My local gun emporium has a Lefever Arms Co., F-Grade, 8-gauge, serial number 12784 with 28-inch Damascus barrels and a grip safety a bit different then the grip safety shown on page 147 of Robert Elliot's book.











The muzzles look nicely crowned and finished under their decades of patina. Don't appear cut at all. While no one around here has an 8-gauge bore micrometer, I used the 10-gauge spade on mine. While it rattled around in the bore, at about two inches back from the muzzles it began to get purchase, so I'd estimate the chokes are 3 1/2 to 4 inches long.

Thoughts? Comments?

28" barrels and 4" long chokes. An upland 8 gauge?

I recently saw, on the internet, a 7lb. 3oz. 10 gauge with 28" barrels.

How much does it weigh?

What a neat find. I hope it's yours. Odd safety for sure. I have seen one just like the one in Elliot's book and none like that one. Note the serial number would typically be a pivot lever gun but has the later top lever as half of the 8s I've seen do.

That's not in bad condition for an 8 ga. Ive seen 4 different types of grip safety's. Everything looks correct to me. What were they asking for it?

Looking on dimensions of triggers/trigger guard vs. action size it looks 8/12. Very unusual if there is no pitting in the barrels and the price is not too high I would buy that gun. It would look good in library room wall.

Nice find! I love the grip safety.

Pete

AmarilloMike: I own an 1890s Darne 10 gauge with roughly 28 inch barrels that weighs 7 pounds 3 ounces. It's a hoot to shoot with RST 1-1/8 ounce loads. Some of those early 10 gauge guns really were designed as upland guns.