RWMC
Member
I was given this old ( I'm guessing 1850s to 1880s era ) percussion side-by-side shotgun back in October of last year. It was made in Liege, Belgium. It is marked with a serial number of over 34,000 on both the barrels and the frame. It had a bad break in the wrist, and so it has an early blacksmith-style repair, which tells me that it was a necessary item, and that the owner could not afford to have it replaced with a new shotgun. On the underside of the barrels, it is stamped 17.6. The barrels are 30 inches long, but the first 10 inches are terribly pitted, inside and out. Both of the locks work great. It had belonged to a friend of mine who received it from his ex father-in-law many years ago, whose relatives came here to the mid west from Croatia. He gave it to me because no one else in the family wanted it. I made sure of that before I accepted it. So I'm in the process of trying to clean it up some and do some stock repair to make it a more appealing looking wall hanger. I was trying to remove the old worn out nipples, but so far no luck. Had toyed with the idea of getting the first 10 inches of the barrelswhich are badly corroded, cut-off and have a new locking point soldered in place. The manufacturer name of Victor Collette is etched on the rib of the barrels and appears to be almost done in silver, but I'm not for sure on that though. I have seen quite a bit of information about the pin-fire shot guns, gravity fed pistol, and the black powder cartridge shotgun's he made, but not much about the percussion shotguns such as this. I would be interested if any of you have some information about these. As always, thanks for your time and help.
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