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?

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

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

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.