Congrats on another fine small bore. I hope you bring it to Georgia in January.
I have some 3/4 oz RST 16's along, perfect for Quail and an XE 16:bowdown:

A beautiful gun! Did you by chance measure the down pitch of the barrels? Appears like it may be minimal from the pictures.

How do u measure pitch? I put the butt on the floor and measure off the wall at the muzzle.

Same. Butt flat on floor, top of action against wall, measure from wall to center of bores at 28". My own preference is usually around 3", but many guns show less than that, down to about 2. Anything less than 2" doesnt work for me. Others like it that way, however. Depends on your individual neck and shoulder geometry it seems.

I get a measurement of 1 5/8"

So as you can see from the factory production card the DAH says 3 1/8". The stock measures 2 3/4" DAH. The checkering pattern is also a little different from XE's from the same period ( LPI and the checkering on the stock head). So today I decide to remove the trigger plate and photograph the head of the stock that should have the serial number and grade stamp. The serial number and grade are stamped correctly with factory stamps. As u can see the last digit 4 is stamped lightly for which I have no explaination except it is the same style font. So my take is the stock was replaced or bent early on in the gun's history. The stock and shape of the comb have all the chararistics of pre-1915 production. The rest of the story is lost to time.

Craig,
I wish I owned that XE. A bit jealous here!