doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Husqvarna 103 info

I bought the Husqvarna 103 listed here for sale. New to these and would appreciate any pointers to info about them. Seems like a good choice for a first hammer gun, and would like to learn some about them.

Were these guns ever covered in a DGJ issue?

Frederick Frazen covered many of the Husqvarna shotguns in one article in the 1993-1994 timeframe.
Don't quite remember which issue but I will try to find it tomorrow evening.

103s are wonderful guns. Very well made for the price. I currently have a 12 ga 103A gun. The letter after the 103 designates the grade of the gun and indicates better wood and more engraving. If the gun also has a S after the A,B,C then that indicates special nickel steel barrels. The barrels will be stamped as such (on the top) and the barrel flats will be marked with a swastika which is an old symbol for good luck, as I understand. There was a site that had good info on the Huskys but last time I checked the site was down.

Your gun should have originally had 2 1/2" chambers & I would not recommend shooting 2 3/4" shells due to the steep/sharp transition from the chambers to the forcing cones.

If I remember correctly the Double Gun Journal mentioned above is vol.9
issue 3.

Many of the 103s that are hitting the market have been imported by Simpson's over the past decade or so. Some of them may have had their chambers lengthened or forcing cones opened up a bit by their original owners in Sweden. I haven't measured the chamber length yet on my 103A but the forcing cone is much more gradual than my 51, which is very abrupt.

The only site that I've found that has any info on the 103s is this one, with very little info and much of it not seeming to be correct: http://www.shotguns.se/html/hammer_guns_2.html

This site - http://www.skydevaaben.com/allhvamodels/info.xml - used to have a fair number of details of Husqvarna models, but it went down last fall. I managed to save an HTML version of the page as it was cached by Google before it went down. Supposedly it is a verbatim list of all Husqvarna models as published in the Husqvarna museum book. According to it, the 103s were manufactured from 1911-1940 and all but the base 103 model were available with either 65mm or 70mm chambers, I'm assuming the 70mm becoming available after the 165,900 serial number.

Found the DGJ article by Fredrik Franzen on Husqvarna shotguns.
Autumn 1992, volume 3, issue 3, page 24.
I did a quick glance at the article but did not see the model 103 but there is a photo of a 102.

Just FYI, I've posted the Husqvarna information from the Skydevaaben site here: http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?967434-Looking-for-a-Link

I have a 103CS and the Husqvarna book. The 103 is a great gun. Does yours have any letters after the "103"? If you let me know the letters and gauge, I can tell you how many of that model were made. Also, I think I can look up the date of manufacture if you give me the serial number range. Mike Covington (above) sets it out pretty well.

Take care,
Mike
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Thanks Mike. This one is a 103C, sn 87689. It�s been through the ultrasonic and nice hot oil bath, the barrels are being reblued, and i�m trying to finish up the straight stock conversion. Mark, the seller here, found a nice trigger guard that has engraving that matches the rest of the gun.

It looks like your 103C was built in 1914. The Husqvarna Book (Husqvarna Jaktvapen 1870-1977) shows they made 230 model 103C in 12 gauge. Let�s see some pictures when it is finished. Congratulations on a fine gun. My 103CS is pretty much my favorite, especially for quail! Enjoy yours!