Odd Lifter Gauge… Opinions?

[Aron Cochran]

Gentlemen, I am trying to figure what configuration my old lifter shotgun is. Oscar Gaddy rebrowned the barrels and serviced the gun about 25 years ago.
I have never fired it and do not intend to, but the barrel size seems a bit off and I thought I would ask for any input. The barrels have not been honed or modified. It’s a fairly early gun and I know they manufacture some uncommon gauge sizes, I thought I would see if this rang a bell with anyone. Thanks in advance.
Left Bore: .765
Right Bore: .750

Left Choke: .755
Right Choke: .750

Chamber Mouth: .797 On Right And Left Barrels.

[B. Dudley]

That is a nice gun!

[ArtS]

I have one very similar to that with decarbonized barrels and a few hundred higher serial number. It has barrels that are right at .750. The early guns up through 1880 and a little later normally had oversize bores. The 12 gauge standard was a true 11 gauge barrel and the 10 gague was a true 9 gauge barrel. I believe your gun is a 12 gauge with the standard barrels (11 gauge) for the period. This came about from the original thin wall brass shells of the period. A factory letter for my gun showed that it was returned 30 years later to have it rechambered for the later larger diameter paper shells in order to shoot the current standard ammo.

I suspect the left barrel was opened up sightly at some time to either clean up pitting or to provide some choke in the left barrel. Many doubles of this period had no choke from the factory due to being made at the end of the muzzleloader era. Your gun was likely made around 1869-1870. The lookup shows that it was made pre-1974. Unfortunately the records check shows there is no info from which to generate a factory letter. Mine only recieved one because of the later rechambering. Either way, it is a very nice example of one of the first 1000 pin lifter Parkers and is a better than standard grade due to having Damascus barrels, front action locks and nice wood. There are very few of these around and are now becoming much harder to procure by people who are trying to round out collections. No way to tell, but there were a very limited number made, many fewer survive, and ones in that shape are rare.

[Aron Cochran]

Thank you for the info. I found it very strange there was no gauge/bore marking on the water table. Sounds like it is just an early gun with a goofy bore size. It’s unfortunate this gun is too early to letter and research. If anyone thinks they can provide more info with additional photos or measurements- let me know and I will gladly provide what I can.
Thanks again for taking the time to provide the information.

[ArtS]

Actually,it is notdue to age that there is no letter available, it is simply due to there being no information available according to the lookup. You can go to the home page and enter the serial number and it will tell you if factory records are available. For your number, it shows there are none. ''

The other relevent fact is that Parkers were never marked with any gauge designation. The only way to determine it is measure the chamber or use chamber gauges (or measure the chamber). I always found this extremely odd, but that is the situation.The fact that early guns often had oversized barrels due to the brass shotshell sizes at the time leads to more confusion. You see ads regularly for rare 11 gauge and 9 gauge guns when they are actually just 12 and 10 gauge guns with oversized barrels. The chamber is the defining criteria and is what matches the factory records. I have even seen people trying to sell these claiming "a mistake in the records" as the reason their rare gun slipped through unnoticed.

[Aron Cochran]

Interesting to know, thank you again. I don’t know much history of this gun before I purchased it, I appreciate the information. It’s a very interesting old shotgun, the fit & finish is very impressive. Thank you all again for the help with identification.