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You are correct about the ogee. That is the difference between an ogee and an ogive. An ogee is a specific form which resembles an ogive. It is limited to curves that are sections of circles. I believe the curves are complex functions which can always be defined by second order equations. That is the reason it is so critical in woodworking, in that it meshes in reverse for so many types of joints such as drop leaf tables and door stiles and rails. Ogive is a term used in archetecture and statistics;the ogive greek arch is named that because it resembles an ogee but is formed by any curve, not just one formed by two circular sections. The statistical graph of a cumulative distribution function was named after the ogive (not ogee) arch for the same reason.

As your definition shows, a tangent ogee (or ogive) has the curved section joined to the straight section at only one point which forms a tangent. A secant ogive is formed by the secant of a curve where the secant line crosses the curve at two points. The secant of a circle is can be either a chord or diameter. The simplest comparison of the two would be drawing a circle with a tangent and a secant. The tangent line touches the circle at a single point. The secant line intersects the circle at two points. These can all be defined by second order equations.

With a tangent ogive design the front and back of the bullet can have any curved shape transition, with the front or back being iindependent. With a secant ogive, the front and back of the bullet would have a curved transition at both ends, but they must be formed by the same continuous function.

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I always laughed at all the hooplah that was generated by the term at the time because it really tells you nothing specific about the bullet except it is not a flat base and doesn't have a straight taper boattail. Past that, any bullet with curved transitions to the front and back taper is a secant ogive. This is due to the fact that any curve can be modeled exactly by a power function one order higher than the number of data points plotted. A designer can use a cylindrical bullet center section and then use any tapered nose and tail profile as long as both transitions are a curve, and it is a secant ogive design. From a practical point, a secant ogive bullet is any boattail without a CONICAL boattail.. Tangent ogive bullets include all flatbase designs or those with an angled boattail base. The only ones totally excluded from an ogive design are ones without any curve; these being wadcutters and a few specialty bullets I have seen with conical noses etc.

I always was struck by the power of advertising, no matter if it was informative or not. A major manufacturer got years of intensive word of mouth advertising by curving the transition of the boattail and using a cathcy phrase.

That's a slippery slope. I have always wondered where the line is drawn with originality. No one seems to have a problem with a gun restocked 10 years after new by the factory, but does not accept a gun restocked by an outside gunsmith. I can see this argument. The argument that cut is cut even in the factory takes the opposite position on barrels vs stocks. The gun quoted was ordered with long barrels but ordered with short ones, so the factory shortened the barrels of a stock gun to fill an order. Is it devalued because the stock records when actually built don't match the order? I would say no. Which one takes precedence, the original build, the order, or the gun as shipped new? What about guns shipped with substitutions? There are a number Damascus ordered and spec'd guns whichwere shipped with Parker Laminate barrels. Are they not original? Parker often took in guns for alteration and used the old barrels and such for later use. Does this lead to two non-original guns or one? I suspect the reason some barrels turn up without the tell-tale blank line at the front of the rib is that Parker did this very thing; cut a stock barrel down to fill a new order.

I think the only thing that can be purely original is the gun as shipped as new from the factory door. The order record and the factory record are only records at some point in its' life. What went out the door is what it was originally. Anything else is not. It's all relative to your viewpoint and is most important in negotiating prices. I believe the other "degree of originality" are personal beliefs.

… I’m sorry…





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I respectively disagree. While I have not encountered it there have been more than one reference (that I have read here) to the factory pulling a set of barrels and cutting them to match an order.

Parker Brothers would most certainly have wanted to maintain the utmost level of quality in this example, the fact that it can be documented solidifies its historical lineage in my honest opinion.

Ryan

The big question is does it devalue the gun to have documented factory shortened barrels? My answer is no it does not. The gun passed for original until the letter showed that the barrels were cut. That tells me that the work was high quality. It is not like some I have seen that were hacksawed. The difference in the quality of the work is what sets the factory done gun back on a par with an original gun in value.

Sorry if I came across wrong Dean. I didn't disagree with your response at all. It is absolutely true as you state that most common flatbase bullets are tangent ogee designs. I just was trying to clarify the relationship between the two where the most used form is a subset of the other.

I am much more a rifle person than shotgun. I just jokingly threw out the comment when I saw a phrase that triggered an old pet peeve, and may have gotten carried away with the explanation. I used up way too much thread time with an off subject discussion and shouldn't have done that.

In reference to original Parker Brothers chokes (not Remington Parker chokes) we know that the beginning of the choke, sometimes beginning some six inches or so from the muzzle, started as a curve and terminated as an opposite curve and ended as a parallel straight section from 1/8” to as much as 3/8” at the muzzle. These chokes have often been described as an “ogee” by those who have studied and plotted these chokes. At some point Remington, in Ilion, stopped this practice and used their own choke formulas. I have several of Austin Hogan’s original plottings on graph paper that I will gladly share if anyone is interested.






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Dean, this is what I mentioned at the beginning of this thread. I just don't think my gauge, nor its operator, are quite good enough to measure that (what must be a) subtle curve. I have some guns that I am as certain as I think I can be are original and cannot determine the ogee choke. My original question involved the re-choking process and whether PB could produce that curve. Without backboring, would it even be possible?

I finished the biannual wipe-down/inspection of one safe yesterday. The next safe will get tackled on Tuesday, and I'll be sure to re-measure and photograph the subject gun.

Photos of the gun in question.