I was visiting with a gunsmith friend, and he got one of these in his shop. It's a sidelock hammer gun, side lever, 10 bore. It appears to have a two and 7/8 chamber. There is a gun on the collectors firearms website, AS148, that looks exactly like it. Except it's a somewhat higher grade. And it doesn't look like it was left in a barn for the last century. But this one is functional. There's only a handful of proof marks on the water table, crossed halberds, the numbers 11, and maybe one or two other small marks. I'm guessing it was made in the 1870s or 1880s, and I know 10 gauge loads were pretty light back then. Would there have also been heavy loads for waterfowling? That I can tell, none of the proof marks indicate heavy proof loads. And this is a heavy gun, nine and 3/4 lb, and it feels like 6 lb of it is the barrel. Would a waterfowl gun have been that heavy for relatively light loads? Asking, because I know pretty much nothing about these guns.
Tim
