doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lets talk proofs!

There is no 14/1 stamped on the gun. Both barrel flats have 14 stamped on them. The 4 is very faint on the left flat but is there never-the-less. Amazingly faint marks such as this quite often show up better in a picture than looking at the part directly. Look carefully at the picture & the 4 is visible.

Prior to 1887 only whole gauge numbers were marked. In 1887 the in-between gauges began to be used. Also, the Chamber mark 12 C in a diamond as Toby said was introduced in 1887, so this means this gun was not built prior to that.
Had the bore at original proof been large enough to take a .701" plug gage it would have been marked 14/1.

So as Toby said it was made from 1887-1904 & the barrels were originally proofed as 14 gauge with 12 gauge chambers. If memory serves me correctly I believe the word Choke also replaced the Not For Ball mark in 1887 as well. Yes, it originally had choke in the left barrel with the right barrel a cylinder bore.

I have a Birmingham proofed W Richards built prior to 1887 which was proofed as a 14 but has 12 gauge chambers. This one did not have the chamber mark so it cannot really be proved if the 12 gauge chambers are original or not. Both barrels on it are cylinder & they currently measure just shy of 13 gauge.

It would be interesting to know when exactly "Choke" appeared on UK barrel flats. 1887 as Miller suggested? Also 1875 (exact date unknown) marked appearance of "not for ball"....1887 ended the "not for ball" markings. Does anyone have the exact dates for these events?

Argo44: NOT FOR BALL was used on guns with some choke from 1875 to 1887. In 1887 the NFB stamp was stopped and CHOKE replaced it.
The reasoning behind this (as I understand it) was that by 1887 the Gunmakers Companies had come to the opinion that shooting ball through chokes was safe.
Don't forget that changes to the proof laws has to be made by act of Parliament so nothing could change overnight.

Mike, forgive me but I am clearly being obtuse. Where are the other 2 date codes? I can only see one, bottom right of the LH barrel flat. The other 4 'crossed sabres' are Birmingham Provisional and Definitive Black powder proof marks from prior 1904.
Best Toby

To add a bit to what Toby said on the Not for Ball versus Choke. My understanding the Not for Ball mark had originated on the basis that prior to choke boring a standard practice had been to load a ball of about .010" under bore size. If you shot this size ball through a barrel having a full choke of around .040" Constriction you were virtually guaranteed a bulged barrel at the choke. Shooting ball through a choke was OK as long as The Ball would pass through the choke. My understanding was the proof houses recognized the NFB mark was causing confusion & many were taking it that No Ball could be fired through a choke bored barrel, regardless of its size & that the gun would be "Out of Proof" if so used.

Toby!
YOU are totally correct, my vision is not what it used to be
and I could not make out the stamps

How do you read the markings?

THANKS
Mike

Many thanks Toby and Miller. Returning to "not for ball," as you all know a date chart for Reilly serial numbers has been constructed. http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=436538&page=20

To be as precise as possible by using certain proof marks as "date markers," I'd really like to know when exactly "not for ball" was added to London proofs, because if it were early or late 1875 it could effect that chart by as much as 400 serial numbers. And the same for the removal of the proof.

I'll give an example of a gun which is using "not for ball" to help date it: The chart dates Reilly SN 19286 as being numbered in early 1875. On a knowledgeable UK board the following comment was made (at the time the UK board was still struggling with the wide-spread misperception that Reilly had closed rue Scribe in 1872 (Brown Vol I & III):
. . . . . . ."Your gun was a nominal 10 bore but actually measured 11 bore. Lovely damascus barrels bearing the crown over V London View Mark (1637-1954) for preliminary inspection, the crown over bar over GP Provisional Proof Mark (1813-date) to reveal faults before any expensive work was done on the barrels, and the crown over GP London Definitive Proof Mark (1637 to date), all these adding up to Black Powder Proof. The barrel flats have two of these original marks as expected.
. . . . . . ."The action flats have the expected View mark, and they have the H Walker patent mark for his barrel bolting and safety for drop-down actions patent No 455 of 12 February 1872 ( Use No. 1098 ) .
. . . . . . ."Of equal importance to the marks are the ones that don't appear e.g. no NOT FOR BALL or CHOKE mark (so see what patterns it throws with various cartridges). The first of these was introduced in 1875, so this and the patent date mean the gun was made definitely not before Feb 72, or after 1875.
. . . . . . ."It must have been made a couple of years after 1872, say 1874 to early 1875, and we favour the latter because even if the gun was made by a large trade maker, the 1098 use number is quite a large number."

https://www.internetgunclub.com/archived-forum/posts.php?topicid=1344

If "Not for Ball" were added in November 1875 rather than May 1875...that's a difference of some 300 odd Reilly serial numbers.

Admittedly that's a little anal but we ran across this in dating early French 20th century shotguns as well. In 1912 the chambering measurements changed from cm to mm in Saint Etienne... but what month? We've got Didier Drevet barrels dated 1912 with both cm and mm, so the month the regulation changed could help date other French shotguns with similar mm/cm changes. It's historically interesting.

And I'm very curious about when choke boring was invented and how common it was at what time. I've got William Pape taking a patent out on choke tubes in 1866 (British Patent No. 1501)? Any idea how fast that idea caught on?

Argo: There's your answer. I think we all applaud your desire to be extremely anal with the SN's and dates of production . . . but it ain't gonna happen. Without a date code--preferably one like the Germans use, with month and year--there's no way you can nail it down very closely. Then there's also the question of when those guns were sent to the proofhouse. No way to be sure, for example, that SN 342 was proofed before SN 356. The assumption is that it's all done in sequence. But we have no way of knowing that for sure, unless you can get a copy of a proofhouse log book. Assuming one exists.

Miller, that is really interesting, never heard such a concise description of why the decision was made to drop the NFB.

Miller, thank you for that, I butchered it somehow in my post!