Light Lefever F grade 10ga

[J.B. Books]

On a recent trip to Kittery Trading Post I came across this Lefever 10ga F grade with 30" barrels. My knowledge of Lefever's is limited but the gun was very tight, seemed to be in mostly original condition and the price was attractive. Dimensions are 1 3/4 dac x 3 dah x 14 lop. I sent a few pictures to Frank Cronin to see what he thought and he said "dude, that is a righteous gun, buy it". He told me it was a pivot lever rod cocker. The serial number dates the gun to 1891. The KTP had no idea what the chokes were or they pretended to not know. I took Scott K's 10ga bore gauge to the store the next day. The L barrel has .018 constriction in a constant taper about 4 inches long. The R barrel has about .003 constriction, it's a constant taper but the taper is about 1/2" long. One of the interesting things about this gun is it's weight, 8 lbs 2 ounces. Last night Scott K. and I patterned it at 40 yards. I used two carefully loaded shells; Fed hull, Win Primer, 19 gr of Promo, SP-10 wad, 1/2" fiber filler wad and 1 1/8 ounce of magnum lead #6 (pellet count 262). The gun shot a 53% pattern with the R barrel and a 85% pattern with the L barrel. I am amazed to see an extra full pattern from .018 constriction. The barrels show no evidence of being cut. If the chokes were relieved somebody knew what they were doing. I am very happy with my new light Lefever 10 bore.