Dave, please explain what you mean by a "smooth English style rib" and "English proof marks."
I would presume the gun had been to Great Britain and by law, had to be proofed to their specs, but I have no idea what a "smooth English style rib" is.






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Flat ribs vs tapered. & Short, Pork, Beef or Eland
 

Flat ribbed 128562 is interesting and in keeping with the teachings of Austin it is 35/64 at the breech of the 28" barrels and 26/64 at the muzzle. Interestingly it's a 1 frame and the forend I could get to with these has a single 2 under the serial number. Rest of the thing is somewhere... I'll try and post the rest tomorrow. BTW I got this early one morning back in the olden days before ebay was on top of their game...

The rib was smooth on top and concave in cross section like the ribs commonly seen on English guns. The gun had English proof marks in addition to the normal Parker markings, I assumed that the gun was ordered by
a customer from England as I have has many other guns (I have a Mannlicher Schoeneaur right now) that were not from England but had English proofs.

Thanks Dave - have you ordered a letter on that CHE? It would be interesting to read who ordered it like that.






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Dean, My 16, 1 frame, 30 inch barrels, 219080 is 15/32 at the breech and 1/4 at the muzzle.

Dean- this is a very interesting post. Some ribs have a very dramatic taper it seems and others not so much. I wonder why and if there is any rhyme or reason? Thank you for posing this question!

Thanks Josh -
It seems we encounter the more "dramatic" or "fine" taper on the smaller bore guns or guns with longer barrels.
Can we presume these ribs were designed with the intent to direct the eye to the bead/target? It would definitely be the case on guns with the ventilated rib - that, combined with the wedge cut into the ramp on a vent rib gun both seem to serve the same purpose.

I'd like to see a lot more posts on this topic of various rib designs so we might be able to learn more.

Which came first - the finely tapered ventilated rib, or the standard, matted, concave, finely tapered rib?





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I no longer own the gun, I owned this gun several years ago and I never got a letter for it when I had the gun.

30" Titanic, 20ga. .519" tapered to .219"

30" Titanic, 16ga. .523" tapered to .230"

Wow Edgar - that .219" is narrow!

What year were those guns made?





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