Indians For Guns

Photos of my 1872 Boswell and 1882 Boswell and my grandson's 1888 Boswell. I was looking for as early a Boswell as I could find and got the '72 gun at an auction. The '83 gun had been withdrawn from a previous auction as it failed proof testing and was not bought!. The '72 Gun is "Black Powder Only" proof from new in 1872. I suspect the re-proofing of the '82 gun was being done to proof it for modern Nitro loads. This is often not a good idea as barrel thickness can be marginally within UK barrel wall thickness limits but Damascus will be vulnerable to Rivelling (circumferential bulging). There is no need to Nitro proof as we can still buy Black Powder cartridges in UK. The black powder burns at a slower rate than nitro with less of an instantaneous bang so the Shock Loading is less but muzzle velocity is not dissimilar. The guns illustrate development nicely. The older gun has more marked "fences" carried over from the style of the percussion days. By the time of the later guns of '82 and '88 these were less of a feature. All three are extractor not ejector.