Posted by Tom Archer on May 10, 2012, 4:23 pm, in reply to "Re: Frame Sizes"
173.186.25.4
Allow me to say this about the subject; prior to 1900, and in the Syracuse Smith era, 12-bore Smith guns were made on several different regular sized frames. A study of these early guns will reveal different sized frames for guns ordered heavy or light, such as differences in barrel flats, and different distances between firing pin holes for guns ordered with heavy barrels. But after 1900, and certainly by 1907, my observations are that the "R" frame was standardized so that only one frame was used for 12-bore guns. The evidence of this standardization seems to be that rectangular shaped barrel flats are no longer seen, and the distance between firing pin holes became the same. In fact, it is not uncommon at this point to take a set of barrels from one R framed gun and interchange same with another; then vice versa. Hunter Arms always offered 12 gauge guns as heavy as 9 pounds (sometimes might require a few ounces of lead in the butt stock!); but 12-bore Smith guns weighting in at 8-8 1/2 pounds are not uncommon at all (most period trap shooters specified guns weighing in a 8 plus pounds). When Hunter introduced the Long Range/Wildfowl model; they didn't change the frame, they simply mounted heavier barrels having longer chambers and modified choking. Hunter didn't believe that a heavier frame was necessary, and when one examines the HE Grade Fox; the alleged added range of the Fox gun was not the result of a larger frame, but from modifications to the forcing cones and barrel over-boring. So anyone who alleges he had a Long Range Smith gun and it is not so marked; then it's not a Long Range or Wildfowl model regardless how much the beast may weigh. Finally, as to shooting heavy loads in a Smith gun, I strongly discourage such abuse; but let me say that a Smith gun in good operating condition can handle those loads with ease as regards the Smith rotary bolting and barrel strength. I've learned this from personal experience thru a Grade 5E restoration project. This gun had 32" Nitro Steel tubes with chambers lengthened to 3"; and that gun weighed 8 lbs on the nose with its newly fitted exhibition grade English walnut stocks. I occasionally shot 3" 2 ounce magnum loads thru this gun when hunting; and it handled them all with ease; BUT I had also had the stock head fully glass bedded and reinforced because the standard, as shipped, LC Smith stock head IS NOT designed to absorb such a beating. Let me also add that these heavy loads were lead shot; and that steel shot loads should NEVER be fired thru a tightly choked set of Smith, or any other, vintage gun barrels (although let me add, that based on another vintage gun experiment, I am convinced that such loads can be safely fired thru vintage gun barrels with chokes modified to be no tighter that light modified). And with that final statement, so ends this rambling recollection of personal observations and finding out-for-myself experiments, which readers are strongly encouraged NOT to duplicate.
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