doublegunshop.com - home Forums Thread Like Summary - George L's 4 bore Reilly - amazing price

Sam Shiller, the confidant and agent for Cyril Adams, sent this advertisement for a 4 bore SxS under-lever Reilly shotgun SN 15625 (dated per my chart to 1869). This is George L's shotgun from this board advertised a few years ago at $50K! And this gun is almost unique. It was originally a pin-fire converted to center fire:
https://www.invaluable.com/auction-...bore-sxs-double-rifle-in-292-c-045433c87


The starting bid price is $4K, almost unbelievable.

Here is the DGS line about the gun:
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=550059

And here is the 2009 thread when George L. bought it...look at the West Tennessee guy's insulting comments at the time - he was a jerk then, he was wrong then, oh well....no change.
https://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=181400&page=1

I'm wondering about George's health. Haven't heard from him for awhile...he was selling off his collection a couple of years ago after the death of his daughter.

The case wall of a 4-bore paper case is relatively thick, perhaps twice or more than that of a paper 12 bore case.

I think you will find that, to better match the interior diameter of the case to be used, 4 bore guns built for paper cases were made with smaller bore diameters than 4 bores which were built for brass cases.

George never wanted to sell it at the time. I recall he had 7-8,000 in it after the restoration. The estimated value is 8-12,000. His 50,000 I think was as much a joke to himself as to many others. There was a lot of discussion about what it started out as and if it was safe to shoot. Always a subjective and personal thing to me. Hope it does well. It was well worth restoring from its sad state.

It it was likely originally a 8 bore brass case gun chambered for at least a 3&1/8" cartridge. None of my books show an example of a 6 bore cartridge gun. It may very well have been a smooth bore ball gun, the 36" tubes would be very long for a rifle. The bolted safeties look original to the gun.

Do we know the actual weight of the rifle? I believe 29 pnds is incorrect.

Steve

This shows why our Proof laws exist!!! That gun would be unsaleable and so it should be.

Looking more closely at the online photos of this gun, the extractor and surrounding metal is heavily pitted. Yet the chambers and bores are like new. This points to a very recent re-bore, probably because the original 8-bore bores looked like the extractor, all pitted. Which made the gun a lot less attractive. None of this is disclosed or even hinted at in the auction description. Buyer beware. What a lesson