My latest arrival

[David C Porter]

Looks like you have a problem with the chambers. It looks like they may have been improperly sleeved and/or recut off center & too deep. It may not even fire if the primer is too far in the chamber. Looks like someone worked on it that didn't know what he was doing. If I had bought this I'd be sending it back & get my money back

[Bob Brown]

Sorry for the break in my posts. It's been a busy few days and I wanted to shoot it to test the function before posting.
You've got a great eye, David. The chambers have been sleeved. There is a reason I don't hunt with iron sights anymore. Other than the rim recess being deep they appear to be straight and functional. I was out on initial chamber measurement. They are a little shorter than 2 3/4". The action is tight and on face. I had two types of 16 gauge shells on hand to test it out. First was the British made Kent Gamebore Traditional Game, 2 1/2", 7/8 oz that was pictured in the loose barrel chambers. The other was the Federal Game Load 2 3/4", 1 oz, 2 1/2 dram load. All fired without a problem. The primer strikes are all deep, but not too deep. I had thought there might be some backing out of the primers or case head distortion but there was none. I don't know the pressures of the Federal load, but the Gamebore are 8200 psi. They seemed pretty snappy earlier in the season when I was hunting with a 6 pound W. Collath, but both brands were very gentle in this one.
I bought it out of a small online auction. It appeared to be a dispersal of a collection of interesting guns, mostly rifles. Quite a few didn't get a minimum bid and I bought this one at one notch above the minimum. There were just several poor pictures of each item. There was no weight in the item description, but it did say it was a 16 on a 10 gauge frame. I knew how rare that was but it seemed nobody else knew or cared so I got it cheap. So no returns, but I wouldn't have considered that in any case. Besides, I may never make it down to a big vintager event, but if I do I bet she would look pretty cool in the rack with her competitors in a small bore event.

[Bob Brown]

I followed the frame and barrel measurements on page 527 of volume 2 of the Parker Story. The measurements in the TPS were done with a ruler in fractions and I used a digital caliper. I could list them all out, but as mentioned in earlier posts by some of our experts they match the dimensions of the 3 frame almost exactly. Even the barrel diameter at the muzzle end of the flats (measurement F) matches the diameter of a 10 gauge 3 frame. I look forward to Mr. Murphy posting the serial number and letter info for his 3 frame 16. It would be interesting to see the chokes, when it was made, and where it was shipped.