Barrel markings

[smylee grouch]

Just curious about the stamped barrel markings on English guns. Did they stamp or engrave the actual bore size or did they use the gauge number, If they did mark by gauge, did they stamp/engrave the gauge of the bore(land to land) or the gauge of the ball to be used ?

[Daryl]

The only antique British gun I own was stamped, not engraved, but it is of about the 1868 period.  IIRC - all of the pictures I've seen
of the underside of the barrels, they were stamped. again, iirc.

[smylee grouch]

Thanks for the imput Daryl, my H. Holland is also stamped. I,m thinking in particular of rifles and whether they stamped the actual bore size in thousands of an inch or stamped the gauge. For example 16 bore(#) or 66 cal.

[Daryl]

Taylor just checked his Joseph Lang and the bore is .665", land to land and the underside of the barrel is stamped 18 - for the ball size, not 16, for the bore.

He is using almost a 17 bore ball, at .648" as 17 is .650", instead of the .637" suggested by the "18" stamp.
This rifle is almost 170years old.

[smylee grouch]

Daryl, now that is the info I was curious about. My current project has a .660 bore and Jim Goodieon tells me that the 648 ball should work for it as the reamer for my barrel came from him. Other wise I will be looking for some thing in the 640-645 range from some one like Tanner maybe.

[Daryl]

Ball size in that one, smylee G would for me, depend on the depth of the rifling. If typical .012" per side, a ball from .005" to .010" would be my choice if buying from Tanner moulds, so .650" to .655".
I think there might be a .648" in standard size and that one for me, would be a likely candidate.
Now, if you were wanting to use hard lead, that suggests another option in mould size and a .645" mould would be just fine, just as the .677" (casts 675" in pure) works in my .69 with hard or soft led, even with the .034" denim patches.
I think dropping  2 bore sizes in ball dia. is not a good choice.
That said, I did shoot a group at 50yards with my .69(14bore), but using 2 .017" or .018"(8oz denim) patches & a 16 bore ball (.662") the group turned out good enough for hunting.
I had a flier(flinched shot) that threw well over on the right, which is typical for a right handed shooter's flinch. Thus, I fired an extra shot into the group for a total of 5 shots in the group.

[smylee grouch]

Just this morning I got my barrel/stock back and plan on slugging the bore this evening to get an exact reading on bore/rifling depths. Hope to have the thing shooting by middle or late summer and hope to be able to find a good soft and hard ball load for it. I dug my cronograph (sp) out the other day and will be curious as to what a three-four or five dram load will produce.