doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com LC Smith 16 Gauge Featherweight frames

Did LC Smith use a true 16 gauge frame for their 16 gauge FWs or did they put them on 12 gauge FW frames?


Thanks,

They were either on a Regular Frame or FW frame for 16 ga.

And both the 16/20 Reg and FW frames were smaller than the 12 Reg and FW frames
http://www.lcsmith.org/images/mechanisms/featherweightframe.jpg
http://www.lcsmith.org/images/mechanisms/regularweightframe.jpg

OK im more confused now...

JDW indicates that the Elsie 16 gauges were on 16 gauge frames but Drew's links lead me to believe that the 16 gauges were put on 20 gauge frames. I thought only fox did that and parker with the 0 frames? Was the 16 GA frame on an Elsie the same as the 20 gauge?

8 guage and 10 ga. guns were only built on the Regular frame. 12 ga. and 16 ga. were built on both frames. The 20 ga. and the .410 were only built on FW frames.
Here are two drawing to help you. Both are for FW framed guns.
The first one is for FW frames;

This one is for firing pin spacing on FW frames.

What constitutes a different frame size I suppose varies as to how one loks at it. Note in the above frame dimensions the "Bar" is identical from .410 through 12ga. The standing breech & firing pin locations vary according to gauge. Both Lefever & Parker changed standing breech & pin spacings even within the same gauge for different weight bbls. This was how they came up with so many frame sizes. I believe that Lefever had three different Bar sizes for 20ga through 8ga.
Its always ben a mystery to me why most will say that all the Stevens 311s were built on the same frame size, yet even they modified the size of the standing breech & pin spacing for at least the .410. Yet if Smith, Lefever or Parker does essentially the same thing we say they used a different frame.