Austin: Thanks so much, no printing on the top wad so as you said it is a handload 3" shell. Thanks all!! I learn so much every day from these forums!! So one more question for you experts, would a 3" shell be used in a Parker chambered for 2 7/8"????

It could....but not knowing the components of the shell this thread is discussing....I would not try that one.

In theory, if a Parker was ordered "chambered for 2 7/8 inch shell" the actual chamber would be 2 3/4 inch. If it was ordered with a 2 7/8 inch chamber, that would be for a 3-inch shell. We probably agonize way too much over these chamber length differences, as the "finding out for myself" series in The Double Gun Journal suggests that as much as 1/4 inch doesn't mean much.

It sure seems to me that the old Pigeon shooters and waterfowlers who ordered these guns chambered for the long 12-gauge shells in the old days must have shot them all up, where as the sporty waterfowl hunters using long 20-gauge shells must have died with a good supply of shells on hand. My gun room is accumulating a good selection of early 2 7/8 inch and 3-inch 20s, but the boxes of long 12-gauge shells are eluding me.

There's no way I would fire a 100 year old shell. However, it is fun to think about what it was like shooting that Roman candle.

In the period from the mid-1880s until after WW-I, many shooters used shotgun shells loaded by their local gun stores. The shipping costs were a significant part of the price of shotgun shells back in the day, so shipping the much lighter NPEs or even in the case of Peters Cartridge Co. they catalogued their various shells just loaded with the powder and wads, ready for the local folks to put in their shot and crimp the shells. The biggest outfit loading shells in the west was Selby in San Francisco, California.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...psrlswfzak.jpg

CHALLENGE was UMCs new primed empty equal to their NITRO CLUB loaded shell.

Here in Spokane we had Ware Bros. This 10-gauge shell is a 1901 LEADER --

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...ps7c72ca7f.jpg

Here is an example of my 8 gauge Leader shells. Marking showing 1900 and 1902.

http://www.jpgbox.com/jpg/50905_600x400.jpg

http://www.jpgbox.com/jpg/50906_600x400.jpg


http://www.jpgbox.com/jpg/50907_600x400.jpg

July 17, 1900, is the date of U.S. Patent No. 653,953, granted to John Gardner and assigned to Winchester Repeating Arms Co., for a primer. The other date appears to be July 14, 190? to my eye. Patents weren't issued on July 14, 1902, that week they were issued on the 15th. In that your 8-gauge Winchester LEADER shells appear to have the New No. 4 primer, they are from after 1904.

I used a 10x on the label it is 1903.

That July 14, 1903, patent date is on boxes of the New No. 4 primers --

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...psqkhz7cbb.jpg

but not on boxes of the older No. 4 primers --

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...psbj7hxrv5.jpg

so I'd expect a connection to the New No. 4 Primers. I haven't had any luck in finding a Winchester Patent with that issue date.