doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Was it a 14 bore- now a 12 bore Lancaster

At the July 2025 Holt's auction, Lot 1815 is interesting. A beautiful Charles Lancaster damascus barreled "12 bore" hammergun. A view of the bore dimensions are enlightening --it is listed as have bores of .704" and .703" --posing the question was it originally a 14 bore shotgun.

If any of you lads are viewing guns at Holt's before the July 2025 auction please take a photo of barrel flat proof marks and post them for us.

https://www.holtsauctioneers.com/as...++1815+&refno=++232790&saletype=

Stephen Howell

I saw the bore dimensions. The walls are at 23- and 20.

Ken

Ken;

Those wall thickness mins are part of the reason I suspect the gun was originally built for 14 gauge shotshells and the barrel bores would have been originally in the .697" plus or minus

Stephen

Neat shotgun. I was tracking that one, but will not be bidding.

I just received back from Dan Morgan a John Dickson 12 bore hammer gun that also used Purdey's patent 1104, but without the pierced/bifurcated trigger guard.

The Dickson is from 1874 and bears patent use number 3677. I believe it's been discussed here before that P.U.N.s aren't a reliable dating tool, but it is interesting to see that between the Lancaster built in 1863 and the Dickson in 1874, over three thousand uses of the patent were tracked.