To give you a bit of history,..the little 20 bore had already gone through one unfortunate transformation in it's relatively short life, the gun was originally ordered "new" by a friend and completed in the late 80's. this fellow then sold it about a decade later , the second owner unlike the first guy was a left hand shooter,.... right hand gun, left hand shooter,..thus the nearly new Purdey sat in it's case without having as much as a round of skeet through it for quite some time.
As the story goes, a decision was made to send the gun back to England to have it re-stocked, but instead of going back to Purdey's it ended up on the bench of another London maker who re-stocked the gun to fit the new owner,..everything was ok until the gun arrived back,..it fit him and he shot it well but for some unknown reason he hated the way the gun looked. Sometime last year I was approached to, as he put it... "correct the work that was previously done and stock the gun properly"... I had no Idea, I thought,.. what could be so wrong that it would need a new stock again?? the truth is that although I was flattered to be considered for the job, I also knew that nothing short of perfection would do a Purdey justice,..this was very intimidating to say the least. Since I hadn't seen the gun before and I'd only heard about all this, without committing to anything I agreed to take a look at it. Upon inspection I saw why he wasn't pleased with the new stock,... then quickly realized why things had been done that way.....
Because of the original RH configuration the tangs and lock work were set to the right, so the only way to turn this into a left hand gun without re-setting the lock work and tangs was to heavily sweep the face of the stock to the point that it had an almost crossover appearance,it was the simplest way to make the gun work for him, but not quite what he expected. to make matters worse, and despite several attempts to locate it , the original wood was not returned and would never be found,....unfortunately, I don't believe things were clearly explained to him at the time,...and now realizing that the only solution involved more than a re-stocking job he decided to sell it and start fresh.
Now almost 20 years old, the gun is in the hands of it's third and possibly last owner, whom like the first one shoots right!,...so the call came in and the question was,..would I re-stock it back to the original configuration for him? ,..I really wanted to say no but before I could say anything I was roped into it.
I tried stalling for a while, even looked at the possibility of having someone qualified do the job,..I had several conversations with David Trevallion about it, but logistics and timing took care of that possibility and I knew that eventually I would have to start. Since David had always been helpful and very generous with his knowledge I decided to ask if it would be ok to call from time to time to ask for his advice,....I forget his exact words but he said something like " that ain't exactly like stocking a Parker you now.......but sure, call anytime!"
I began in the fall and finished this past February, I worked on it a few hrs a week and only if conditions "felt" right, David's little tricks and tips would prove invaluable over the course of this very difficult job and would give me a new outlook and a higher sense of respect for all those who make this very unforgiving part of gunmaking their chosen trade.
As with most jobs of this nature there is always more to it than meets the eye and of course this one was no exception
I took lots of pictures over the lenght of the entire job,...these are just a few
CJ
I started by choosing a good blank , good grain flow though the grip and perfectly 1/4 sawn with some nice figure at the back. I then glass bedded the old stock (which by the way was not as well inletted as it could have been) to create a template to use on my duplicator. The idea was to machine the "head only" leaving a good generous tolerance and to allow the wood to move while it was still oversize. After that was done I simply walked away leaving the blank and template between centers for about two months,..this would prooved to be a good moove because when I went back to it and changed the tracing stylus to bring the wood down a bit more I was quite surprised by how much it had shrunk and twisted.
From that point on it was sharp chisels, lamp black and elbow grease,...and not wanting to make a mistake it was all painstakingly slow
Some days were a bit chilli,....so staying out of the cold and working seemed like a good option............
The hand pin was also stripped and a new one was made to the correct lenght,....to ensure proper function of the single trigger
Final shaping and contouring were just as time consuming,...as well as straightening the trigger guard and making the new screws,...they also neede to be engraved..........
Tear drops were a real peach as well.....
Gold oval installed....
And then what seemed like an eternity of rubbing,...I felt like the Karate Kid,..wax on....wax off
Re-finish the forend to match, clean up the checkering and engrave the oval
Checking the locks for proper fit and function for one last time
And here is the final product,.....I started keeping track of the hrs but at some point I lost track, It was a good winter project anyway......
