12ga chambers, how short did they make them?
 

I looked over a 1902 30" titanic steel 12ga DH last evening. When I put the chamber gauge in it (Brownells tools I think) I was stunned. They were the shortest in a 12 ga Parker I have run into at about 2 1/4".

Pete,

Your scaring me. Ashamedly, I have never checked my chamber lengths and gleefully pulled the trigger on any cartridge that I could close my Parkers on. Now I have work to do in making a chamber guage. A short chamber such as yours could be the reason I named one of the Parkers "Bucking Billy".

Harry

I personally have not measured any shorter than 2-5/8".
This is not to say there aren't shorter ones, as I've not measured more than a dozen or so.

Harry, I was kind of surprised, my first thought was I had the gauge in backwards. Then I thought I must have grabbed the wrong size,nope, then I looked at it and thought to myself wow they are the shortest I have run across (like Dave 2 5/8" seemed standard). Given they are about 2 1/4" they should probably be opened to use 2 3/4" shells and then I wondered if there would be enough metal there to go that deep etc.

The gun also appears to be restocked, overall a good job but there are some telling signs. I wonder now if the really short chambers led to that restocking.

Mark if you are reading it's 112966

My shortest 12 ga. is 2 9/16" and kicks pretty good with 2 3/4" ammo (which I haven't used since I learned of RST about five years ago).

I've never heard of 2 1/4" chambers in a 12 ga. Parker like yours Pete. I'm sure there's an explanation somewhere.

Dean, there was at least a half inch to go to get to the 2 3/4" line in both barrels. They gave a me a tape measure that is used to measure people for clothing so not very precise. However I have seen dozens of guns with 2 5/8" on these tools and this was nowhere close. Hope to go back Thurs and look it over again and this time with better tools, but the chambers are the shortest I have come across in a 12. It seemed so improbable I kept looking at the tool and wiggling it to make it go to where it would normally go on a 2 5/8" gun to no avail.

Get a PGCA letter to see if the gun was ordered with short chambers.

Bill I probably would if I buy it but I am not leaning towards purchase at the moment.

More than likley it is a case of tight chamber borring. I would't come to any conclusions till I ran a bore guage down the chambers.

I guarantee there were 2 inch chamber Parkers made, at least a few. British and American cartridges were available in that length for a long time....

DLH

Chamber Length
 

Take a look at the Super Fox article in the most recent edition of DGJ. I made up a pretty sensitive measuring device to measure the bores chokes and chambers of that gun and measured several of my own guns before taking it to Julia's. That instrument had an uncertainty of about 1/16 inch in measuring chamber length.
A blade or plug type chamber gauge is a fail safe design, in that it will stop at the point where chamber diameter equals the the width or diameter of the gauge, even if it does not contact the forcing cone. The taper of the chamber is about .005 inch per inch. I measured several guns that showed <2 1/2 or < 2 5/8 chambers with a blade gauge, that were only a few thousandths smaller at the point that the gauge stuck, compared to the beginning of the forcing cone.
I recieved an e mail from Bob Foege indicating his bore gauge will measure the chamber profile much more easily than my set up.

Two points to remember with regard to Parker chamber depth:

The catalogs offer any chamber dimension of the customer's choosing at no extra charge. A customer that wished to shoot 2 inch English shells could have had his gun chambered accordingly.

For the good of the gun, there should be a little clearance between case mouth and forcing cone. Parker metal may handle the extra kick and pressure caused by case interference, but the wood will eventually suffer, spreading at the wrist or chipping behind the tang.

The present day SAAMI spec for 2 3/4 inch shells is 2.750 -.100 . I have measured several batches of modern AA and Rem target loads and find fired shell length to be 2 3/4 inch minus 1/16 to 3/32 inch.

Best, Austin

Pete,

Did you notice the frame size of the short chambered Parker? I have a #1 frame that will beat hell out of you when shooting more than a box of shells.

Harry

My VHE 1&1/2 frame 12 skeet gun (#238???, I don't remember the rest) has 2&1/2" chambers and the thinnest muzzles I have seen.

Destry.
youre right 2" was not uncommon in the english gun trade. there is still a good following for these short chambered guns, and cartridges are still available.
Peter

Hi Harry,

I'm not sure if Pete has mentioned this - but is a #2 frame...? What are you thinking on the frame size vs. chamber length, my friend?

Best to you!

John

My DH 12 ga. with the 2 9/16" chambers is a 2-frame, for what it's worth.

If we are interested in pure research, our researcher should be chiming in here with information on this gun. Oh well.

John,

I was thinking that our forefathers, in their wisdom, might have used short shells with light loads in their #1 framed 12 gauge Parkers. I have two such guns that will wear me out if I shoot 100 shells with 1 oz of shot at 1150 fps. I drop that down to 7/8 oz of shot and I can shoot the guns until their barrels melt.

Harry

Hi Harry!

Good points - thanks! As well, the shortest chambered shotgun I ever had was a 2" on a 12 GA Lindner Daly Featherweight. Sold the gun as it still beat me up - and kept some of the shells (dang - 2" rounds are the cutest little peanut-poppers ;) )

Best to you!

John

Bill, I agree more information from the records is nice to have. However our "researcher" as far as I know is a volunteer and he has done a great job on the letters I have ordered. I posted my observation and the serial number with a note to Mark because I saw he was reading the post yesterday. If it piqued his curiosity he could look into it if not no big deal. I would imagine his position as "researcher" could quickly escalate into an all time consuming unpaid job with dozens of requests to look this up and that up every day.

There are books filled with stuff about Parker that I don't know. I have been a student for years and will be one forever. If I run into something that is odd and unusual as the chamber length on this gun appears to be I will share it with all of you. Everyone is free to take it or take from it what they want. Facts are that the short chambers could be a slight difference in machining as Bob Fabian pointed out or it could have been ordered. There is also a chance we will never know for certain the how come and whys as there may be nothing in whatever records exist.

Bottom line; I found a 12ga DH with ultra short chambers. If one exists maybe more do. What I took away from this is I will not assume short chambers is always going to be 2 5/8" in 12ga, they could be much shorter. To me it 's all part of the unwritten rule of Parkers; never say never. To my mind these mysteries are great, 100 years from now nobody is going to be collecting Rem 870's and finding such differences to ponder.