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I was looking for more info anyone might have in this gun. It's a Belgian Bayard arms 12ga hammer gun, not as old as it seems. Seems to be a mid range gun. From the proofs it seems to be only black powder proofed and probably late teens early 20s. The marks contradict each other a bit based on the charts I've seen. It says "damascus finish" but im not sure if that means It's damascus or if it was finished to imitate damascus, I tried some acids on it and couldn't get any faint pattern to show. Id like to shoot light smokeless loads in it for convenience, but obviously not if it's a black powder only gun. If anyone can provide any more info in the proof or bayard...
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All the marks that I can see and have reference to ...are indeed blackpowder proofs.
Do you know the chamber length...?
RST Shells make black powder spec shells with smokeless powder for old guns like this.
I have used them with great success with old guns like yours.

Neat gun...
if it was mine , I'd check the chambers for length...make sure the rest of the gun were sound , order shells from RST and have dandy grouse gun.

As for Damascus finish ...that means a steel or iron barrel with a fake Damascus pattern put on the barrel...usually this is etched on.
Andy
 
I made some BP shells for it, it just tedious compared to smokeless. Blackhorn 209 powder seems like a perfect compromise other than the price, but for half the price regular old black powder probably wins
 
Guns of this era usually had 2 1/2" chambers. As Andy notes, all the proofs are for a black powder arm - do NOT use ANY form of smokeless propellant in this gun - it is indeed only proofed by BP.

tac
 
Crazy to think that back in the days off nitro shells there were still black powder guns being made, and with no markings saying black powder only. I'm surprised these things made it this far. The guy I got it from said he used light target smokeless loads, I don't think I will though.
 
In my opinion...from my experience shooting these and other old blackpowder proof guns...
A light field load , target / skeet load* will be okay...if the rest of the gun is sound and you have steel barrels.
That said....
I haven't seen your gun in person and its always better to err on the side of caution.
Andy
*Edit to add
Smokeless loads ...loaded to black powder pressures...Kinda like how some .45-70 loads are loaded with smokeless powder but are safe for the antique "Trapdoor" Springfield series of rifles and carbines....or the RST loads that I mentioned earlier...
 
I might try some ultra low pressure BP loads(under 6000) like the rst loads, but I'll give it a few rounds in rounds of bp first and see how it shoots. It's not an actual damascus Barrell as far as I can tell and made in the 1910s-20s
 

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