Richard's and Son's shotgun

[shotgunmessenger96]

I was bored out of my mind waiting for the women folk to get done some shopping and so I decided to look around in the local pawn shop and saw a great looking side by side 12ga. shotgun 28 inch barrels. I looked it over and saw it was in what I thought to be in perfect working condition but I have no way of knowing what length shells it is chambered for. On the left side it said somthing to the effect of - NP Ricard's and son's - does anybody knows about this make of shotgun or how to find out what length chamber it has?

 

[clarence222]

Not an expert

I would think a competent gunsmith should be able to tell you, but I'm not 100% sure

 

[Dave McCracken]

In the waning days of the 19th Century lots of cheap shotguns were imported from Belgium. Many of these were marked with names similar to famous makes Like Purdy, Barker and W Richards.

Most likely this is one of them. Look on the water table and barrels for an ELG broof mark. That will prove Belgian origin.

Alternately, it may be British. There's hundreds of obscure makers out there and this could be one. List the various marks on the action and barrels and we'll see if we can match them up.

In either case, chambers are almost certainly 2 1/2". Sorry.