Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns Victor Collette shotgun info?

Brother-in-law just handed me a rusty old SxS shotgun that belonged to his grandfather, and we were trying to figure out what it was. One side it has Victor Collette inside some scrollwork, and the other side it says Liege. What quick info I can find is that Victor Collette was a gunmaker in Liege, Belgium in the later half of the 19th century?

Anybody have any more info than this? Any way of narrowing down when it was made? It's just a wallhanger now, but he's interested due to family history.

I found the following reference: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Liege_Victor_Collette_shotgun

Pull of the forend and the barrels and tell us (or better, show us) the markings on the barrel flats where they mate with the reciever and the "water table" or top of the reciever that mates with the flats. There should be a bunch of markings there that would show choke, aprox. age, barrel mfr., steel type, etc.

If we on this forum can't decipher them, guys on www.doublegunshop.com/BBS can.

Hmm.. I'll see if I can. The forearm latch was frozen solid when I tried it earlier, so I don't know if I'll be able to pull it.

It's a serious rust bucket, was a ugly orange color when I got it. Oiled it up and got both hammers moving, but not sure how much more will improvement is to be had.

PS: Thanks Gene, that was the writeup I found on a quick search also.

Latch is moving now, but forearm isn't coming off. I can see some markings on the bottoms of the barrels, tho.

One side has what appears to be a SN, 52072.
Second side has a circle inside of which is what looks like an E on top, then a 16, and a star on the bottom.

Just went back to that writeup on answers.com, looks like the illegible 16 is probably LG instead. And no crown overhead, so sometime prior to 1893? Just got better light and I can see what looks like a line stamped above the circle, with a Z above that.

And I thought Savage 99's were tough to figure out.

As you know, the proofmark is the pre-1893 Belgian acceptance of proof testing mark, so this is a pre-smokeless gun. I THINK I remember the Z marking is the barrel maker's code, but will have to look that up. (You may or may not know that most Belgian gunmakers outsourced the barrels to a specialty barrel maker--many American and British makers, including some of the finest, bought their damascus barrels in Belgium as well).

PATIENCE AND PENETRATING OIL! Good luck!

Thank you. I think I found on a Belgium site that Victor Collette is more frequently known by Victor Colette (only one L). They had no firm proof, but they believed the two names to be the same gunsmith/mfr. Lots of hits for that name on a search, mostly for pinwheel revolvers and a 20 shot gravity fed revolver from 1855.

Wiped the metal down pretty well with gun oil and let it sit, then wiped the metal and stock down with Snake Oil. It went from looking like something that sat in a woodpile outside for 30 years to something resembling a shotgun. The barrel is far too rusted to ever be anything but a wallhanger, but my brother-in-law wants it for just that reason. In fact I think he's happier it's not a functioning firearm.