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Are there barrel markings?

marlinguy wrote on Apr 28^th, 2024 at 5:43pm:


How is the barrel marked? Pictures?

I have a RB 20 bore shotgun in pretty good condition except the barrel has been shortened to 18 1/4 inch. There are no marking on the barrel but there is dovetail near the breech under the forearm so it might have been a military barrel, bored out. The fore end is attached by a lug and one screw. The action has a sighting groove cast into it and a two line address. It has the standard military but plate. There are two models according to Flayderman". manuf, 1870-1890's. "No 1, 16 gauge chambered for interchangeable use of 16 ga brass or 20 ga paper shells. Shotgun butt plate."
"No 2, (described in their 1893 catalog) Still chambered for same 16- and 20 ga shells but made mostly with military rifle parts and barrels"
In examining mine the breech block doesn't fully cover the brass on the shell and you can see a tiny bit of brass on each side when the block is closed on a shell.  I have seen them made with small "ears" on the breech block to cover the shell completely.,,,LK         

I've owned several of the 20 ga shotguns, parted several out to make rifles also.  Have a sporting one at the moment, would make a great rifle, but too rare to do that to it.  Somewhere between 32 gauge and .410 in size.   

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Mine looks like the top one. About same condition and patina. The stock was broken at the wrist and someone had wrapped it with  leather and tacks as a repair. A good friend gave it to me on a trade for some stuff. He said he had taken it to a dove field once and people laughed at him and offered him the use of one of their "more modern" shotguns. I think they all had a good laugh over it. It takes a sporting stock because the lower tang is longer. I bought a Hepburn stock set from Treebone and George threw one in at a lower price since as he said I was a "good customer".Got to get it installed one day...


JMH

Remington manufactured quite a few rolling block shotguns. There are so many small changes over the years of production, that all the variations are enough to fill a sizable book.  The manuscript for that book has been written by a friend of mine (edited several times) and hopefully be ready for publication soon.  The early production shotguns were built in similar fashion to sporting rifles. See the member who posted photos of the two with the Sporting style butt stocks. That style makes a nice sporting rifle that is more comfortable to shoot than the #1 sporting rifle of the same period.   The comments regarding the barrel with dovetail near the breech is on track.  Those are 1870 Navy rifle barrels that were repurposed for shotgun production.  There were shotguns that were made with the equal length narrow tangs of the #1 1/2 sporting rifle.  Those receivers are also narrower than the military receiver.  The late production were built on the rotary extractor BPC actions.  Most of these have all military style stocks, butt plates and mixed military/civilian blocks and hammers.  These are the most common today.
For many years they were a cheap way to purchase sporting style breech block, hammers and often sporting shaped trigger guards.
The groove on the top of the receiver ring is a consistent feature unless you find the rare exception like SSDave posted.

Outside dimensions of brass or paper cart. are the same.

Longknife wrote on May 1^st, 2024 at 9:34am:

But, the throat isn't.

Jeff_Schultz wrote on May 1^st, 2024 at 5:22pm:


The throat on paper chambers is longer, so there's room for the paper to open up and still not constrict the shot.  The forcing cone/throat area on a brass chamber starts immediately in front of the shell.  Firing a paper shell in a brass chamber results in a constriction and much higher pressures.