That's gonna be purty!
You planning to use it? There are few things as cool as going afield with one of these old scatterguns. I love my L.C. Smith 10 ga hammer double. Best we could nail it down, it was made about 1891. Bores of the stub twist barrels were a tad rough, but not bad, so I honed them gently with 400 grit on a soft rag, took careful measurements all down both tubes, strapped it into a lead sled and proceeded to fire off a couple boxes of Bismuth 2-7/8" with a 12' string, measuring between each shot. Everything looked good, so I ordered up 100 RST 2-7/8" light shells and now it goes for pheasant and turkey.
Not as nice looking as your resto will be, but I like it:
I'm still mindful of the dangers of 100+ year old twist barrels, so I hold it differently than I would a modern gun, never wrapping the tubes with my support hand and keeping it as much under the fore end as possible. But even with the inherent risks, I feel that the overall condition of the gun, the known quality of L.C. Smith shotguns, and with the availability of such specialty low-pressure shells as RST that it would be a shame not to use it.
You may want to consider sub-gauge adapters so that you can fire 12 gauge ammo from that gun when finished.
Per my discussions with a couple of folks that really know these older shotguns, it is a better idea to use 20 ga adapters and stick to 2-3/4" shells. The heft of the adapters and the massive difference in bore volume make the 20 ga adapters a much safer prospect. And remember, fluid steel barrels of the era were actually weaker than twist steel barrels. They don't have the same problem with corrosion between the ribbons after a century, but were still designed around black powder running pressures in the 6,000-8,000 PSI range.
I use Gaugemate Silver 10-20 adapters. Shooting 20 ga field loads out of these 9+ lb behemoths is like firing a .22 rimfire. lol.
