Parker factory test loads?

[Autumn Daze]

A couple of other things to consider....Parker would target guns with any load specified by the customer within reason. Also we know the the factory loaded their own shells as the PGCA owns one of the loading machines. Were these machines used for creating proof loads or targeting loads I don't think we know for certain.

[Bill Murphy]

Thanks, Dave, great information. Yes, order books are full of customer requests for weird patterns with weirder ammunition. It would be interesting to see if these weird requests were followed all the way to the stock book entries. Of course, we would need the assistance of the research committee to check this out.

[Pa SxS]

I'm going to add some extra info I found while learning to read the stock books.

Many times the order book will specify how the customer wants the barrels choked. The stock book always recorded patterning information but unfortunately it's at the far right of the page and quite often much of the information is not there, it's cut off.

What I found on the very early S/N guns (1500 to 3900 in stock book # 1) was that both 10 and 12ga guns were patterened with #8 shot, 45yds, and a 18x24 target. I don't know if the target was a rectangle or an oval but all the patterning info that is readable, all used these specs. At about S/N 3950, you start to see 18x24 along with just 24 (with a circle around it.) Shortly there after, all patterning was done for both 10 and 12ga using #8 shot in a 24" circle at 45yards. Years later, it changed to 40 yards in a 30" circle.

Sometimes in the order book the customer will specify what brand of shot to use and also the size. I haven't correlated the order book with the stock book yet.

I'll add more confusion to this topic. In the 1882 catalog, it lists "Comparative Sizes of Drop Shot" table. There were 9 different manufacturers of drop shot listed along with the number of pellets to the ounce. Tatham shot was often used by Parker, they had 399 pellets of #8 shot to the ounce. The range of all manufactures was 365 on the low end to 434 on the high end. Kind of makes figuring out your chokes difficult if you don't know who made the shot. No standards back in those days.