In this particular discussion I'm not concerned with the patterning specs or the choke and bore measurements of a particular gun that I may want to consider buying for myself but more with the uncertain economics of what you're suggesting Parker Bros. did at the gun manufactory. It simply doesn't seem economically feasible that they would randomly pattern this 'stock' gun this way and the next 'stock' gun differently. The man-hours spent in resetting patterning plates from thirty yards out to forty then back again to thirty or thirty-five for the next gun while the guys in the other adjacent patterning tunnels were doing the same thing just can't have been approved by the superintendant. Quite probably there were four or five patterning tunnels each set at a particular yardage but even so, someone still had to give the order to pattern gun "X" at forty yards and gun "Y" at thirty-five. The question, in my mind, remains "Why and How?" I know there probably isn't answer but I can't conceive of it being a random thing. It's a quagmire...
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