CH B RAYE’?

Pretty rare browning 16 sorry not double.

Liege proof mark for guns with rifled choke. In use 1893-1924 and from 1930.

Markus

Thanks Markus. I have sold almost a hundred a5 barrels now and had never seen this. I thought it was some backyard gunsmith stamping his name since it looked out of place. Feel kinda silly now. Sure wish barrel had rifling left but has long been removed.

Raye' indicates a short rifled section at the muzzle to open the pattern; traditionally for Woodcock
https://www-entrechasseurs-com.tran...r_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

Zoom out for the modern Benelli tube variant
https://www-roumaillac-com.translat...r_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

If the barrel has no lettre annale it is pre-1922

Serial number put gun at 1912-13. Odd it has 30” barrel( metric so a little less) for wood cock.

A woodcock in Europe is bigger and stouter than the version we have, here. A 12, with turn-of-the-century ammunition and a longer barrel wouldn’t seem too out of place, especially if the owner might toss a few decoys out on a pond or creek for ducks when he wasn’t hunting becasse.

Neat gun. Agree, would have been nice to see the rifling. When I was in France, I tagged along to a shop where that was done, and couldn’t help but notice that the lathe jigged up to cut rifling in shotgun barrels was an ancient US made Cincinnati-it was in use that day. Going from memory, the rifling was a three or four inch section, just past the 9” mark on the tubes. The barrels I saw were just getting one side rifled, the other side would have been conventionally choked.

Best,
Ted