Help identifying a smooth bore

[Dave B]

I lucked out stopping at an antique shoppe in Hellena MT and found this tucked back in a corner. It looks british but has no marks indicating a manufacure. The bore is .75 cal, barrel 39.5" long. The trigger guard looks like a seaservice style.
















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[JV Puleo]

A pretty conventional Birmingham export grade fowler. I imagine thousands of them went west. They aren't too common out there but I think that's because they were used hard and worn out. The lack of British proofs is not terribly important. There was no legal requirement that guns intended for export be proved. Most were, partly because people often expected to see proof marked and also because the barrels were made by specialist makers and likely proved in large batches before they were supplied to the gunmakers. In that case, the  barrelomaker would have no idea whether the barrel was for export or domestic sale. However, if a gunmaker ordered a gross or two of barrels and stipulated they were for export he'd save a little money by not having them proved

[Dave B]

Thank you for your help in identifying this piece.  I was suprized by how thin the barrel is. The front bead was swaged through the hole in this muzzle end view. I assume it was a shank dropped thrdough that hole then swaged wirh the button on the in side of the barrel pean the rivet over. Never done on but seema that is how it was done. Any on done one of these beads like this?

[JV Puleo]

It's been shortened so the sight was fitted when the end of the barrel was cut off. the original sight would have been a blade, not a bead.
Because of the way black powder burns, it is an explosive (rather than progressive burning like smokeless powder), all the strength in the barrel should be at the breech. The rest of the tube can be quite thin and fowler barrels often are. I have seen them nearly paper thin at the muzzle though some of this may have been due to ramrod wear.