choke question

[Pa SxS]

Attached is a graph that Austin Hogan made. As you can see, around S/N 65k and before 1891, the bores were oversized. After 1891 or so, the bore diameter was brought down to nominal size of .730 or so.

The majority of entries in the order books do not show what the chokes should be. When chokes are listed, an example would be RH cyl, LH full, or RH modified/LH full. Occasionally in the order book you could sometimes see the customer wanted a certain number of pellets for each barrel, the size of the shot, the distance, and the diameter of the circle. In some cases, they also indicated what powder to use, what pellet size, and the weight of the pellets.

If it's not listed in the order book but we have a stock book entry for this gun, we can get an idea of the choke by looking at how many pellets hit within the circle. Problem is is that when they copied the stock books the scanner wasn't long enough to include all the info found in the stock book. Depending on how the book was placed in the copier the patterning info is not there or just the pellet count can be seen or you may see the pellet count and the size of the shot, or in the best case, you see the number of pellets, the size of the pellet, the distance, and the diameter of the circle. This is why we want to get access again to the original records. If the chokes were different in both barrels, each barrel would have it's pellet count. If only one entry for the number of pellets, both barrels were the same choke. Also remember that a #8 size shot varied depending on who manufactured the shot. I think Parker mostly used Tatham shot. See the attachment.

The original stock books had more information after the patterning column and I think it showed what powder was used and some additional information at the end of the page. This is why we want to get access again to the original records.

[John McComb]

Thanks guys. I am learning a bunch from you all.

John