Help With My Parker

[Keith Doty]

Recommend taking a look at the reloading forum, several of us were discussing light, low pressure 2 1/2" 7/8 oz loads. I have 3 "0" frame 20s scattered over 25 years of production and shoot the same in all. Great dove and quail guns. Not too many woodcock in South Texas!
To get an accurate idea of chokes you'll need to measure barrels and do the math, drop in gauges probably not the way to go with this gun.

[Jason Browning]

Thank you Kieth. Not too many woodcocks here in southern NM either!

[Researcher]

I would like to think the original owners of these guns knew what ammunition they were made for and acted accordingly. But when they passed them on, most likely without the hang-tag they came with telling what shell to use they started digesting any old ammunition the owner could stuff in them. Our North American ammunition manufacturers offered 2 1/2-inch 20-gauge shells up to WW-II, but after WW-II only 2 3/4-inch 20-gauge shells were offered. I just measured the length of a fist full of nominally 2 3/4-inch loaded 20-gauge shells with the post WW-II pie crimp and got anywhere from 2.305" to 2.335" all would easily fit into that 2.375" chamber. Those shells could be anywhere from 2 1/4-dram equiv. 7/8-ounce loads to the maximum 1 1/8-ounce 2 3/4-inch Magnums. I suspect that the recoil forces of a steady diet of such shells from the late 1940s into the 1990s when we started worrying about such things did in the heads of a lot of vintage 20-gauge double's stocks.

[Larry the Gun Guy]

BTW, the roll pin or hinge pin on that gun looks to have been reversed, since the slot is normally on the left side of the gun.