In my 1875-1887 Thomas W. Perkes 12 bore, there are clearly identified letters "J.L." on the underside of each barrel. I assume these are the barrel maker initials. Does anyone have a reference to who this might be? The gun is new to me and I am just digging for history.
Sir;
This may be some help to you. Back on 20 August 2008 I had a conversation with Jack Rowe, the late UK gunsmith and I took notes of what he said. He said this about the Lilly family of barrel filers "...Frank Lilly, Harry Lilly and Jack Lilly were 3 generations of barrel filers at Westley Richards..."
These three were barrel filers known to Jack during his life. I suspect that the " JL" on your barrels were the initials of an ancestor of these 3 barrel filers known to Jack Rowe.
During this conversation with Jack Rowe, he further said that " Walter Price was the greatest barrel filler who ever lived, ad he died ages ago in the 1940's or 1950's. Walter Price's son was Stan Price and he was also a barrel filer."
Kindest Regards;