My working waterfowl gun is a 30" Lefever Nitro Special. Duck/marsh rolled on both sides of frame. Would that be Lefever Arm Co's version of the "Long Range" Western Field?
The Lefever Arms Nitro Special & the Western Arms Long Range were essentially the same guns, "Except" the Nitro Special had a forged steel frame while the Long Range frame was made of malleable Iron. As the NS came first I would say the LR was a version of it, rather than the other way around. Both were built by Ithaca & neither were related, except by name, to the original Lefever Arms Co guns of Syracuse NY.
The Nitro Special was the first double introduced by Ithaca after the development of progressive burning powders & such loads as we currently call Express/SuperX & etc. The weakness of the Flues had not lain within its barrels but its frame. Flues failures were not a result of higher pressures, but of throwing the max shot load to higher velocities. The Nitro Special remedied this problem in what was at the time their most econmical double. Shotly thereafter the Flues was discontinued & the NID inroduced.
