Shovelbuck
Active Member
Black Powder Shotguns / History.
"The black powder shotgun was a direct descendant of the musket and not to far removed from the former, many historians label the shotgun era starting at rifled barreled guns as rifles, then all smoothbores got labeled as shotguns, this is incorrect. The guns without rifling and thinner barrels were retained for shooting multiple pellets (shot) at shorter ranges and they were called fowling pieces as they were labeled prior to rifled barrels.
There is only one distinction other than the barrels were made thinner on so called shotguns, the one distinction that earns the shotgun name, putting some form of choke to the inside of the barrel giving that gun barrel a specific job to do, shoot shot only. Once you put choke inside of a gun barrel you then have determined a specific use for that gun barrel, the purpose of that choke is to shoot shot, hence shotgun."
So I guess I have been incorrect in calling mine a shotgun. More correctly, it's a fowler.
Ron, your's is also.:way:
"The black powder shotgun was a direct descendant of the musket and not to far removed from the former, many historians label the shotgun era starting at rifled barreled guns as rifles, then all smoothbores got labeled as shotguns, this is incorrect. The guns without rifling and thinner barrels were retained for shooting multiple pellets (shot) at shorter ranges and they were called fowling pieces as they were labeled prior to rifled barrels.
There is only one distinction other than the barrels were made thinner on so called shotguns, the one distinction that earns the shotgun name, putting some form of choke to the inside of the barrel giving that gun barrel a specific job to do, shoot shot only. Once you put choke inside of a gun barrel you then have determined a specific use for that gun barrel, the purpose of that choke is to shoot shot, hence shotgun."
So I guess I have been incorrect in calling mine a shotgun. More correctly, it's a fowler.
Ron, your's is also.:way: