Read the first post in this thread Paul. He asks if these guns are historically correct and then says he believes that they are specifically in terms of beingINDIAN TRADE GUNS. An Indian trade gun is a gun made specifically for trade with Indians. There were no Brown Bess muskets with bobbed barrels factory made or otherwise made for trade to Indians in North America. This response should be a satisfactory answer to someone looking for a factual answer to his question. It of course is not a satisfactory reply to someone merely wanting agreement with his point of view regarding the H/C of his gun.
We have all been down this road before, usually with a newcomer who received an in-line for Christmas and refuses to believe that it isn't just like Daniel Boone's.
Responses that have said that there were indeed cut down muskets in America in the early years aren't good enough for this poster because he wants HIS gun to be H/C, not just a common musket with a bobbed barrel. I believe he will continue to search books for photographs, amd museums for short barrelled muskets until he finds one. And that will become the rock that he clings to forevermore. He will have found his Holy Grail. It will be a cut down gun that we all agree existed in period, but it still won't be the Indian trade gun that he asked about in the first post. By then we will probably be on page 392 and most of us will have forgotten what the thread was about in the first place, just as you seem to have done.