Bill, when you look down the bores of the barrels you can see concentric rings. This is true with rifle barrels as well as shotgun barrels. If the barrel is not perfectly straight the rings will not be concentric. Rings in a bent barrel look closer together on the "inside of the bend" and farther apart on the "outside of the bend". Many people don't know how to look for this, but it is easy to see once you know. I cannot speak for anybody else's, but none of my doubles exhibit the non-concentric rings that would indicate a non-straight barrel. It would take pretty severe bends to get rid of the difference in the width of the centerlines from the breech to the muzzle. What you are saying is that the barrels converge for a ways and then bend and are parallel to each other the rest of the way to the muzzles, I think. A bend like that could be very easily seen by looking at the rings, IMO.
I've got a set of Fox barrels in my shop right now from which I removed the ribs. It is easy to see, just by looking at the outsides of the barrels, between the ribs, that they are not bent to become parallel.
All my best, SRH
