I don't think it's a gun. The first pic looks indeed like a gun barrel complete with front sight. The second pic shows what looks like the tangs of a lever action rifle. The problem is there is no receiver between the barrel and the tangs. No mechanism, no bolt. I don't think it's a bike fork either. It looks like the tangs were attached to a piece of wood like a handle. Interesting item. Gary
How long is it? The "fork" sort of looks like a wagon tongue design, not so much the rest of it. Another guess would be a handle for a floor jack type mechanism.
It looks like the metal end of an old pumpjack rod. The fork end was bolted to a wooden rod. Used on windmills, pumps etc. In the oil fields they were called sucker rods.
It was found at a civil wsr skirmish along with a musket barrel. Appears to have front and half of rear sight alone with the bent barrel coomon in muskets
With the rifling, it can't be anything but a gun barrel. I've never seen that kind of iron used to mount the barrel to the rest of the gun. Mystery to me. Need an old gun expert! Gary
yes, I agree to Todds opinion. Pretty much a rifled gun barrel. It looks old in a way but on the other hand the area where the barrel is attached to the frame looks bit more like industrially machined. Very interesting. Maybe super rare since eventually a design that was not available for long. Maybe a specialized gun forum might return better results. Thanks for showing!
best, nudel