W.A. King on forcing cones
 

Charles Askins “The Cone” Field & Stream, Nov. 1921
https://books.google.com/books?id=UP...J&pg=PA700&lpg
W.A. King for Parker Bros.
Referring to the cone, we ordinarily permit our shells to lap into it 1/8-inch, but as a matter of fact we have found that the majority of guns will shoot a better pattern with even more lap than this. In fact, we can secure extra good patterns by shooting extra long shells, permitting the lap to extent to the point where we begin to tear off the ends of the paper. At that point we do not seek to give more lap. In user’s hands we do not advocate the use of longer shells than those which give 1/8 lap.
As regards the shape of the chamber cones, we have tried very long taper cones, short, abrupt tapers, and now use on of a certain standard length, which is nothing but two reverse curves, easily run from the end of the chamber and as easily curved into the bore proper. When the tools are kept up so that these curves are correct, we consider that we have a properly shaped cone, and one that does no harm whatever to the shooting or patterning of the gun.

TPS no doubt has an engineering drawing for Parker chambers. The standard cone length for other U.S. makers was about 1/2".

Recognizing the shells then were roll-crimped and were (long) before plastic wads, I suspect Bro. King would be unimpressed by the "modern" extra long cones :)

I wonder what Mr. King meant when saying a better pattern. Tighter, more uniform?

Very interesting stuff Drew. Perhaps we can wake Mr. King up and have him run a new set of experiments on this issue using plastic vs paper hulls and plastic shot cups vs fiber wads, both of which would likely change the equation significantly. It's a different world now.

My take away from this is.

Shooting 2 3/4" shells through a gun with 2 9/16"/ 2 5/8" chambers is perfectly okay to so. Being as Parkers were intentionally designed to shoot longer cases (with-in reason) in shorter chambers.

Accordingly in the short ten. Shooting 3" shells in 2 7/8" chambers would hold true as well.

King's warning regarding checking the end of the case is important.

This image was taken by Will Evans; 2 1/2" chamber Parker intended for use with 2 5/8" roll-crimped shells

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../413248264.jpg

2.5" chamber 20g Stevens 345
67mm case left - 65mm right

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../412969745.jpg

Thoughts on long shells in short chambers are here about 1/3 down
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...vwLYc-kGA/edit

Here, thanks to Drew, we see King saying that which we have been discussing for many years. My 1898 12 ga. DH (Titanic) with 2 9/16" chambers does exactly that with 2 3/4" plastic shells, and the recoil isn't noticeably any greater than an equivalent load in a 2 1/2" shells.





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Regarding the "two reverse curves" in King's description of the cutting of the cone - this is exactly what Austin Hogan would term "OGEE cones" and described the cutting of Parker's chokes the same way... "OGEE choke tapers" and he plotted several of his own Parker's chokes and chambers, several of which I was given.





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Long ago, when Byron Sterling at Shuman's Gun Shop tipped me off to the fact that Winchester-Western was producing their 16-gauge Dove & Quail Loads in a compression formed hull similar to the AA in 12- or 20-gauge, I bought several flats. I shot some of those 2 3/4 inch shells in my 1928 vintage Sterlingworth Ejector Field that has 2 7/16 inch chambers intended for the old-style 2 9/16 inch shells. I didn't notice any shooting issues, the Doves fell and the gun seems fine to this day, but the "crimp memory" seems to have been ironed out of the hulls fired in that gun and they don't produce as nice a reload as those fired in 2 3/4 inch chambered guns. Thankfully about the time I ran out of my stash of WAA-16 wads that the Olins quit making, Claybuster came to the rescue, and my compression formed 16-gauge hulls are still in the rotation for 2 3/4 inch chambered guns. RSTs for the others.

Pictures help us non-deep thinkin' types ;)

An exaggerated Ogee (from ogive) profile; chamber to right. For chokes; muzzle to left.

http://pic20.picturetrail.com:80/VOL.../413955534.jpg

Precisely.





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