Parker Rifled 12ga

[Bruce Day]

In the interest of encouraging interest in Parker collecting, showing again this wonderful and interesting Parker owned by a friend out here on the Great Plains.

A serial number 118 something 12ga CH 1 frame with two sets of fluid steel barrels. The stock is a numbered factory replacement. Rondel side panel engraving.

Barrels:

26" uncut with rib inscription " Mfg for C A Winship Palms California by Parker Bros". 12 with rifled bores. Numbered forend. Palms California was a small community between Beverly Hills and Malibu, now absorbed into greater L.A.

31" uncut with standard Parker rib inscription. Smooth bore. Second numbered forend.


There are a few Parkers known with rifled inserts into the barrels fitting 45-70 or other smaller cal cartridges. I know of no clear evidence that they were done at Parker Bros although they could have been. Although there is no documentary evidence that these 12bore barrels were rifled at Parker, IMHO the physical evidence makes it highly likely that they were.

[Richard Flanders]

Both bbls on the rifled set are rifled? Seems I've also heard of Parker rifling one barrel of a set. What a unique gun! C grade too. Nice!

[greg conomos]

It's possible they were rifled at Parker but then you have to wonder why would Parker even have in house the knowledge and tooling needed to rifle a barrel?

[Dennis V. Nix]

Rifled barrels or not I sure love that gun. The wood is beautiful. What a pleasure it must be to carry in the field. Even if you don't shoot game it would be great to simply sit there with a cup of coffee from a Thermos and admire the gun, first the beauty and then the workmanship it took and skilled hands to build a thing of beauty.

Dennis

[Christian Gish]

IN 1947 my father's employer acquired a 2-barrel vhe 12 gauge. One set of barrels was 26 inches and rifled. it was chambered for 12 ga. He shot shot #8 shot and it was deadly on rabbits which was the most common game available at that time in our part of PA.

[Jim Thynne]

I have a GH that has one barrel rifled in 12 gauge and the other choke bored. I cannot see how these guns could have been octagoned other than a factory process.
Julias had two of these and they were twins to this one.

[Robert Delk]

Back in the 70's a guy showed up at a local gun show with a AH with one rifled barrel and the other smoothbore. Wish I had been smart enough to find out more about it.I remember it seemed very heavy.

[Bill Murphy]

I will buy a bore micrometer and vernier caliper for any of these guys who claim to have a rifled Parker, just to prove or disprove whether they were made at the factory from extra heavy barrel blanks, or whether they were standard barrels that were rifled from whatever steel was available in the barrel. I think the C Grade gun is a real factory gun because I saw it when I was a teenager in the early sixties and the owner at that time had connections with the Parker factory and maybe with the person whose name is engraved on the gun. The person who owned the C Grade when I saw it in the sixties actually has some transactions in Parker Brothers order book 101. The owner was a kind of neighbor of mine, forty miles or so. However, I have never heard of a rifled Parker with bore and tube diameter actually measured.

[CraigThompson]

Regardless of bore rifling etc measurements I would love to hear how they did at 50 and 100 yards with some of the relatively new sabot polymer tipped factory 2 3/4" rounds !

[George Lander]

As an aside. I have a Fox Sterlingworth 12 gauge (L) & 45/70 (R) that appears to have been done at the factory.

Best Regards, George

[Bruce Day]

Ttt

[George Lander]

As an aside. I have a Fox Sterlingworth 12 gauge (L) & 45/70 (R) that appears to have been done at the factory.

Best Regards, George

Also as another aside I once owned a Colt Model 1886 that had both bores rifled in 45/70. I believe that this may have been done in the late 1800's as the standard military cartridge at the time was 45/70 Govt. and there was probably a lot of surplus ammunition available.

Best Regards, George

[Bill Murphy]

A Colt double rifle is less a mystery than the Parker double rifle. The Colt was a standard catalog item, although seldom ordered. Bruce, it would be very interesting to measure the bore diameters of the rifled barrels as well as the outside diameters. This would give us an idea of what your friend has here. Since the gun was in its present form at least fifty years ago, it is more than likely it came out of the Parker factory like that. We have another member who may be familiar with the early history of this gun, but I don't think he participates on this forum.

[Bruce Day]

We did not measure OD when we looked at it because we did not have calipers. iD was nominal for the gauge and was one of the indicators we used to conclude that the barrels were as done by Parker. Frame size 1 1/2

I do not recall the exact ID as it did not seem to be significant.

[Jim Thynne]

There were several of these sold at Julias seven or eight years ago, I still have a 12 gauge damascus G grade that has a hammer forged damascus barrel with a 3?4 twist in the hexagon barrel.
I have never heard of any others, so I have kept mine.
A lummox at the storage dented the outside of the barrel so it is less than perfect, however these were don prior to the ribs being laid.

[Bruce Day]

This is why it is puzzling when gun dealers and others who should know better make claims that only one was made. I am no expert on Parkers but I know better than to make such claims that can be quickly shown to be wrong through the make collecting organization.

[Dean Romig]

Does the rifling on all of these rifled Parkers mentioned run the full length of the bore or only the forward 4 inches or so at the muzzle?

[charlie cleveland]

the parker rifled barrels are really interesting..if i owned one i guess i would be like craig and would want to know how it shoots at 50 yards and a hundred yards...i hope bill gets to measure one of these rifled barrels...charlie

[Hal Sheets]

What serve as sights on the 26" rifled barrels, of this 12ga. CH?

[Gary Carmichael Sr]

Never say never when it comes to Parker Guns, If it could be done and done without compromising the gun they would do it, I have seen many examples over the years, Gary

[Jim Thynne]

The rifling runs the full length of the bore, and could not have been done without removing the barrel. I got this gun from Oscar Gaddys collection some time ago. Strange indeed, and when I asked about it, Julias said they had sold 2 of them.

[charlie cleveland]

have you ever shot this gun with slugs to see what kind of accuracy it has...charlie

[George Lander]

W.W. Greener offered what they called the Paradox gun since before 1900. They have very shallow cut rifleing in the last six to eight inches of the bore enabling them to be used with shot or ball. More recently a company called Fabarm from Brescia, Italy offered the same in a superposed gun.

Best Regards, George

[Jean Swanson]

Some 30 to 40 years back , I purchased a set of rifle barrel inserts that were 12 to 16 inches long that were marked PARKER . A collector friend wanted them more than me , so I sold them to him . I also owned an L C Smith and Lefever that had rifled barrels---since sold. I would say that the American shotgun makers of earlier days would more than likely produced guns with rifled barrels---but rare . Combo guns of Europe , etc. are common place.

[Chris Travinski]

If I remember correctly, there was a post on the old website of a Parker with one rifled barrel. The rifling was not cut into the bore, it looked more like it was formed with a button and you could see it on the outside of the barrels.

[Bruce Day]

Photos of the gun. I'm sure we are not experts but some of the more significant Parker collectors looked at it and concluded that there was no evidence that the rifling was not factory work. We also exhibited it at a Pheasant Fest where 25,000 people could look at it.

The gun had been sent back more recently to have case colors added in a manner that the owner was informed by the gunsmith shop that this was the way Parker originally did them.

[Jim Thynne]

I have never fired the gun.

[John Taddeo]

Has anyone thought or studied what the pressures would reach using a slug through these barrels...

[Bruce Day]

I suspect Parker did.

Why would a one ounce ball generate a higher chamber pressure than a one ounce shot load where both are sealed by an over powder wad or shot cup. The issue is muzzle constriction isn't it ?

[John Taddeo]

I would think the resistance to the slug making contact with the lands causing it to rotate would surely cause a rise in pressure and produce a lesser velocity than the same slug shot through a smoothbore.. agreed??

[wayne goerres]

Bruce Is that rifling straight or is there a slight twist to it.

[Bruce Day]

I know enough about ballistics not to make assumptions without testing, tables of results and proof.

Twist to cause rotation.

[Bruce Day]

Rtt

[Jim Thynne]

While in the gun store we had 2 GH guns with hexagon barrels. The guns looked like orig parker barrels, as the ribs looked original. I have never seen a Parker advertisement for rifled barrels, but the sky is the limit. the guns didn't have standard rifling, but there was a twist to the bores.

[Richard Flanders]

The rifling looks straight to me, no twist. Am I hallucinating?

[Bruce Day]

It has a twist Rich. Regular rifling.

[Dean Romig]

It would surprise me not in the least to learn that Parker Brothers may have sent raw barrel tubes to another gun manufacturer expert in cutting rifling in barrels. Certainly Colt was not far away and Parker Brothers and Colt were certainly on "speaking" terms, having done business back and forth for a long time.

While at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, WY I took pictures of a Parker hammer gun with rifled barrels.



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