Handloads for Old 12 Gauges

How to Shoot Them Safely

- John Barsness

Sometimes handloaders like to do things the hard way. In mid-June, I found an older British 12 gauge side-by-side at Capital Sports in Helena, Montana. The price tag stated it had 2.5-inch chambers, which somehow jumpstarted a desire to handload 2.5-inch 12-gauge ammunition.

The name on the action was R. Lisle, a shop I had never heard of, but hundreds of small British gunmakers have come and gone. My eye looked right along the rib when I brought the gun to my shoulder, and it also passed the standard tests of action/barrel tightness and the solder between barrels and rib. The proof marks showed the gun had been tested with “nitro” (smokeless) powder and 11⁄8 ounces of shot. Sold!

An internet search revealed Robert Lisle had a shop in Derby, 20 miles northeast of Birmingham, from 1895 to 1930. Birmingham is the second-largest British city after London, and since 1700, a major center of British firearms manufacturing.

Like many small-shop gunmakers in the area, Lisle bought relatively unfinished guns from major Birmingham factories, finishing them in varying degrees. The action had two levels of engraving – mostly classic scroll, with a cruder tiger (!) on the trigger guard, Lisle’s trademark.

On an accurate scale, it weighed 6 pounds, 8 ounces. My Brownells gauge measured the shiny bores at .730 inch in diameter, suggesting they hadn’t been rehoned. The chokes measured .002 inch in the right barrel and .035 in the left, a fine combination for general hunting.