Target gun barrels and bore size
 

I have two questions. A little background first. I have a 12 ga that was ordered to shoot trap. It has damascus barrels. Built in 1912. It is completely origianl and unmessed with.

First, why would a shooter order a gun with damascus barrels when steel barrels were in vouge?

Second, the bore size is .734. Would this size be a special order? (I don't know why Parker would just randomly over-bore barrels). If so, would it be shown as a special order in the Parker records? Why would someone order this size?

Thx, Ray

Damcus barrels remained popular for years after fluid steel came out. Some makers would only put them on higher grade guns due to the cost to manufacture

As for the bores, i seem to remember older damascus bore sizes where a little larger than modern standards, maybe these tube were from old stock.

Or maybe -ifthe ordered as a trap gun -the shooter spec'ed it that way.

And didn't Burt Becker 'discover' that over-boring produced better long-range patterns?

IMHO, over-boring and back-boring result in better patterns no doubt. In modern times, the size is much greater. Browning back-bores some of it guns to .742. Mossberg over -bores the entire barrel to 10 ga size. I think they size them at .759. That is a lot more then .734-which wouldn't seem to me to makes that much of a difference although Beretta today claims their barrels at .730 are overbored (there std size is .725).

I just wonder if the .734 would have to be special order and if it was thought to make a difference. With regards to damascus, I guess some folks just liked them.

Also, If after patterning the gun in question didn't deliver the pattern's that were spec'd out Parker Bros. would bore the barrels a bit more to put more choke in the gun.

Quite possibly honed a few thousanths to remove pits from the use of corrosive primed shells, which were what was available for the first twenty years of the guns life. Quite often guns were sent back to Parker Bros. to have their bores "cleaned up" during all the years corrosive primers were in use.

Based on my examination, I don't believe the barrels or chokes were bored. No way to say for sure but the choke size matches the letter and it would have had to have very, very light pits to only need to take out .005 to clean up.

Anything is possible but I think it is the way it left the factory

I summed up the average bore diameter of seven Damascus guns (Parker, Lefever, LC Smith) and I came up with .733.

Of the 14 bores, this ranged from .727 (Pre 13 LC) to .739 (Parker) -- which was probably honed.

Ray, serial number??

I have several PB guns with bores in the .732 - .734 range. My DHE live bird gun is .738.