Hello all. I'm new to the forum and this is my first post. I am a moderate shooter in both ability and time on the range. I'm far from an expert but enjoy shooting all types of guns very much.

After my fathers death, I inherited all of his guns. I have been getting all of them inspected and made operational by a gunsmith. For this topic two of them come into play.

The first is a German drilling gun, 16 gauge double barrel with a 9.3x72 rifle barrel. Tracking down details on this gun have been a little difficult but it appears to be early 1900's and came back from WWII with my father so i'd say pre 1940.









The second is a Parker Brothers 12 gauge double barrel. From the serial number I was able to tell that it was made in 1879.













I'm excited to own both these guns, but even more so to shoot them. I was talking to a friend recently about them and he told me to be careful shooting modern ammunition through these guns but especially the Parker Brothers. He said that the construction might not be up to the standards for modern ammunition and using it could damage the guns. Is this true, and if so what is the solution? I found some 9.3x72 on line and bought it. Do you think the same logic applies to shooting this ammunition in the drilling gun? How can I tell if the barrels are Damascus?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you for your time.