doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com More help with UK proof marks

Is it possible that this gun has been proofed three times? Once when new, a second time in 2004 as a nitro proof and then when lined after sometime in 2005 or later.

Vanishingly unlikely that a gun that passes proof in 2004 would be so neglected as to justify Teague lining a year or 2 later.

Given that Proof is a potential destructive process of a valuable item, it makes sense to try to avoid a gun making repeat visits.

Proof regulations may take time to catch up with current practice.

It occurs to me that the words LINED might have been inscribed by those (Teague’s ?) who lined the barrels before submitting them to Proof.

They appear to be stamped (presumably with very solid internal support for the liner) but with hindsight it might have been safer to etch them

Argo,

interesting and unusual extractor system on this gun. Any reason why?

As a gunsmith here in the UK.

The "Sleeved" marks are still used on new and old sleeving jobs this mark is still in use.

"lined" refers as others have said to teague liners. The idea was to save old damascus guns, by lining you could keep the appearance of finely wrought Damascus but have the bores restored to like new, by boring the original barrels that were shot out, out of proof, pitted or corroded or with terribly thin walls, essentially the guns were rebored and a liner was fitted into the tube through its full length, its always been my understanding that an epoxy of some kind held the liner in and filled any voids between liner and the barrel. In the short term it seemed to be an ideal solution, the guns passed proof, the damascus outer barrels were retained and the bores were like new.

Sadly the process was flawed, some of the issues were that once damaged or dented the dents were impossible to removed, also the nature of the two dissimilar metals sat next to eachother meant that they heated and cooled at different rates, expanding differently and causing the inner or outer barrel to "rivel" which was an issue beyond repair. The last thing was that the guns never quite handled as they should, the addition of thin wall lining tube through the length tended to give the guns a bit of a "dead weight" feel in the hands.

The marks "lined" are no longer used on shotguns because nobody now carries out this work in the UK. Though the mark may still be used at proof on rifle barrels that are lined but is never used to describe sleeving

The process is entirely different from sleeving, which is a topic heavily covered on these forums.

With sleeving the original barrels are cut off just forward of the lump, the chambers are bored out over size and new tubes are fitted and welded into position, the chambers are then re cut in the new tubes and the whole is struck off to match as closely as possible the original contours of the original barrels. There is good sleeving work and bad sleeving work but the end result is you end up with barrels that are like new inside and out... the handling characteristics and such depend on the quality of the job. When proofed these barrels are marked "sleeved" in the old days this used to be on the tubes themselves, now they are on the action flats with all the other marks.

Re the ejectors, here is the original ad on Christies on 01 December 1998: Jefferies Patent ejector:

https://www.christies.com/LotFinder/print_sale.aspx?saleid=8291
LOT 143
A RARE 12-BORE HAMMER EJECTOR GUN BY E.M. REILLY, NO. 30394
ESTIMATE. £400 - £800. ($662 - $1,323)
PRICE REALIZED. £460 ($761)
30394 - E.M. Reilly & Co., Oxford Street, London. 12 bore. SxS shotgun, hammer gun, ejector. Jeffries patent ejector 7895-85 #1 of pair.

Reilly paid royalties on a lot of different patents during this time and his use of the Jefferies ejectors may have been alluded to in an 1888 review of his exhibit at the 1885 London International Inventions Exposition.

Subsequently Stimpson wrote an article in "Double Gun Journal" about the #2 gun of the pair, presumably 30395, which per the article he found in a gun shop; it was sleeved with 28" barrels. The article goes on to mention that when 30394 was found on-line (presumably bought from Christies above in 1998), it had original but pitted 30" Damascus barrels. I only have two pages of the article. But assume that when Stimson got his hands on it, he had in "lined." If that were after 2005, was it reproofed yet again? If anyone has the final parts of the story, it might be interesting.