Recently, I picked up a very old and an interesting barrel. It's a 26 inch long smoothbore that looks like a reduced-in- size version of a Brown Bess barrel. There are two British proofs on the left with the letters "WSF" between them. Touchhole is present, I have removed the breechplug (the barrel is pretty good for it's age), there is a bayonet lug on the end of the barrel, but the oddest thing is that about 5 inches from the muzzle it looks like the barrel has been swedged in a reduction of it's diameter.....there is a definite bell reduction. The caliber is just a tad over 75 (haven't put a mic on it yet, but it is roughly 3/4 inch from inside barrel wall to the other). There are two barrel lugs on the bottom of the barrel and you can faintly see the welded seam where the barrel was forged together. On the bottom about 6 inches from the breech are 2 dots and 5 hash marks (production marks?).
I ran a tight wad of steel wool down the barrel and I cannot detect any tightness or choking wher the barrel is swedged down in size.
Question is, is this for a boarding weapon? Did the British (or anybody for that matter) have such a short barreled large caliber weapon with a bayonet lug? Obviously such a thing existed (I have the barrel), but I cannot find any reference for this.
Anybody know anything about this sorta stuff? I'd love to reconstitute this back into something, but I need to have some reference.
