Parker Gun Collectors Association Forums - Parker factory test loads?

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Thanks, Dave, great information. Yes, order books are full of customer requests for weird patterns with weirder ammunition. It would be interesting to see if these weird requests were followed all the way to the stock book entries. Of course, we would need the assistance of the research committee to check this out.

I'm going to add some extra info I found while learning to read the stock books.

Many times the order book will specify how the customer wants the barrels choked. The stock book always recorded patterning information but unfortunately it's at the far right of the page and quite often much of the information is not there, it's cut off.

What I found on the very early S/N guns (1500 to 3900 in stock book # 1) was that both 10 and 12ga guns were patterened with #8 shot, 45yds, and a 18x24 target. I don't know if the target was a rectangle or an oval but all the patterning info that is readable, all used these specs. At about S/N 3950, you start to see 18x24 along with just 24 (with a circle around it.) Shortly there after, all patterning was done for both 10 and 12ga using #8 shot in a 24" circle at 45yards. Years later, it changed to 40 yards in a 30" circle.

Sometimes in the order book the customer will specify what brand of shot to use and also the size. I haven't correlated the order book with the stock book yet.

I'll add more confusion to this topic. In the 1882 catalog, it lists "Comparative Sizes of Drop Shot" table. There were 9 different manufacturers of drop shot listed along with the number of pellets to the ounce. Tatham shot was often used by Parker, they had 399 pellets of #8 shot to the ounce. The range of all manufactures was 365 on the low end to 434 on the high end. Kind of makes figuring out your chokes difficult if you don't know who made the shot. No standards back in those days.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Murphy (Post 71773)

I just went into the junk files and found early stock book entries showing some entries for 10 and 12 gauge guns that were patterned at 45 yards in a 24" circle, and 16 gauge guns that were patterned at 30 yards in a 24" circle. Now it is obvious to me that we need to have all this information from the stock books to determine how our guns were patterned and with what size shot and how much of it. Unfortunately, our stock book copies are normally cut off before the pattern information, again, depending on the era. Sometimes, the order book information gives choke or pattern information that adds to any abbreviated stock book information that our researcher may be able to decipher. To add to the confusion, although later patterns shot with 12 gauges were with #7 1/2 shot, these early patterns were shot with #8 shot, even in 10 gauge. We just can't tell the original choke of a gun unless we have more information than is usually available. I have not seen a stock book entry for eight gauge guns, so can't comment on them.

Bill
have we ever seen an 8 gauge hang tag?
could someone post one?

I'll try to help, or muddy up the discussion with some hang tags and tables from various parker catalogs.
Hang tags

136228 16 ga rh barrel 190 lf 190 1 oz #7 chilled tatham shot 32 grs nito powder 40 & 30"
216401 12 ga rh 320 lh 320 1 1/4 oz 7 1/2 tatham chilled 40 yrd 30"
130997 12 ga rh 250 lh 250 1 1/8 oz # 7 tatham chilled 37 gr hazards powder 40 & 30"199343 12 ga rh 230 lh 275 1 1/4 oz #7 tatham chilled # 1/8 drams nitro same
94914 16 ga rh 100 lh 185 1 oz #7 tatham chilled 30 gr Dupont same
121173 12 ga rh 125 lh 225 1 1/8 oz #7 tatham chilled 40 gr Dupont same
207094 12 ga rh 255 lh 255 1 1/8 #7 tatham chilled 3 drams bulk smokless same
232754 12 ga rh 320 lh 320 1 14 oz #7 1/2 tatham chilled 3 drams bulk smokless same

Jeff, the last three - 121173, 207094, and 232754, don't show a shot size... is this because this important information was omitted from the hang tags?

Dean,

Info there, just not typed Brain fart! I have edited the same.

The hang tags are an excellent source for this type of info. I have the tag for my 1916, 12 gauge D. It reports targeted results of 230 pellets right, 275 left using 1 1/4 ounces of No. 7 Tatham chilled shot over 3 1/4 drams of "nitro powder". The order book entry specifies "RH 1/2 choke LH Full". Neat ibfo to have.

To the top for an April 2013 related thread

I have yet to find the elusive patterning info in TPS? I did re-read the old thread and the is lots of information in it which my old brain didn't remember :mad:.

I was thinking that the places where they specified the amount of shot was probably due to specific customer requests and they used a "standard" load for all other tests, but that is probably wrong. I begin to think that how they did this changed several times over the years and the necessary information required to be able to compute the choke from the test data is all contained on the hanging tag (maybe)?:banghead: