First of all, THANK YOU for letting me join this forum. Looks like I'll be spending plenty time here.

I recently was given a 1883 Colt 10g SxS shotgun with Damascus barrels . It appears the barrels were 24" but long ago someone added another 6" to the barrels. The solder ring is clearly visible. Was this done at Colt or was this done at some other point in its life? Fortunately, there was a large dent in the added section so it was removed and the barrels are back to 24"
It did not have a stock and the forend was in disrepair.
80% fitted wood was ordered from Macon Stock Works and it was fitted and finished by a local gunsmith with not so great results. But better than I would have done!
The internals of this gun appear like new. No wear is detected and all mechanicals work perfectly. It is 100% on face....
I cut down 3.5" plastic hulls to 2.75" (Impossible to find brass or paper hulls at this time)
I plan on loading with BP and #8 shot with a glued over shot card for Cowboy Action shooting....

But now I see "Little Skeeter" 10g to 12g inserts. This might be a much better way to go as I already load 12g Black Powder and have 10s of thousands of once fired 12g hulls.

I would offer that the insert might also slightly reinforce the chamber area of this shotgun. Although the chamber and barrels are much thicker than any other Damascus barrels in my collection. This gun weighs just under 10# with 24" tubes! It's a brute....

Anyone have any experience with these inserts?

Another option is to sleeve the whole barrel to 20g as I have a set of 20G side by side barrels I could take apart and install in this shotgun. I have lots of experience with lining barrels for rifles.....See here:

http://rvbprecision.com/firearms/oops-1859-sharps-barrel-liner.html

http://rvbprecision.com/firearms/bring-another-one-back-dead-1885-winchester-low-wall.html

http://rvbprecision.com/shooting/1873-winchester.html

www.rvbprecision.com

Anything else you can add would be greatly appreciated.....Looking forward to seeing what others say...Thank You

BTW...Lots of pictures here:

https://public.fotki.com/Rbertalotto/things-that-go-bang/1882-colt-sxs-shotgun/

The correct model is 1883; and welcome to the forum, but I'm curious. If you have the skill and equipment to sleeve barrels; then why didn't you use the original mono-block and sleeve a new set of steel tubes into same? Using that method you could have kept the original 10-bore configuration, which I suspect were 30" tubes; or reduced to a 12 bore as it appears the original ribs were fine. That might not be an option now, as I assume you've chopped the top rib.

Do you have any pictures of the soldered "extension"? I have never seen a barrel extended in such a fashion...

I want to keep it in original condition. I'm convinced the barrel extension was not original. I would still like to shoot a few 10g low power Black Powder shells if they become available.

sure looks like one piece and not extended to me.

the little skeeters work ok with mild loads, with heavier loads, it becomes difficult to remove the spent shell from the skeeter insert

the chamber mate inserts work better if you can find them.

I think there are other brands out there as well

I don't care if the shell is hard to remove from the Skeeter....But the Skeeter, with the shell inside, needs to be easily removed from the shotgun with only the extractors help.

that hasn't been a problem with the ones I have used.

I don't think that there was a 6" extension soldered onto those Colt barrels.

Solder doesn't rust, but there is clearly rust on what RoyB believes to be a solder joint. Also, if the large dent the RoyB spoke of is in the lower left area of that photo, that could have been removed very easily.

The time to ask questions about this supposed barrel extension was before it was removed... not after the barrels were permanently shortened!

If you're OK shooting 12 gauge shells why not make your own chamber reducers and solder/fix them in there permanently. Gunsmith Buck Hamlin has done this on a fair number of Damascus 10-bores he's owned; has used them very successfully with 3.5" 12 gauge shells for turkey hunting.

I thought about doing that, but then I'd need to modify the extractor and wouldn't be able to use 10g shells when available.

I like the idea of having 6-8 of these inserts as a normal stage only shoots 4-6 shells.....If you miss, you need a reload. And these Little Skeets are easily reloaded to be ready for the next stage. My concern is how do they eject with a simple jerk of the opened shotgun backwards. That's how its done in Cowboy action shooting....

Here is a video showing the technic....(Go to 2.46 to skip the first part)

I have seen a lot of cowboy guns that shouldn't be shot ,slickered up oversized chambers unsafe triggers.

Only 135,000 +/- folks playing cowboy with "slicked" up shotguns and I've not heard of anyone ever getting hurt with a malfunctioning shotgun. A few revolvers have blown up and a number of rifles have had the stacked magazines go boom.....But not shotguns. Thankfully in all these years, no serious injuries. Amazingly safe sport involving firearms.

Agreed.
The pattern seems uninterrupted at the “joint”.
What do you think explains the lines?