Crescent produced single and side by side shotguns from about the turn of the last century to just before world war two.
They made both hammer and hammerless guns and they offered both damascus twist steel and fluid steel barrels.
Crescent offered guns under their own trade name and also sold thousands of shotguns to hardware stores and department stores with whatever name the wholesale buyers wanted the shotgun marked as.
The damascus barrels have very distinctive swirled patterns in the steel and Crescent guns are noted for having a rather 'loose' twist.
Chlorate and mercuric priming compounds along with black powder loaded and semi-smokeless powder loaded shotshells have done damage to most of these twist barrel guns by corrosively eating away the barrel steel.
This makes the majority of these guns unrecommended or even unsafe to continue shooting today even with black powder loaded shells.
Smokeless shells are for the most part, an absolute no no in the old damascus twist guns.
Later Crescent guns were offered with fluid steel barrels and are usually marked on the top of the right barrel or on the top rib,
'Fluid Armory Steel-Choke Bored'
These guns were made from the mid twenties to the start of WW2 and they are generally considered safe to fire with loads not exceeding 3 3/4 dram equivelant 1 1/4 ounce loads in twelve guage as long as there is no major pitting present in the bores.
Crescent made guns in 12, 16, 20, and .410 bore.
None of these guns were ever chambered for any magnum loads unless a gunsmith opened the chamber or chambers on a gun.
12 guage guns were chambered for 2 3/4 inch shells but all the 16, 20 and .410 guns I have examined have all had 2.5 inch chambers not the current industry standard of 2 3/4" chambers.
In side by sides,.410 bore guns are super rare, 20s are rare and 16 guage guns are uncommon.
Single barrels can be found in all guages with 16s and 12s predominating.
I would not recommend using any magnum load in any of these guns.
The steels involved are fairly soft by todays standards and while the barrels may hold together, the action to barrel fit will loosen quite rapidly to an unsafe condition.
Stick with light field loads and what few of these guns that remain shootable will outlast you.
The vast majority of the guns were were full choked, and the patterns are generally quite tight.
This as noted was designated 'choke bored' on the barrel.
In the good old days guns were designated their pattern ability by being marked as choke bored, meaning full choke.
'half choke bored' which was about modified.
'quarter choke bored' which indicated an improved cylinder choking, and 'open bored' or true cylinder.
As to value,,,,, Cowboy action shooters have kicked the value of these guns up somewhat but as they are finding out these guns really don't stand up too well to the rigors of the sport shooting fields and most action shooters are going back to reproduction guns for shooting and keeping these old guns as wall hangers in the trophy room.
Right now because of this trend these old shotguns are probably valued higher than what they are actually worth but then again it is a sellers market for anything antique.
If it is old enough and kool enough, somebody will most likely pony up the cash to own it.HTH
