Parker letter
 

My thanks to Chuck Bishop and the rest of The Committee for the letter on my great grandfather's 12 ga. VH, SN 103206. I really appreciate their efforts.

I was assuming that the Parker Records would have recorded the choke and chamber length on orders, but that was not available for this gun. Was such information normally not part of the record, or is my Parker unique for some reason? In terms of the chamber length, this VH was mfg'd in 1901, was it such common knowledge that all 12 ga's in that period would be the same length (2 5/8" or ??) that it was not custom to bother recording? Or is there another source for either the choke or chamber length?

Chamber lengths will not usually be listed unless it was ordered with something other than normal.
The chokes will sometimes be mentioned on the order book info if it was ordered a specific way. Stock book info will have patterning information for nearly every entry.

Mike,

Chamber lengths were sometimes included in either the Order Books, Stock Books, or both. If not specified, they chambered for what was common at that time.

As far as choke information, we sometimes see requested choke configuration listed in the Order Books. It's always been included in the Stock Books but you must remember that when the Stock Books were copied at Remington using Zerox machines, the width of the platten was not quite long enough to always capture the patterning information found at the far right of the book. Much depended upon how the book was positioned on the platten. Sometimes the pattern info is not visable at all, sometimes only half of it, sometimes all of it. The info would look like this: RH175, LH200, #8, 24", 45. This would be 175 pellets right barrel, 200 pellets left barrel of size 8 shot in a 24" circle at 45 yards. This would probably be a mod or improved mod and full choked gun. I can sometimes interpret the number of pellets say for a 12ga gun. If many other 12ga guns are listed with similar pellet counts (200), this would more than likely indicate full choke. Most low grade guns were choked full/full as default.

More than likely, I couldn't see any pattern info for your gun.

Thanks very much, Brian and Chuck. What would the common cyl length been in 1901? 2 5/8? The extra explanation on chokes and the Stock Books is both interesting and helpful to me.