Posted by David Williamson on June 22, 2015, 6:57 pm, in reply to "Re: 2nd Pigeon bbls"
Dick, that would make sense that your Gr. 2 with the extra set of barrels and only one for-end would not have a #2 on the loop as that second set of barrels were made to fit the for-end. And since only one for-end no need for a #2 stamp.
A while back I bought a circa 1908 2 pin F grade hammer gun in decent condition except for the barrels being cut to 25 5/16". That did not bother me as I figured I would find another set for it. Well now this gun is a 4 barrel set with only 1 for-end. Two of the barrels, one a hammer gun set with Stub Twist barrels 26" choke constriction of .027 and .035. The other set is a nice set of Fine Damascus from a Gr. 1, 30" (records state 32") with .009 constriction in both. The fourth set is Armor steel 32", .040 and .041 constriction. The other barrels snapped right in, but fitting the for-end took hours. The Armor steel barrels needed to have the breech face filed by a few thousandths to fit as they were tight at the top and open on the bottom. Once fitted, the loop had to be fitted to the for-end and this takes time. The loop needed to have a narrow slot filed to let the "J" spring fit as you could not remove anything from the "J" spring or else it would be loose on the other barrels.
I'm sure these barrels would fit some of my other hammer guns but I did not want to fit them to a 5 or 6 pin bar action gun for fear of having a mainspring or worse yet a stirrup break.
So what does this mean, it means to me that regardless of barrel steel type, Regular or FW frame, that Hunter Arms had fixtures and jigs to keep the dimensions from the hook to loop within a few thousandths on every gun. This is true from the hook to the breech face as well. For-ends were made to fit the barrels and most are very close but if you notice the "J" springs are very different on some.