doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com LC Smith with Laminated steel barrels?

Saw one today, Field grade. Thought laminated would have been used on a higher grade?

Was kinda interesting....ebony forend tip as well.

Best,
Mark

If it was a Field Grade with Laminated (Twist) Steel barrels that is an unusual gun. The Field Grade was a 00 Gr. before the grade change to nouns in 1913, was listed as having Armor steel barrels only, however a 20 ga. Field Gr. has shown up with Damascus barrels. They, Hunter, would please you in any way reasonable.

Thanks David:)

It was real laminated, not twist though.

Mark

And it was marked "Field Grade"? Very unusual.

L.C. Smith used Laminated barrels on only one hammerless gun, and that was the Gr. 1. Only used from 1892-1898. They were available on hammer guns
It would be interesting to see if the serial numbers match. Like I said before they would make anything you wanted within reason.

Seems to fall right in there with the Parker Bros. Trojans with Twist barrels and VH-Grades with Damascus barrels.

Just checked serial number on collectors sight, 1891.

If the sn date is correct, then some of the other reported facts don't jive. The Field Grade was not marked and cataloged as such until 1913 (Grade was roll-stamped atop the right barrel); and I believe I recall that the OO Grade was not introduced until 1898. What is the serial number? If the number does date the gun to 1891, it will be a 5 digit number starting with the number 3 (3XXXX); and laminated steel barrels would have been used on lower grade Smith guns from the 1891 era. Please advise

s/n 339xx....I am beggining to doubt myself now!! I know it was laminated, round knob, ebony insert...having major lack of confidence on everything else now though...did numbers match? no engraving? barrel markings?

Sounds like a very early Grade 1/Quality 1 Gun (for a while after the Hunter Brothers acquired the Smith gun, they made Grade and Quality models concurrently; often makes ID on these early guns tough and confusing). This was the lowest grade/quality Smith hammerless gun offered at the time, and to make things even more confusing; some are not engraved, some have a simple line border and maybe a flourish of scroll, and then there's the real odd duck like the Grade 1 JDW owns with dogs on each lockplate. To further confuse the issue, some of these very early hammerless guns have no grade mark at all; and even in surviving early serial number/shipping records, there are many guns listed without a grade identifier. Laminated Steel would be the correct barrel steel; and round knob grips are not uncommon on these early guns. Ebony forend tips were standard on all pre-1913 Smith hammerless guns regardless of grade with some of the very early Fulton marked guns having a forend tip identical the those of the Syracuse guns they replaced; but after the transition period, all pre-13 Smith forends featured the "V" shaped tip most commonly associated with the Smith gun.