Maybe you guys can help,

[wheelockhunter]

A guy on another forum posted this, can anyone here give us some help?


Last night one of the boy scouts proudly showed me his "grandfather's 18th century musket", and sure enough, it was a browned flintlock, barrel bands, rather crudely inletted somewhat crudely made lock. It had what appear to be Belgium proofs, I haven't had a chance to check them agianst WW Greener. On the top of the barrel was stamped "Stoeger Arms Corporation" and " Made in Belgium". It is a smoothbore, with bottom bolted clamp type barrel bands. The stock is rather flat and square, not at all like the fat and round stocked Belgium shotguns I've seen.

I'm thinking a relatively recent (1890's to 1960's) wall hanger, but if so, why the proof? If these are valid proofs, the barrel has been fired and passed.

Anyway, dating Stoeger can at least give me a time frame for it coming into the country.

 

[arilar]

The only Stoeger I can find is in "Gunmarks" by David Byron. It tells about Stoeger Industries, Manufacturer and importer established in NYC 1924, located and still running in South Hakensack,N.J. when book was published 1979.
ARILAR :: :thumbsup:

 

[TFoley]

Stoeger Industries, as they are now called, has been an important part of the US firearms distribution scene since the mid-1920's. Importers of hundreds of thousands of weapons from all over Europe, you can be sure that any weapon they imported from Belgium that has ELG [the Liege proof-house marks] on it, will be a shooter, and not a wall-hanger, unless it is struck through [defaced] and drilled through the underside of the breech [usually]. They actually own the trade-mark 'Luger' and in recent years fronted the production of a stainless steel replication of this famous handgun. They are a well-known publisher of replica [reprint] handbooks, such as that for the P08 - I have most of them. however, your weapon may well have been aged to make it look like a wall-hanging junker, and this process MAY have served to weaken or to thin the metal around the breech area. Should this be the case, then you really DO have a 'horizontal dust-gatherer'. :m2c:

tac :grey:

 

[arilar]

www.stoegerindustries.com. They even have a "Forum" .Maybe post the question at that place? :m2c:
ARILAR :: :thumbsup: