doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Dead give-away or not

Please see pics of muzzles on my GI 100804465 listing, is what you see is a dead give-away for "reduced length" barrels? These are steel barrels dovetail lump construction.

Additional info: left barrel marked "choke" has a slight backbore 4" from muzzle then a slight taper ending with .003 constriction; right barrel not marked choke with a gradual taper 5" from muzzle ending with .007 constriction.

Any educated opinions?

Barrel edges certainly do not meet, and the filler between them doesn't appear in the picture to match. Given the other barrel work you mention, I'd say its likely the barrels were bobbed for some reason. I don't think I'd go so far as to call it a "dead give-away" though...Geo

Left barrel sounds like it was jug choked. Right is tighter than left, reverse of typical, perhaps set up for birds driven into a peg?

Interesting, anyway.

Best,
Ted

Thanks for the help. I'm at a decision making point with the Pape as to continue efforts to unload it or alter it to fit my needs. As it's a restock I won't be chastised for bending the stock and reducing the LOP, and if the barrels are altered then no discredit for getting a tube threaded.

Judging from the picture and how the ends of English barrels normally look, I would definitely say they were shortened.

26 3/4" is such an odd length that it alone is a give away. 26, 28, 30, 32 and later metric lengths like 700mm/27.5, 750mm/29.5" are normal barrel lengths. A single maker I knew of made 27 and 29" barrels as a way to get them lighter than the more often seen 28 or 30" barrels. The chokes are reversed and such open chokes to boot. Measure the barrel wall thickness to make sure it is thick enough to have them threaded.

It is clearly not original and as such only your wife should complain about what you do with it. Bend it, shape it, cut it, tube it if you want. Just understand that it is what it is. A short barreled gun that may become your money pit. we all get one of them if we are lucky. Getting your money out of it later will be almost impossible. But you have complete freedom to alter it to your needs. If you like the dynamics of a short barreled gun, if it balances nicely, if you shoot it well and like the looks of it keep it and fix it to your needs.

As for odd barrel length, I have a letter from AG&L that states my H. Atkin boxlock was made in 1938, #1 of a matched pair, with 27" barrels. It has its original IM & IM. Gil

My H&H letters at 29" barrels. It was enough to cause another forum member to pause. I put the gun on hold and called Holland in NY. It resides in my safe now and we have bonded quite well. Never say never.

Going from memory here but as I recall British proof required the Choke marking on any barrel having .008" or more constriction. As the right barrel is unmarked it would seem it did not originally have any more choke than the current .007". The left barrel would have had more choke than current. That 5" of taper to the choke in the right barrel is longer than would normally be expected.
Several possibilities exist. My best guess is the barrels have been cut, the bores enlarged, at least the right one, leaving that long taper & then the left barrel for some reason jugged instead of leaving chioke as was done on the right barrel.
Perhaps as Ted suggested it was done with the intention of having the right barrel the tighter choke & the left was made cylinder & at some later date it was deemed desirable to have a bit of choke in the left as well & the hug was added.
A measurement of current bore diameter would be a big help to see if they are compatible with the 13/1 (.719"-.728") mark.

Miller is correct about choke being a required marking on the L barrel if it originally had at least .008 constriction. (The maker could have requested it to be marked Choke with as little as .004 constriction.) The right barrel, however, is a strange case. Not marked choke, yet it still has .007 constriction, and not jug choked. That would indicate to me that the barrels can't have been shortened very much. Shortening from 28", for example, would almost certainly have removed some choke . . . which means the R barrel would have started with at least .008 (and probably more) and should have been marked Choke. Possible they were originally 27" and only shortened 1/4"? Maybe a bad dent right at the muzzle, and not enough removed to have taken out any choke in the R barrel? That one's a mystery to me, if indeed the barrels were cut. One could, of course, request whatever barrel length one wanted. But pretty unusual to find a Brit double that doesn't measure to an exact inch. As noted above, other than guns with 25" barrels, it isn't even all that common to find them measuring to an odd inch, like 27 or 29. But there are clearly examples of those.