One of the family was a gun dealer [Can,t remember who] so would have access to all different kinds of guns.
Ngb may be able to back me on the following,[ or not].
There are in existance rifles that are a combination of 4 10,& 22.
Cartridges can be obtained with differing amount of shot, from several hundred pellets down to one ball.
I don't think they are that common, but a dealer would probably see these more often.
Is it possibly that a 4 10, 12 bore could exist. This might explain the varying size of gun shot wounds on the victims, as as these are cartridges it could explain the absence of lead on Sheilas hands.
Just a thought.
Cliff - there are examples of a composite rifle/shotgun, with different permutations and combinations of calibre for the barrels. These are unusual weapons and with some exceptions are normally quite old and are collectors' items rather than the type of weapon which would be used by a farmer. It is perfectly possible that a gun dealer would have an example of this type of weapon as his licence would cover it. However, anyone else would require both a firearm certificate and a shotgun certificate to hold the weapon and I suspect that unless the owner was a bona fide collector of unusual weapons it would be dificult to get the necessary firearm certificate coverage.
Some time ago Mike did post details of the two unusual weapons handed in. I cannot locate the post now but from memory one was some form of single barreled shotgun and the other was a combination of a .22 rifle with I believe a 20 bore shotgun (which is smaller than a 12 bore but bigger than a .410). From the description I recall that there was an unusual arrangement for a single hammer to be adjustable to cover either barrel. My guess is that this weapon will have been capable of firing only a single shot from each barrel before requiring reloading. I must emphasise that the above is based only upon my memory of what Mike posted a while back and I may well be wrong.
As far as a shotgun cartridge is concerned it is correct that anything can be loaded from a large number of very small lead pellets or a smaller number of larger pellets or even a single large "slug". Such a "slug" would require additional specific approval under the owner's firearm certificate to be legal, and approval would have been almost impossible to obtain.
These two weapons handed in by Bunting were clearly illegally held weapons. What their connection is, if any, to the events at WHF remains a mystery. I have to say I have not been able to think of any plausible theories but the whole business does sound very suspicious.