Stock Book Help

[B. Dudley]

Chuck,

There is info in the stock books about Drams of Shot unsed in patterning.
Please refer to page 866 of TPS. It shows a photo of a near full stock book page from 1928. unfourtunately the top neader columns are not in the photo, but it does go all the way to the side. It shows a column with a date in it even ferther than the one you mention. But, it shows the same fractional number after patterning info. In this case, mostly 2-1/2 and 3. But, on this page all of the letters do have "dr." or drs. written after it.

The couple other examples of stock book pages in TPS are photocopies, just like the ones you use, which cut off those last columns. Page 866 is the only actual Photo of a full page in TPS.

Also,

See this attached photo of a stock book from 1913. I took this photo while I was at Remington. It is the one stock book that is on display in their museum. This shows the column headers. The column that you are referring to is labeled "Remarks" in this book. And they same info we speal of is listed here as well. With "Drs" after it. And it looks like they note that 7/8 oz of shot was used in most cases (in a few going as high as 1-1/4 oz) right before the drams of powder.

Parker Trip 142.jpg

The 1928 example in TPS also shows the oz. of shot and drams. And also those dates. One above that info and then another date with a large "X". Looks like there was a variation in header titles from 1913 to 1928.

[Pa SxS]

Right now, I'm leaning towards that number/fraction being the width across the breach. This should also be the width across the bolsters. Every so often there is extra info to the right of the number/fraction and I can make out the abbreviation for barrels (Bbl).

Brian, in the example of a stock book page in TPS, that's from 1923 and the page I scanned is from 1880 so they may have changed as to what was put in each column. I do agree that what you see is dram equivalent. But notice that 12ga's were at 3dr and 16ga's were 2 1/2. Parker recommended 3dr for 12ga's and 2 3/4 to 3 dr for 16ga's.

In looking at a lot of stock book pages, the most common number/fraction found is 2 3/8 which would be a 2 frame. 2 frames were the most common for 12ga back then and also used sometimes for the 10ga. 2 1/4 would be a 1 frame, 2 3/8 would be a 2 frame (most commonly found in my scan), 2 12 for a 3 frame, and 2 5/8 for a size 4 frame.

S/N's 16985 to 18282 in stock book #6 are the only examples found with these numbers/fractions. I'll have Larry Frey measure across the bolsters on his hammer gun and see if correlates to what is found in the stock book. If anyone has a hammer gun in those S/N ranges, measure the width across the bolsters and let me know.

One other thing, did they make shells back in those days that correlate to those numbers/fractions? Did they make 2 1/2, 2 3/4, 2 1/4 2 5/8 dram shells???