Janssen & Sons Co 44 x 12 SxS ?

8

88 man

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GunNutz
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Grafton Ont
Anyone got any input on this old girl ?I would think it's Beligen for sure but I'm new with this gun ?.Barrel is marked fine steel so not sure if it's Damascus ?.Has pitting but I would say still very shootable.No cracks in stock which happens to most.Double external hammers.Rear flip up site and the 2nd site is pretty high with rocky mountain style front site dovetailed into centre rib.For the age of it it's in good shape.I think the 44-40 cal and 12 ga together are pretty cool.
Thanks all !
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That looks almost exactly like a "Cape gun" I had some years ago. Mine was marked "J. Manton". I found that the .44 chamber was over-size for regular .44-40 cartridges but cut-down .303 British cases worked perfectly with 8.5 grs of HS6 and a 215 gr plain base cast bullet. I only used black powder or Pyrodex loads in the 12 ga barrel.
 
I've got one same maker 12ga. double. Mine has lions head pistol grip. The barrels on mine are not Damascus. My grandfather told me he paid $12 for it new, and his father thought that was too much to pay for a shotgun.

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If you can get some copper sulphate, sand a small area (1" - 2" long x 1/2" wide) bright, under the forestock and wipe some on the area. If it is damascus you should see the pattern show up. In your photos I don't see any sign of damascus pattern under the rust / patina. The "fine steel" on the rib probably means that the barrels are not damascus. I also don't recall seeing any rifle cartridge barrels made of damascus, only shotgun cartridge barrels. The real issue is the quality of the barrels inside and out and as long as you don't have any deep pitting or very thin barrel on the shotgun side, the gun should be safe with moderate loads

cheers mooncoon
 
The bores are bright and shinny.I was surprised myself they were really nice !.The pitting outside doesn't bother me but the gun does look a lot better up close than what the pics show and does need a good cleaning as it hasn't had one in yrs.I do plan on shooting it and have both factory and downloaded 44-40 shells so good to go there.
I've also got the same shotgun bushwacker has that belonged to my uncles dad so kinda got a matching pair
 
The barrels don't appear to be damascus. However, a word of caution. The bores in these old guns usually match the condition of the rest of the gun. If anything, usually the bores are worse than the outside of the barrels, especially if not cleaned properly over the years. Anytime I see bright and shiny bores on a gun close to 100 years old or older , and there is pitting and worn finish on the outside, a red flag pops up for me. I have been stung once like that. I had bought a 100 year old gun with perfect looking bores. The outside of the barrels had basically no finish left. This should have told me something. Sent the gun away to have work done and was informed that the bores had been honed so much that they were below minimum safe limits. So there may be a reason why your bores are nice and shiny while the outside shows signs of rust and pitting. Only way to know for sure is to have the shotgun bore measured at various intervals.
 
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