Parker Terms and Nomenclature

[Dean Romig]

I'll unabashedly admit that I am reading Foster's "New England Grouse Shooting" yet again (I like to read people's names and names of places I'm familiar with around town here.) and in the second sentence of Chapter One, "The Little Gun" there is a term that I've read every time I read "The Little Gun" but never before realized I don't know what it means. It reads, "It was in the first vintage of relined sixteen gauge American breech-loaders..."

Does anyone know what the meaning of "relined" in this sentence or in the case of Parker sixteen gauge shotguns?





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[Bill Murphy]

I can't imagine.

[Dean Romig]

Me either... That's why I asked.

Anyone have an idea?





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[John Dallas]

Is it possible that it is a typo? - Could it have been "refined"

[Daniel Carter]

A wild ----- guess, could it mean that gun had just been put back in the line of guns being offered by that company and it was among the first made?

[Bill Holcombe]

Could it be an early term for chokes or a new proses parker used for choking when they went to Breech loaders? That is about all I can come up with....

[Dean Romig]

A typo is a possibility I suppose.
I'm quoting from my 1947 Charles Scribber's Sons printing - does anyone have the original first printing in order to compare?





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[Russ Jackson]

Hello Dean ,I Do Not have the answer to your question but I have the best book to look up Gun Terminology ! This book is " The Firearms Dictionary " ,written by R A Steindler and sold through Stackpole Books and has a copyright of 1970 ! I looked up " Relined " and it is not in the definitions category ! I would have no idea myself but I don't believe it was an exact terminology such as Choke ,Boring etc. ! Good Luck in your search ,very interesting !

[Dean Romig]

Thanks very much for looking that up for us Russ.





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[Dave Noreen]

Could it have something to do with the transition in Parker Bros doubles from being way overbored to being bored true to gauge in the mid-1890s?

[John Davis]

The 1942,(first edition I believe), reads the same.

[Dean Romig]

Aha!... "The Little Gun" was finished in the dusty little plant down in Meriden in November 1889."

That makes perfect sense Dave, and Foster, being a true Parker man and editor and publisher of two sporting magazines while writing NEGS, would very likely have known that fact. Thanks very much Dave - Good thinking, I'm going with that!





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[Rich Anderson]

Perhaps a 12 taken down to a 16 hence "relined"?

[Russell E. Cleary]

So, were the barrels of Parker guns of any gauge, including the 16, generally overbored as well as were the 12 and 10 during the brass shell era of production?

I ask this because in THE PARKER STORY (authors Gunther, Mullins, Parker, Price and Cote), page 517, the stock books are cited as noting the general discontinuance of over-boring in 12 and 10 gauge guns in the 1890s, but, nothing is said in that paragraph about other gauges.