Heirloom Shotgun

 "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." - Epictetus

Brief post so regular visitors don't think I've been buried in snow like the iceman - although that's always a possibility this time of year.  It's a busy time of year, with Christmas preparations in between working and moving snow.

I was putting up garland around one of the doors, and right above the door frame is an old shotgun that we picked up at an antique store decades ago.  

I was very taken with the gun at the antique store because:

• It's old and cool
• It has beautiful laminated steel barrels
• It looks good hanging on the wall

Anyway, while I was up on the ladder attaching garland, I took a couple of close photos of it.  Which made me wonder how old it must be, and I'd guess around 1850 or so.  I'll have to see if I can locate some maker marks on it.

The workmanship and engraving is very pretty.  You can also tell that it was made by hand in a workshop - and not using anything like modern machining process.  I suspect each piece was hand made for this particular gun, and parts from this gun would not work on another gun from the same shop without some tinkering.  Parts were not generally interchangeable back in the hand-made era.  Even the screws look hand-made.

The barrels are absolutely beautiful, with ripple patterns of the folded steel showing on the surface.  

Of course this gun is completely unsafe to fire, even with weak black powder - it's for display only.  The laminations tend to get corrosion between the folds and the barrels can easily split open if the gun were to be fired - and firing a modern shell would undoubtedly destroy the gun.  

I'll see about dusting it off and getting some other images of it, and maybe some background if I can find any manufacturer stamps.  I don't even know what gauge the bore is.

Below is a higher resolution image of an old English shotgun of very similar design that I found on the web.  This is making me curious!

Edit:  Fun fact - The "Gauge" of a shotgun is an old English measurement for what fraction of a pound of lead that a spherical lead ball will fit inside.  A 12 gauge shotgun will fit a lead ball that weighs 1/12 of a pound of lead :)  An interesting and and unnecessarily complicated way of measuring the diameter of the bore! 

UPDATE:  I pulled the old gun down and took a few more pictures of it.  It's pretty beat up, and definitely nothing that would be considered a collectible by a firearms enthusiast.  Like I said before, it looks cool hanging on the wall as an heirloom.  Pictures follow.

Below:  Breech, hammers, and lever to open the breech.  All nicely engraved.  It's interesting that each hammer has a different pattern.

Below, the lever forces a locking pin off to the left, allowing the breech to open.  If there was once a spring mechanism to return the locking lever back to lock position, it is gone.  The gun has a tendency to flop open if you inadvertently move the lever, and there is no spring tension keeping the lever in place.

Below:  Trigger mechanism and body of the break-open mechanism.  All nicely (although somewhat primitively) engraved too!

Below:  the fore-end wood has split open.

Below:  Between the barrels is a nicely engraved strip of steel with the maker mark.  It says "Clabrough & Johnstone Price St Birmingham" - indicating that the shotgun was made in Birmingham, England.  There's an interesting article about J.P. Clabrough gun history here.

That would indicate that the oldest the gun could possibly be is 1892, but probably not much newer than that, as the hammerless designs were gaining popularity at the time.

I rough-measured the bore with a tape measure, and the diameter is roughly 11/32 of an inch, or 0.6875 inch - which would make it roughly 14 gauge (0.693").  That measurement may be meaningless, since most shotguns are choked down.  I didn't have time to find a caliper and take a measurement inside the breech.   

  Sadly, it isn't as old as I thought it was, but it's still a pretty item to look at.  To be honest, it's been hanging there so long that I tend to forget it's even there.  I'll have a gander at some other items like that on the walls in the near future!  Cool stuff.