Mr. Cartmell:

Deciphering what I can from the few photos I've seen, this very-light non-ejector is early in Skimin & Wood's 2-inch production, likely from 1930. I don't yet see the JA mark on this guns barrel flats (at least from what I can make out).

I have yet to find a defining history of the 2-inch guns that fills in all of the holes. We had several H&H 2-inch guns and even a Purdey at the shop which I know were built in-house (the Purdey was built for a Maharajah), but we also had some Lincoln Jeffries guns that did not seem to be Skimin & Woods production (IIRC the action bodies were very different) and there were several others (can't recall them all now). Mark Reynolds liked them for the shop and picked up every decent one he could when he was buying in England, so we usually had one or two on hand during the busy years. We also stocked several RST 2-inch shell loads.

The 26-inch tubed guns didn't work all that well for me but... the longer ones seemed simply magical. As I've mentioned earlier here, I coveted almost every one (but could not justify the expense while my little Brummy BLE 16 was working so-well for me).

The reference library from my working days there...

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

My questions would be: did they all have Churchill ribs(?), how many had ejectors(most?), how many had 28-inch tubes (not many, I'd reckon?), what were standard chokes & LOP, what were standard wall-thicknesses (I've measured some shocking ones, a MacPherson & a Holland still comes to mind), and what were the more-common ranges of embellishment?

A good Vic Venters article on the subject: https://shootingsportsman.com/short-shell-12-2-guns/

Last edited by Lloyd3; 07/16/26 09:41 AM.