I have a Drilling marked Gust:Meffert. It is an older hammer gun 16X16X9.3-72R. The bores are very nice for a gun built around the turn of the century. Being marked Nitro on both shotgun barrels I would think the gun was built between 1905 and 1915....

My question is this, The Right barrel is choke IM, left F+ and both bores are very nice with minor pitting, very minor in the right barrel. BUT as you look down the barrel there appears to be 3 grooves when looking from the breach, more when looking from the muzzle. I haven't had time to run a brush and patch down the barrel.

These are too evenly spaced to be done by accident or damage from cleaning. They appear to be "round bottom" like you find in old, handcut Muzzleloading Rifle Barrels.. Although there is little to NO twist to this "rifling".. I believe I had an older Hastings Mfg replacement barrel for a remington shotgun that was "similar" to this, it wasn't for shooting slugs but had something to do with shot patterns.

Does anyone know if this was done on German Drilling shotgun barrels and if so for what reason???

I will try to get some pictures up later this weekend...

Thanks in Advance...
DonT