doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The fit of these barrels...

...is starting to make me wonder if I overlooked something. The barrel walls are not in line with the top edge of the breech face. Also, there is no noticeable gap between the barrel flat and the watertable. Is this Lefever or is something awry?

I haven't been back to see it in person and only have my phone pictures to assess.

Thank you!

Shoot straight,

Bird

10 gauge gun with 12 gauge barrels?
Mike

That's the likely reason. If so, the firing pins probably strike high on the primer.

Barrels are usually struck with them being on the frame/receiver. It is quite possible that these are another set of barrels.

I do not know much about Lefevers, but some double gun manufactures made different weight frames and so naturally the barrels would be different in the breech.

I have 12ga Lefevers weighing from 6� lbs to 8 lbs. I have at least 3 different pin spacing's as well as width & height of the standing breech. These could just as easily be a light weight set of barrels on a heavy weight frame as to be of a different gauge. One thing I think is pretty certain, they didn't leave the factory like that, not even an Ithaca assembled one.

Sorry to leave you hanging for the day.

Its a 20ga on a XX frame with damascus barrels. I could imagine a "re-gauged" if you told me 16ga were built on the XX frame. They were right?

Also, i could believe rebarreled if it currently sported steel barrels. Rebarreled to damascus?

Dolls head fit perfectly. I would call it on the heavier side with barrels and forend weighing just over 3lbs.

Intrrestingly enough the barrels are each stamped with different serial numbers that are off by one. Looked to be stamped by same tools.

My 16 gauige frame is marked XX. I have also heard of a few lightweight 12 gauge guns built on the XX frame, though I don't have one. My 16 on the XX frame weighs in at 6 3/4lbs while I have a 12ga not on the XX frame which only goes 6� lbs. The Bar of the frame is slightly slimmer on the 16 XX but the breech is a bit larger on the 12, though the barrel walls are thinner. Both are H grades with twist barrels. None of mine have a mis-match lik e that including this 12 which is a very late Ithaca gun which also has a mis-match on SN's from the frame to barrels (4 numbers apart).

With Lefever, I could see this being a totally original gun. A 20 gauge Damascus barrel is so scarce, I can't see it being a put together gun. Good doll's head and water table fit pretty much precludes a put together gun. Fire a couple of shells with primers in them to see if pins are centered on the chamber centers. We would like to see more of this gun. I would buy this gun. If you pass on this one, PM me the location.

Bill,Good to know my 20 gauge damascus GE is scarce.I have never seen another. Bobby

Several years ago (10-12?) while in a Charlotte, NC gunshop; I met an individual looking at a Parker and we struck up a conversation that eventually lead to my being invited to his home and examining some of his very interesting "gun stuff". One of those interesting pieces was a Lefever 16 gauge EE purchased new by his grandfather back in the day; a gun that had seen it's share of honest use, and a gun that had been the benefactor of a crudely done beavertail forearm wood at some point. But what made this gun interesting (besides the fact that its original wooden shipping crate with Lefever label had survived) was the fact that it had a second set of barrels; and that those barrels were in 20-bore with provinance. Seems his grandfather had determined that he wanted a second set of barrels for his EE; and for reasons known only to him (but as this was in the late teens, most likely due to the fact that Lefever Arms had ceased operations), he sent the gun to Parker Brothers for the additional barrels. In the letter response shown me from Parker Brothers he was advised that, although they were certainly capable of doing this work; the required additional tooling would be prohibitively expensive, and suggested that he send his gun to the Ithaca Gun Co. in Ithaca, NY instead. So Ithaca fitted a new set of 20-bore manual extractor barrels to this 16-gauge EE to include a separate splinter forearm wood (perhaps Ithaca had no small bore ejector barrels remaining at the time, but this EE had in-frame ejectors). I don't recall anything in the letter stating bore size, or that the original owner intentionally requested 20 gauge barrels; so perhaps no 16-bore barrels remained available when the request was received, so a set of twenty gauge barrels were substituted instead? I also don't recall if the second barrel set was steel or Damascus (the original 16-gauge barrels were Damascus); nor do I recall how well these smaller bore barrels fit the breech balls, but probably would have remembered that odd detail had the fit had been as pronounced as those in the above pic. And although I've seen and owned a fair number of Lefevers, that is the only Lefever example I've ever seen that was a 2-gauge set.