Bore vs Chamber

[ArtS]

I have another question concerning early Parker bore vs chambering. I started another thread not long ago about 11 gauges and their misidentification. I thought I understood the situation with 10, 11, and 12 gauge barrels and chambers and the (I believe) common misidentifaction of 12 gauges as 11 gauge guns. However, I recently happened across a thread several years old that may be the longest running thread I have seen on this board. In it, the existance of 13 and 14 gauge guns was discussed and a huge number of people weighed in on the gun the original poster was questioning. It turned out to be a 12 gauge with 12B chambers. His hope was that he had found a 13 gauge.

I was amazed in the 10+ pages of posts as to the different opinions offered and the incorrect useage of terminology which continuously confused the issue throughout the thread. Toward the end of the thread a well respected shotgun expert contributed a number of comments on the subject and his premise seemed to be parker used a number of bore sizes and a number of chambers (which is true). However his opinion was that the use of overbored barrels in early Parkers was not really true, but that they used a lot of under and oversized chambers. Also, that they made more 11 and 14 gauges than reported.

Now, that can be absolutely true, but depends totally on your frame of reference. In modern times, a number of manufacturers started selling overbored trap guns and waterfowl guns with barrels as large as .745 inches. They didn't sell these as 11 gauges, even though this is what the barrels truly were. They were marked 12 gauge which was the size of the chamber.

Since Parker normally didn't mark its guns as to chambering, the factory stock books would seem to be the determining factor.

I think the fundamental question is, what is the consensus determining factor as to the identification of the gun?

My opinion is that if the stock book shows the gun left the factory as a 10 gauge, it is a 10 gauge no matter that the bores were 9, 10 or 11 gauge. The same goes for the 12 gauge. That is the headstamped cartridge that fits the factory chamber and is officially the chambering of the gun. The rest is truly just over and underboring. A gun with 11 gauge chambers is rare, and a 12 gauge with 11 barrels isn't because it isn't an 11 gauge from a collectibility standpoint.