• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

Please help me ID for Father in law

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Robertvibbert

Pilgrim
Joined
Dec 9, 2020
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Found this when ripping down walls at in-laws. Dad said it was his great grandfathers. Dad is 78 wanted to get more information for him about it.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    143.4 KB · Views: 232
  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    107.6 KB · Views: 227
It appears to be a British 10 guage shotgun. The proof mark is from Birmingham definitive black powder for shotguns used 1868 -1925 (the crown and B, C, P), and a Birmingham provisional proof in use since 1856 (the crown over script BP).

The first proof mark I mentioned indicates that the gun was made after 1868 but there's no way to know when.
 
Guns like this were imported and sold at every possible hardware and general supply store across the country in the mid to late 1800s. Every rural family that could afford one, got one.
 
How did it wind up in the wall?

Over the years we have found several firearm hidden in the walls of houses or barns. Could have been put there for safe keeping to being stolen. Once they are put in these areas they usually go to pot and moisture gets to them. The best find we had was at Gettsyburg in a family barn, a half dozen British muskets hidden there (we think by family), then forgotten about. When we found them they were rusted junk.

.
 
I suspect hiding something in a barn long term is a horrible place. Growing up on a farm with livestock in an old barn in the winter it was humid and I suspect the decomposing manure added to the corrosiveness of the air.
 
Back
Top