Well, my new 8 arrived today and I was very pleased. It looks even better in person than the pictures. I believe it is in absolutely original condition, but the design, feel and balance in person is incredible. It looks like a small gun until you lay it beside my Parker 10 gauges. It feels like a heavy 12 guage trap gun, but it handles like a dove gun. It is much more dynamic than my frame 2 10 gauge lifter. It balances exactly 1/4" behind the hinge pin. Barrels ring like a church bell and lockup is incredibly tight. One thing that threw me is that the firing pin strikes theprimer from about a 45 deg angle down and also to the left. However, the lock is non-rebounding and doesn't have an intercepting sear. I was taken aback, thinking it would hang ithe primer and I didn't think it had a half cock notch. After fooling with it a few minutes, I realized that what I at first thought was full cock was the half cock notch. It is about 2/3 of the distance from the uncocked position to the half notch and then a very short movement to the full notch. The whole thing is very controllable and secure, I just took a little while to figure it all out. It is one of the easiest hammers to cock even though the strike is very strong. At half cock, you can hook your thumb over the hammer without moving your hand on the rest. A 1/2" pull and it is cocked.
I don't have a bore gauge that large, but I turned a piece of 1" bar and used it as a gauge. By slight reductions, I found that .840 wouldn't pass, neither would .837 but .835 would. From that, I believe that the bore is .835 to .836. However, the muzzle is also the same size. I honestly believe it was made this way, from the condition and amount of use. This was just a few years out of the muzzleloader era, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. I have three Parker 10 gauges from that era, and all three of them have from zero to not much choke and all have standard barrel sizes. One possibility this opens is a full bore round ball for large game, or one seated tightly in an SP8 type wads as a sabot. The barrel, for a sub 10 pound gun, are quite sturdy. The thinnest part of the breech is .37 inches. The point 2" in front of the chamber is well over 1/4"; 15" down the barrel is almost .2" thick and the muzzle is over .1" . The barrel is smooth and polished and doesn't have one pinprick anywhere inside. I suspect you could drive a big hunk of lead at a pretty good speed with no ptoblem
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