Barrel Flat Marking

[Steven Dodd Hughes]

Hello all, I am researching a Parker for a Shooting Sportsman column and am wondering if anyone know what the HT over A marks on the barrel flats represents? Or the tiny K between the lumps? I've got the rest of the marks figured out.
BTW: this is one of the most informative collector's sites I've been to, congrats and thanks,
Steve Hughes
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v435/SDH/Barrelflats2-_zpsb79097c5.jpg

[Brian Dudley]

The marks you mention would be various makers or inspectors marks. A common makers mark on barrel flats is WK which was for Walter King, who was a barrel contractor before becoming superintendent. At the time your barrels were mAde, I do not think King was working in the barrel department, so I doubt that the K has any connection to him.

To sum up, the HT over A or K are not very significant markings. Not like the weight stamps, the barrel steel marking, or frame size.

[Dave Suponski]

Stephen, The HT/A is believed to stand for "Heat Treated/Annealed" Also the "K" is an inspectors mark that I have seen before. This is only conjecture on my part but my thought is this is King's mark. Parker Bros. superintendant. Parker Bros. used many employees as vendors and once they completed work on a gun it was in many cases's stamped with their mank. Hope this helps....

[Dean Romig]

The K mark of Superintendant Charles A. King was only used until 1010 (around serial no. 152721) after that his son Walter King was superintendant and his stamp was WK. We can't say for sure if the K on that gun you show can be connected to either King, the father or King, the son. Secondly, both of their stamps were on the flats and not on the lug that we know of.

[Ed Blake]

What is special about this gun that it requires an article? Past owner? Unique features?

[Steven Dodd Hughes]

My thanks to all for your insight. I guess we can sum up the HTA and K markings as "unknown" or "unexplainable".

Anyone study barrel weights as in: these are marked 3/13 ("before striking") and now weight 3/5. That seems like a lot of difference especially with the parts added. Any known definitive explanation?

The reason for this gun appearing in my column it that it is the most generic Parker I have in my workshop. I have never featured Parker guns in my 20 years writing Fine Gunmaking for Shooting Sportsman. It is an opportunity to introduce basic Parker info, the PGCA (great website!), a few lesser known books and an internal view of the gun to the readership.

I hope you aficionados approve when you see the column (July/Aug 2013?)
Best,
Steve

[Dean Romig]

Steve - we'll be honored to be mentioned and very pleased that you are doing a piece on the Parker Shotgun.

Dean

[ED J, MORGAN]

What is ser. no? Could it be a remington gun ?

[Tom Carter]

Ed, Glad to see you're up and about. Tom

[Dave Suponski]

Stephen, Page 583 in "The Parker Story" by Mullins, Price et al shows a copy of DelGrego's notebook that lists the HT/A as a designation for mild steel. The HT/A would certainly equate to a steel that has been heat treated and then annealed. In my experience in the machining industry we have used like markings. Just for the sake of clarity...Hope we have been of help and looking forward to your article.

Ed, Great to see you posting. Get well young man.

[Bill Zachow]

Steve, the 8 ounce reduction does seem to be a lot, but is possible if there was a fair amount of solder flash and if Parker had to plane the barrels down to meet a customer's weight requirement. Is there much swamp to the barrels?

[Linn Matthews]

Steven
I remember an article that you did some years ago--a Fox 20 ga that was redone with a remarkable result. I look forward to your fine work on a Parker.

Linn

[Larry Frey]

Anyone study barrel weights as in: these are marked 3/13 ("before striking") and now weight 3/5.

Steven,
In the Spring 2011 issue of Parker Pages, our recently departed friend and author Austin Hogan with the help of a few members did an artical on page 28 entitled "An Old Yankee Adage". In it he compiled a number of stats of which the struck and unstruk barrel weight of a number of guns of various barrel lengths and gauges were listed. In reviewing this information, 8oz seems about average for a 12 gauge in the 28" to 30" range. If your gun were a 26" 20 gauge I would say the 8oz was a bit excessive. If you don't have a copy of this artical and feel it would be useful, let me know and i would be happy to send you a scan for your research. Larry

[Kevin McCormack]

Steven;

Please tell us the SN of this gun. It may be the key to interpreting the marks in question. The HT/A and K markings are not "unknown or unexplainable"; HT/A could stand for high tensile strength alloy (e.g., chrome or molybdenym) and the K may well stand for a steelmaking process derivative of the Krupp (Germany) process developed and perfected almost in tandem with the English Sheffield steelmaking process of the late 1920's/early 1930's. Winchester took advantage of both in the production of the Model 21, which used steel produced under both formulae throughout the gun, resulting in incredible ductile (psi. resilience and elasticity) properties which represented the first real breakthrough in gun barrel steel making since Sir Joseph Whitworth's "compressed fluid steel" process developed just before the turn of the century (pre-1900). The SN of this gun is crucial to the interpretation of these marks.