If you did not say it was a shotgun I would have said a hacked up 1941 Long Branch Enfield. Long Branch was a real good maufacture of Enfields from what I found. I did a little search and it seems Enfield did make single shot .410 shotguns. Also some had their Lee Enfields way back when modified to shoot the .410 shell it seems. Here is a little snip I found from searching that might also help along with the other info I found....
"Numerous attempts were made to convert the .410 Shotgun model (which was single shot, and generally manufactured by the Ishapore arsenal) to a bolt-action repeating model by removing the wooden magazine plug and replacing it with a standard 10-round SMLE magazine. None of these is known to have been successful, however, a compromise was reached by fitting a Stevens/Savage .410 magazine into an original SMLE magazine housing. The .410 conversions were mostly used for crowd control as riot shotguns in India. They are chambered for a 2" British .410 shotshell, basically a blown out .303 British cartridge. As these cartridges have not been manufactured for several years, ammunition is strictly a "roll your own" prospect. Many of these conversions have been reamed out to accept modern 2 1/2"-3" .410 shotshells in the United States. As the pressure for even high velocity .410 ammunition are well below standard .303 British pressure ranges these conversions, when done by a competent gunsmith, are quite safe to shoot. ..."
"The Ishapore .410 is a converted No1 MkIII rifle. This modification, sanctioned by the Indian government, was introduced to provide the Indian police with a riot-gun.
The essentials of the conversion consisted of boring out the barrel and reaming its chamber to accept the British .410 shotgun shell. The magazine was removed and the magazine well fitted with a wooden plug, this acted as a filler and loading platform for the single shell. Finally, the rear sight was pinned to eliminate adjustment.
The chamber, as stated, was designed to fit the British .410 shell unlike the standard 3-inch .410 chamber. Shells for this rifle would have to be purchased in .410 British or fire-formed .303 cases would have to be used and hand loaded, should the owner wish to go bird hunting...."
So I would say some one sent this Long Branch in to get converted and somewhere along the way the fore stock was removed for some reason. Also I have noticed and read that some are using the .410 shell in their .303 Enfields but there is some questionability to this for me. Must be a brave person to do this lol. I did not look further into this aspect of shooting the .410 shotgun shell in a .303 Enfield....so don't do it if you have a .303 Enfield ol
