Biggest frame size for a 20 ga?

[Jay Gardner]

Talking 20's yesterday with a friend. I know of #1 frame 20's but were any built on larger frames?

Thanks,

JDG

[John Truitt]

I know of one #2 frame twenty with 32" barrels. I cant be for certain but I think I have seen a 1 1/2 frame twenty before as well.

[Dave Suponski]

Researcher has a great #2 frame two barrel set 12 and 20 I believe. Maybe he will post the picture's again.

[Bill Murphy]

In a California auction several years ago, there were several twenties in large size frames, maybe up to #3. One set of 20 gauge barrels in that auction weighed something like six pounds plus. My #3 frame 16 gauge was delivered from Parker Brothers at 8 pounds, 13 ounces. The 28" barrels are marked 4-13.

[Don Kaas]

I have a DH from 1919 on a #2 frame with Damascus barrels. It weighs 8 pounds and has 2 7/8" chambers.

[Bruce Day]

I have an open, honest question.

What would be the reason for wanting/shooting a 2 frame 20ga , or a 3 frame 16ga? I understand about wanting a heavy gun for heavy loads and to reduce recoil, but why not just buy a 12 and load down? These are not the type of guns a person would carry for upland game hunting are they?

If a person is collecting today, I understand the desire to have something different, but when these guns were ordered new, what was the thinking?

[charlie cleveland]

may be they were thinking you could carry more shells in their pockets....and interesting thought you have bruce...we will probably never know why somebody wanted such heavy and large frame small bores....i dont know why but i would be first in line for a new parker 20 ga no 3 frame with 36 in barrels and 3 inch chambers...... charlie

[John Truitt]

Mr. Day,

Just like you stated these were not upland game guns. Instead they were made for ducks, geese, maybe a trap gun, etc. Certainly for pass shooting.
I have heard it said many times, and after handleing several of these larger frame guns of varying gauges, frame size does not always equate to overall gun weight.
IMHO: the larger frames allow the breach end of the gun to be of considerable thickness but allow a large amount of barrel taper. (look at a #3 frame 32 or 34" twelve some will have really swamped/ tapered barrels) Thus putting more weight between your hands instead of out at the muzzle ends.
There are certainly exceptions to everything. I for one really like these larger frame 12s and twenties.
I think I have read that there was a large push or interest in long heavy sub gauge guns in California and the west coast states in the twenties or something like that.

[Dave Noreen]

Well, here it is again. This gun was a 2-frame GH-Grade built in 1889, with very straight and heavy 32-inch Damascus barrels with a requested weight of 9 1/2 pounds. As an aside, my Grandfather's 1890 PH-Grade 12-gauge is on a 3-frame but its cylinder bore 30-inch barrels swamp very fast, and it weighs 8 pounds 8 ounces. At some point in its life my GH-Grade lost two inches from its 12-gauge barrels. While Mark could find nothing in the records for it, my belief is it was back to Meriden sometime after 1918 but before about 1927, and got a set of 32-inch, 3-inch chambered, Vulcan Steel 20-gauge barrels. Both sets of barrels have the post-1910 bolt plate, and of course the receiver has the new bolt. The 20-gauge Vulcan barrels have the CT USA address, but do not have the Parker Bros. Overload Proof stamps. The 20-gauge 2-frame barrels swamp in very fast. The gun currantly weighs 9 pounds 0.5 ounces with the 12-gauge barrels and forearm in place and 8 pounds 4.5 ounces with the 20-gauge barrels and forearm in place. Makes Parker Bros. statements on the extra barrel listing shown on page 35 of the currant issue of Parker Pages untrue?!?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Ansleyone/Parker/Big2001.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Ansleyone/Parker/Big20045x7.jpg

[Dave Noreen]

The big 20-gauge guns had a flash of popularity shortly before WW-I. The famous Widgeon Duck Club guns being, of course, the great Parker Bros. example. The J. Stevens Arms & Tool Co. also introduced their No. 200 pump gun for 20-gauge shells up to 3-inch about 1913. Several of the early graded Ansley H. Fox 20-gauges were chambered for 3-inch cases. In those days the max load available from the manufacturers in the "standard" 2 1/2 inch 20-gauge shell was 2 1/4 drams of bulk or 2 1/2 drams equiv. of dense smokeless powder and 7/8 ounce of shot. However, in the longer shells they would load 2 1/2 drams or drams equiv. and 7/8 ounce of shot.

Around 1911, Edwin Hedderly the famous California sportsman and editor of Western Field magazine did a lengthy series on his experiments with high velocity smallbore loads. He got several long barrel smallbore guns from Parker Bros. I have records for a 32-inch DHE 20-gauge, a 32-inch DHE 28-gauge, a 32-inch A-1 Special 20-gauge and a 32-inch A-1 Special 16-gauge. Fellow member Kevin McCormack had been in the process for some time of transcribing these articles in the hope of republishing them. Maybe someday?

Maybe the interest in getting ones long barrel smallbore on a big frame came from reports of Hedderly blowing up the DHE 20-gauge!!!!

[calvin humburg]

I like my 8.8 lb. gun for flatland gamehunting.

[Bill Murphy]

Researcher, what is the story about Edwin Hedderly blowing up the DHE 20? I have not heard that story before. Hedderly's guns were bored for standard length shells and supposedly he shot normal length shell in them.

[Austin W Hogan]

Dave; John Truitt has it correctly expressed; frame size determines the weight between the hands, not the overall weight. I have an excel file showing this, but it does not fit the 19.5 kb limit.
With respect to the Parker catalog page shown in the last PP. It appears that the Parker catalog writers, and King's shop employees met only at the annual clambake, and then competed on opposing horseshoe teams. The table shows a 10 12 ga two barrel set gun with the 12 ga set up 6 oz lighter; it also shows a 7lb 1 oz 28 inch two frame 12 and a 7 lb 10 oz 28 inch one frame twelve, plus some 1 1/2 and 2 frame twelves lighter than 1 frame 16's.
I'll try to find a way to post those tables. They show barrel swamp, not frame size, to determine gun weight, as John says.
Best, Austin

[Austin W Hogan]

I think Kevin's brother was researching Hedderly in the 1990's, but never published the article. Hedderly was ahead of WW SuperX putting 8 gauge loads in 12's and 10 ga loads in 20's.

Best, Austin

[Merv Boyd]

Hi Bruce,
I think I have another question that goes hand in hand with your question. What was the reason for, what I would call, the extreme DAH's of some of the shotgun stocks made around the the late 1800's/ early 1900"s? Was the drop driven by a shooting style? It seems that when the DAH is 3 1/2" to 4" the selling price of the shotgun goes down.

[Austin W Hogan]

Dave ; I merged and printed the files, then scanned them for jpegs. The first shows two two barrel set guns; the 12 is 6 ounces lighter than the 10 on 56553; the upland barrel is much lighter on 73201; it makes up to a gun a half pound lighter than a 1 frame of the same barrel length. The difference in filing can be seen in the tabulated data.
The second shows two 1 1/2 frame twelves lighter than a 1 frame 16. The 6 lb 8 sixteen is a result of filing the swamp in the first four inches as the table shows.

Best, Austin

[calvin humburg]

Who was Edwin Hudderly. I like a lot of drop but I have a long neck. Be easier to get my cheek bone on comb if I can manage that little task my shooting improves. ch

[Bruce Day]

Hi Bruce,
I think I have another question that goes hand in hand with your question. What was the reason for, what I would call, the extreme DAH's of some of the shotgun stocks made around the the late 1800's/ early 1900"s? Was the drop driven by a shooting style? It seems that when the DAH is 3 1/2" to 4" the selling price of the shotgun goes down.

Mervyn, of course your question is off track to the original post, but I've heard some explanations that I will pass on. First, I've seen Parkers from that era with 2" DAH. I've heard that the ones with a lot of drop were more suited for waterfowling where a person is wearing heavy clothes and the birds are dropping in. Other than that, I don't know and perhaps others will comment. I do know that I have seen a lot of Parkers from that era with 2 1/2 to 2 3/4" DAH. Yes a lot of people ( me included) find shooting difficult with the high drop guns.

[Dave Noreen]

Because I find a lot of guns in the old records with great dimensions, and I find a lot of guns in the currant marketplace with extreme drops, I have a theory that a lot of those old guns with over 3 inch drop at heel kicked folks in the face so hard that they didn't get shot as much as the guns with less drop and hence more of them survive for us today. I have two high condition old hammer guns, a Parry and an Ithaca, and they both have drops in the 3 3/8 to 3 1/2 range. Of course then there is my own family situation where my Father's AE-Grade Remington Model 1894 wore a lace-on Monte Carlo for fifty years and got shot a lot.

[Dave Noreen]

Edwin Hedderly was a big guy or at least had Gorilla arms as his DHEs were orderd with 15 1/2 inch length-of-pulls and his A-1 Specials with 16 5/8 inch length-of-pulls!! One of Hedderly's A-1 Specials was pictured on page 26 of Larry Baer's first Parker book, and also in color on the cover of the September 1966 Guns & Ammo magazine.

[Dean Romig]

Good stuff Dave. I, too, hope Kevin is puts an article together on this information.

Maybe the interest in getting ones long barrel smallbore on a big frame came from reports of Hedderly blowing up the DHE 20-gauge!!!!

Interesting bit of information there... can you expand on it?.... how he blew the gun up and any known particulars?

Dean

[Austin W Hogan]

Dave; there are some notes in Askins Sr referring to "Hedderly guns" in the same tone that Jack O'Connor spoke of "Hoxie Bullets". A story circulated about 15 years ago that Hedderly blew up a near new A 1S twenty gauge and that Parker Bros refused to repair it or sell him any more guns.
I tried to extract and post my stock dimension table from the DGJ article of a few years ago, but the forum doesn't post excel, and it was too long in Word. Almost all top action exposed hammer guns have 1 7/8 plus dac and 3 1/4 plus dah; it is necessitated by the way the frame is forged and the locks are mounted. The last few D and B grade exposed hammer guns as shown by Mark Conrad and Gary Carmichael at the annual banquet had the frames forged to accomadate "modern" dimensions as live bird guns. There are many lifter guns with 2 1/2 - 2 3/4 dah, and this appears to have been default for the VH when introduced.
An interesting and forgotten aspect of this is that Parker made a surcharge of $5 or $10 for extra drop and this shows on many research letters.
I'll try the stock measurements as a txt file; the cluster of stocks around 3 1/4 dah are the top action guns. The relative number of stocks with the dimension noted above is tabulated
Best, Austin

[Bruce Day]

So if the question is why does one see so many old Parkers for sale that have in excess of 3" DAH, would the answer be "because these are the ones that are left and have a hard time selling after all the lesser drop guns are purchased and held onto?"

[Merv Boyd]

Hi Bruce, Dave and Austin,
Thank you for yor responses concerning the DAH question. I suppose a follow up to that question would be; If an early parker were priced right but had extreme drop would it be a restocking candidate?

I've also seen some early Winchester lever action rifles with what appears to be substantial DAH's.

[Bruce Day]

I suppose, but a quality professional Parker restock will cost $1500 to $2000 for a lower grade gun. You might consider the economics.

That inexpensive early Parker might have seen considerable use and wear.

Would you re-stock that old Winchester lever action that had substantial drop?

[calvin humburg]

Parker with 16 inch trigger pull what dreams are made of throw in stright grip bought 4 inches drop, skeleton buttplate, english pointer, flying turnips,quailey birds on floor plate 32 inch stub twist barrels, 2 frame 10 with a fishtail. Sorry its kind of on subject.:) ch

[Bruce Day]

On the subject of magnum small bores, I'm no expert, but here is what Parker said:

" It is no advantage to place a large charge of shot in a small bore, as it only increases the column of shot in depth, but not in width. The result of this is that the shot get jammed and great friction is caused in passing out of the barrel. If large quantities of shot are to be used, the proper way is to use a larger calibre of gun."

[charlie cleveland]

ive never seen to much drop in a shotgun other than a single barrel nitro hunter....you would have to have seen how much drop it had to believe me.... a d grade with 36 inch barrels and on a 3 frame with 3 inch chambers is on my wish list for chrictmas....would order me one from parker brothers but they have gone on vacation.... charlie

[Dave Noreen]

The bulk of the rightious 12-gauge 3-inch "magnum" Parker doubles I've seen are on the 1 1/2 frame.

I didn't do the Hedderly research, and I repeated something I'd been told, so my bit about him blowing up the DHE 20-gauge may not be correct. I don't know. As I recall one of Hedderly's A-1 Specials was lost when Pachmayr sent it to Germany to have their engraver there pick up the engraving.

[Robert Delk]

Hedderly often wrote in "Forest and Steam" about his shooting and his guns.Once in awhile he would post a picture of the guns. I would try and make out the grade as he must have had deep pockets as he seemed to always be ordering a high grade Parker to test his theories.I had a complete collection of Forest and Stream and spent 6 months reading the double gun articles and looking at the ads.I still have a few of the later ones somewhere,from 1911 until they passed the gauntlet to "Field and Stream."You had to wade through the yachting results and other articles of scant interest but that was a great magazine.

[John Truitt]

Mr. Cleveland,

You and I both have that gun on the wish list. If I remember Puglisi had that gun for sale about 4 years ago.
I am begining to develope the taste for a dh #3 frame 12 with 36" titanics, round knob, no safety gun about 9 pounds 5 oz.

[charlie cleveland]

john i hope santa finds your long barrel 12 ga anddicovers a long barrel 20 in his sack for me.... charlie

[Eric Eis]

John good luck finding that gun, if I remember right Parker only made 12 or 14 D grades with 36" tubes, I don't have the book in front of me but I am pretty sure that I am close on the number. Eric