ID help on antique shotgun(?)

PaleHawkDown said:

Are there any markings? When I see this, I don't see "shotgun", I see a musket with martial features.

That side plate is the really unusual thing; almost shaped like a stock.

Click to expand...

Martial markings? I don't even know what that means.
Side plate looks like more than a stock, could look like rifle stock and barrel.
I suppose it could be a 50 cal of not a shotgun but it seems kind of light duty. Light powder load?
I didn't see any markings at first but now maybe there is something on top of the barrel. Afraid to do any cleaning. Maybe some light pressure with oooo and oil?

K, lil wool n oil, lightly, for science.
Didn't reveal much but something is there

A couple air guns put the petite size in perspective

PaleHawkDown said:

Civilian rifles with sling swivels really came in to fashion in the late 1870swith European hunters in Africa, and began popping up around WWI in America.

Click to expand...

Sling swivels and sling are both pretty light duty.
Any guesses at time period for this mystery gun?

Cyrano said:

It looks to have been cut down from something else, a smoothbore musket maybe. And that nipple and hammer combination looks a little strange to me. Why do I have the feeling that hammer started out on a flintlock, and the nipple is non-standard? Could it possibly be a flintlock-to-caplock conversion?

Click to expand...

Hmm, nice thinking outside the box from what is it to what was it. The hammer is kinda tall when I look at it now. Also I had not looked at the striking end. It looks suspicious. Nipple is mighty long.
Now that you have me thinking "cut down", the buttstock is kinda tall for its length. Can picture it being a couple inches longer in a pervious life.

PaleHawkDown said:

Out of curiosity...why do you keep saying the buttstock is too short or appears cut down. I've been staring at this for several minutes now, and it seems standard length.

Click to expand...

I know very little about antique guns, maybe that's obvious already. Used to my other more modern guns I guess. My trap gun is over 14.5" lop, my fixed stock M4 is 14". This old muzzle suffer has a 13" lop.
It has a thin brass (copper?) Crude buttplate..

I'm still not sure the buttstock was cut down. That copper plate is definitely a Bubba Special from the 19th Century. Could the original buttplate have rusted out and been replaced by something made from a sheet of copper the owner had lying around?

In case you never ran across the term before, Lobi, "Bubba" is a shortened version of the derogatory "Bubba the Shadetree Gunsmith," whose favorite tools are a hacksaw, a coarse file, and a roll of electrical tape. Bubba has done ruint many guns over the years, some beyond repair or salvage.

For instance, one of my Bubba stories is of a nitwit who not only coated every piece of steel on an 1897 Tula Model 1891 Mosin Nagant rifle with black automobile enamel paint, but took his hacksaw to an American walnut Model 1891 stock from one of the rifles made by Remington and New England Westinghouse for the Imperial Russian Army in World War I, and threw away the handguard, too. I got the rifle for a ridiculously low price and went to work on it. It took a whole gallon of Citra-Solv to get the paint off, to reveal a rifle that was "in the white" underneath. As it is impossible to find original Model 1891 furniture these days (the last stock and handguard set I saw was on eBay and sold for $1400 several years ago, back when Mosins were selling in the $125 range), I asked the Band of Fellers here for advice. The late SwedeSteve put me in touch with a since-deceased gun dealer in the Upper Midwest, and I purchased a Finnish finger-spliced Model 27 Mosin stock from him and installed the barreled action into it. It still looks like the forearm is a little short, but it looks mostly okay and enables me to shoot the rifle.

Bubba is not a friend to shooters who appreciate good firearms.