Light Lefever F grade 10ga
 

On a recent trip to Kittery Trading Post I came across this Lefever 10ga F grade with 30" barrels. My knowledge of Lefever's is limited but the gun was very tight, seemed to be in mostly original condition and the price was attractive. Dimensions are 1 3/4 dac x 3 dah x 14 lop. I sent a few pictures to Frank Cronin to see what he thought and he said "dude, that is a righteous gun, buy it". He told me it was a pivot lever rod cocker. The serial number dates the gun to 1891. The KTP had no idea what the chokes were or they pretended to not know. I took Scott K's 10ga bore gauge to the store the next day. The L barrel has .018 constriction in a constant taper about 4 inches long. The R barrel has about .003 constriction, it's a constant taper but the taper is about 1/2" long. One of the interesting things about this gun is it's weight, 8 lbs 2 ounces. Last night Scott K. and I patterned it at 40 yards. I used two carefully loaded shells; Fed hull, Win Primer, 19 gr of Promo, SP-10 wad, 1/2" fiber filler wad and 1 1/8 ounce of magnum lead #6 (pellet count 262). The gun shot a 53% pattern with the R barrel and a 85% pattern with the L barrel. I am amazed to see an extra full pattern from .018 constriction. The barrels show no evidence of being cut. If the chokes were relieved somebody knew what they were doing. I am very happy with my new light Lefever 10 bore.

Very nice! I came close to getting a Lefever 10 earlier this year, but didn't

Nice gun Pete. Looks like it was taken care of and the patterns are wonderful.

Wow nice gun and great looking patterns! Ducks over decoys !!!!

Friggen dandy!!! I'm jealous !

Really jealous !

very nice - did I miss it - how long are the barrels?

30"

pete you bought a fine gun and those patterns are about as good as ashotguns gona shoot...i like lefevers too i have my dads old grade e 12 ga and i bought a ds 20 ga double...looks like you got your self a new crow gun...charlie

How does Promo compare to Red Dot? Very nice find congratulations. Looking forward to a report on it's first field test.

Alliant Red Dot and Promo are interchangeable and Promo can be substituted in any Red Dot recipe. However, they say Promo can vary lot to lot and you should weigh your initial charges as you may have to go up or down a bushing to get the same number of grains as Red Dot. Promo is only sold in 8 lb jugs and is a little less expensive than Red Dot. I think might be a little dirtier but the 8 lb jug I bought can be used with the same bushing as Red Dot and I get an equal number of grains of each. Your mileage may vary.

I had read that on another forum but have not looked up the information yet, thank you

Why not shoot black powder it the old beauty that is what it was built to shoot ? Do not want to get into the smokeless power in Damascus debate shooting it with smokeless is not nitro proof testing the barrels.

I don't use black powder because of all the disadvantages it provides that include; a corrosive residue that gets into the receiver I can't easily clean, a much greater amount of work, effort and mess to clean the gun, not being able to see the target immediately after the shot, a much shorter life of expensive 10ga hulls I use for reloading and finally the increased safety risk when reloading shells for it with black powder. Smokeless powder was a wonderful invention.

I visited KTP a couple weeks ago. They have very reasonable prices imho. I really like Lefever guns for some reason. I’ve never owned one or even shot one that I can remember but there is just something about them that’s cool. Like Chris, I’m jealous.

Me too!


:bowdown: