Guns & Outdoors Forum

Last time I introduced a shotgun from E. Roberts of Birmingham that re-used an old muzzle loader barrel to make up a useful breech loader. This time it's a double 12 bore with the top rib marked 'New Barrel by E. Roberts, 141, Steelhouse Lane, Birmingham'. The action however is marked J. Draper. The likely donner for the action would be J. Draper of 24, Town Hall Square, Bolton, Lancashire. The barrels bear a different serial number to to action. It appears that our Mr. Roberts has obtained a shotgun with a pair of worn out or damaged barrels and found a set from another gun where the barrels could be salvaged and gone to some trouble to fit them to the action. Not as easy as it may first appear; even a pair of Purdey's won't interchange the barrels between the Number 1 gun and the Number 2. If you look closely you will see that the breech end of the barrels are slightly wider than the the face of the action and have been rounded off in an attempt to profile them. The gun has been proofed for Black Powder sometime between 1887 and 1896 and are 1/2 choke in the right barrel and 3/4 choke in the left. The Damascus barrel are 30 inches in length. Fitted with a straight hand stock and top lever opening. The engraving is quite well executed although the 'game birds' on the lock plates take a bit of identification and may be herons; that's my guess anyway. The rounded part of the action appears to bear the 'Green Man' motif which is rather unusual. It seems that Mr. Roberts was a frugal man who didn't like to see thing go to waste.

The stuff you find! Dang that’s cool.

Cool
Looks to have a lot of cast off ?

Simply amazing the workmanship that went into that piece.

Another really nice piece

That is beautiful! Tell us you paid 100 pounds for that and I'll scream!

For some reason I can't recall what I paid but I would guess somewhere between 100 and 200 pounds. I 've only shot it the once and it shot well. The bores are still clean as they would need to be flawless for submission to re-proof. Someone before me has looked after it well. I will try to check what have posted on before so I don't duplicate anything. I have quite a few nice hammer guns.

I have been admiring your collection for 20 years and never get tired of them! Keep'em coming.

That is really pretty. I know nothing about those guns, but I really like the pics!