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From researching the origin of center-break pinfires for the Reilly history, I came across arguments in the UK press from the 1850's at the very beginning of break-action guns in UK, on the use of a squared off shoulder at the end of the Chamber. Apparently this was the way Lefaucheaux made his guns and this was copied. The first UK-made commercially marketed center-break gun was of course by Lang in Jan 1854 and apparently he copied Lefaucheaux and used the squared off shoulder. Later, he and others tapered it. It appears the squared off shoulder was European and it looks iike it remained in use in Europe long after the chambers had begun to be tapered in UK.

Here are two letters in "The Field" from 1858 dealing with the issue:

02 January 1858, "The Field." Letter in which the author discusses Lang using the shoulder in his original center-break guns (1st one appeared in January 1854), then later switching to tapering the shoulder:



09 January 1858, "The Field." Reply by Lang (in his usual snotty way), in which he said he always ground off the shoulder (which makes you think he was getting his barrels from Belgium). This is gainsaid by the editor of "The Field."