coming back to the poiint about 13/1 being out of proof..this is very badly misunderstood in the USA imho....nearly every live bird gun made was proofed at under .729, and the reason was that the barrel makers left metal in the barrels to allow to final hand tuning/hand polishing of the bores to get the tightest possible patterns or the pattern the customer needed to drop the bird from 21 yards within the scoring zone, and a bird could very quickly get to the 50 yard distance for the second shot.
The whole thing about this is that pigeon guns were always made heavy, and the barrels are necessary way thicker at the thinnest point than a light game gun..to dwell on a 13/1 being 'out of proof' (esp in a country without proof laws) when it has say .032" walls now (at the thinnest point)and started life as a say .728 and .040"...and is now .736" and technically 'out of proof' is just totally ridiculous...especially as the same gun would readily pass a re-proof (abeit now devalued by the reduction of value due to loss of originality)..I ask you...would you give your son a 13/1 that runs .736 and has .032" in the walls or a 12 with a still in proof .739" and .022" in the walls?
I doubt this perception held today with heavy guns was ever the intention of the worshipful company of gunmakers, but by golly its giving lots of work to the brits ..and very unecessarily in most cases. Just leave them alone if they have plenty of wall thickness, and as for it devalueing the gun..total nonsense!
Last edited by PrenticeBros_Oz; 04/13/10 03:06 AM.
