doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Unusual Nitro Special

Encountered a nice 12 guage Nitro Special on Calguns C&R marketplace subforum that I've never seen. It's a 28" 12 with SN 192XXX in very nice condition w/most of the CC intact. He thought it was a 1928 gun.

But it has bold scrolls engraved on the "balls" of the breech (not sure that's the correct term, but it's what I've heard 'em called) and nowhere else that I could see in his pretty good pix. Is that little touch factory work?

(I exhorted this guy to consult your worships on this forum, for his pricing question; remember he's in Richifornia if he pipes up....).

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=1271329

A Nitro Special in the 192xxx range would be 1925 vintage. Most likely something done after market, like the buttstock on that gun. In the 1920s the Nitro Special was stocked with a half-pistol grip --

Embelished and restocked.

For a 12 gauge Nitro Special in any condition, 600 dollars is over priced. Might have been price shopping and comparing it with an actual Lefever.

How does one cut engraving on the detonators AFTER cyanide hardening? It is a curved surface, that is hard as a rock.
It doesn't seem very much workmanship went into the fit of the wood to the action, looking at the picture from the top, showing the opening lever.
Very optimistic pricing. Little more than a parts guns.

Best,
Ted

With carbide point you can cut through most case hardened surfaces. The quality of the cut may not look the best, a little 'rough around the edges' so to speak,,but you can succeed.
Maybe that's why they went no further.
Cyanide hardened does seem to be tougher to cut through than bone/charcoal hardened for some reason. Neither are a pleasure to work through and generally avoided by most engravers.

Looks clean. Those guns didn't have very deep checkering. But assuming the wood started out checkered, I don't see any now.

You could probably pick up a decent NID 12ga for not a lot more than the asking price. Smallbore Nitros can bring better money if in unusually good shape. 12's, not so much.

I agree- I bought my NID grade 2-30" DT, Ext- for less than this seller wants for this Nitro Special- mine is in NRA VG condition, and has good dims- made in 1927- it has the trademark "snail-ear" cocking pin indicators--Most of the 12 gauge LeFever Nitro Specials I see at area gun shows have been "ridden hard and put up wet"- so to speak..

The shallow engraving on my NID grade 2 does not compare to the engraving on my pre-1913 graded L.C. Smith guns, but as an old-timer trap shooter with a Ithaca Victory grade SBT once said to a gent sporting a 5E Knick Ithaca SBT, at a local gun club-after he ran a 100 straight at 16 yards with the Victory model -"All that fancy scroll don't break targets!"

I think the Ithaca NID doubles are real "work horse" using guns, like many think about their Model 21's-- durable doubles made to stand the gaff of heavy loads and hard usage afield.

The stock is not original. But a poorly made replacemrnt.