Was someone at Parker Bros. looking at a design with twist barrels and able to handle smokeless powder hot hunting loads? There has to be a correlation between the thickness of the barrels, the period when twist was going away and steel tubes were coming in. An executive's decision to see if twist could stay around a little longer by bulking them up some? Looking at the rough chambers and muzzle finish it could be a sample for the engineers to study.
in the dark?