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28861

Here's a mystery. 28861 is a 12 gauge, top lever, hammer shotgun, from 277 Oxford St., London, which I've had in the extant Reilly list for sometime. Choked cyl and 3/4. It dates per the chart above to early 1887 (should of had "not for ball" and other London stamps).
http://josephsvintageguns.com/gun-details.asp?gun=323

Going back to look at it again, there are a couple of odd things about it.
-- It has a semi-pistol grip stock. No Reilly shotgun before the Riggs era (1922) that I know had any sort of pistol grip. If this is correct, the gun had to have been a rifle before becoming a shotgun.
-- Yet it weighs 6lbs 8 oz...Reilly rifles in a substantial caliber weighed more. This is a shotgun weight.
-- It has its apparently original Damascus barrels, with serial number and address on the rib.
-- However, it has a string of modern post 2005 UK reproof marks - a Birmingham BNP, chambers marked in mm, etc. Apparently all the original proof marks have been ground off save for the SN.
-- But there is one proof mark which is odd - the Crown over an "R" - a Belgian proof mark for rifles.


Might this be an indication that the original barrels came from Belgium and were rifled? The barrels look original. The gun is not heavy. So why is that proof mark there?




Last edited by Argo44; 08/25/20 08:02 PM.
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