guns, there is no recoil or kicking. That which in other guns goes into recoil in the A J Aubrey gun goes to give greater force to the shot."

Well now I know where the politicians get their writers.

And thanks for the link Drew.

Best,


Mike

I have a few hammer gun "elsies" that have a tapered bore. Before I got a longer extension to my Skeet's gage, I could only go in 12 1/2", now I can go in 18". But, even before when I used the old one I would read both ends of the barrels and it wasn't uncommon to have a .005-.007 taper leading to the choke.

I noticed in Darly's figures, that this Lafever was from around 1888, and that the bores were fairly large. I have a few Syracuse "elsies" that I will measure the bores on. I know from all the bores of the Fulton era, that I have never measured one over .733. I have measured some as low as .725 and they again were hammer guns.

With the barrels being tapered, I could see how a better pattern might be developed as it is being held together better and then more so as it reaches the choke. With todays plastic wad, I don't think much of the load is out of the cup until it hits the choke and kind of slows the wad down. I could be wrong.

I do know that my Longrange has a long forcing cone and a longer taper to choke. Whether this means something, I don't know.

As long as there is gas behind the wad, it is not going to slow down because of a couple of thousandths of taper ahead of it. We can talk this to death, but I can still throw 90% patterns out of an untapered barrel with cardboard and felt wads and lead shot. I never thought I needed more than 90% for anything. I am even starting to shoot spreaders in my pigeon gun because I can't hit box birds worth a darn with eight inch patterns any more, if I ever could.

I don't recall that Daryl gave a date on the Lefever he posted the measurements for. I did note it was a "D M Lefever". This was the crossbolt gun Uncle Dan built from about 1902 - 1906 after he left the Lefever Arms Co.
I have 9 Lefevers (all LACs) dating from about 1889 to one of the very late Ithaca assembled ones & none of them have any significant taper to the bore which could not be accounted for by reamer wear. No more than a couple of thousandths till you get to the choke. They all have the taper choke with no paralell section at the muzzle. Those with full choke are around 4" long, lesser chokes are shorter.
I would really like to see the results of a statistaclly significant pattern testing comparing a "Taper Bore" with an ordinary choked bbl. I have been led to believe that a constant taper down the bore would shoot very much like a cylinder bore, that it took the constriction "At the Muzzle" to produce the choke effect.
I do not foresee a small taper to the bore, ending with a conventional choke (either taper or conical/paralell) having a significant effect on patterns. Good patterns have been, & still are, fired with both types of ordinary chokes.

2-piper you are right. It's a D M Lefever, and I think the number was 1888, or within 2 or so. Time frame was 1904 or so. The Optimus D M Lefever was a couple of years earlier.

I never patterned either gun as it just never occured to me to do so. I just shoot what I have in my hand when hunting or shooting clay birds.

1888 is the correct serial number.

Miller, are you willing to do the testing? I'll loan you the gun.

Terry;
I do not currently have any pattern testing setup for such a project. It would be nice though if someone who does would take on the project.

Would it be beneficial to this discussion for me to pattern some original Luballoy 1 3/8 oz. loads out of my HE Fox? I have meant to do it ever since a kind board member sent me a box of 22 of them (plus 3 of what he called Black Beauties, another paper high brass load), but have never done it. I don't mind shooting a few of them on the patterning plate and taking pictures of the patterns, but always wondered if the results would be anywhere near what they would have been if the shells were new, and not 80 years old.

Ideas, distances, etc.?

SRH