Fellas:
Please shoot the following idea down & put it out of its misery but I GUESS that the gun is of French origin. From the fuzzy pic it appears that the mark is similar to the February 19, 1824 St. Etienne mark that was lost and replaced in 1856 at the St. Etienne proofhouse with a similar mark w/ an oval described as follows: "Crown over crossed palm branches w/ 3 stars". One star to the right of the crossed palms. One star to the left of the crossed palms and one star below the crossed palms. On July 14, 1860, this mark was cut in 1/2 with a 1/2 stamp indicating an altered rifle. Furthermore, 16 bore(British) would have been 40 caliber in the French gauge designation of the number of lead spheres of the bore diameter to the French pound(32 gauge to 56 gauge until 1868). Now I am guessing that the 44 mark might approximate 20 bore(English). Anyone have any conversion of English to French pounds in that era or give me a push in a direction to derive the equation? Last, there look to be vice/clamp marks on the underside of the tubes which could have been what held the tubes while the grooves were made by a hand or simple driven machine. I was also going to guess the "V" to be the Austrian or German vorrat(supply) mark but I don't see the crown for the German mark and I really don't know what the Austrian mark looked like.
Anyone want to hear of Swiss Pauly's contribution to Lefaucheux's contribution of the modern breech loader:(
http://www.gournetusa.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=139&whichpage=2 )?
Kind Regards,
Raimey
rse
