doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Basket case guns and overly proud owners.

Ever look at a gun and just wondered what that person was thinking or smoking when they decided what to do to it? Looked at a Fox CE today that I just had so many issues with it and I can't decide if it is just me being picky or if my issues are what passes for normal around here.

The gun was a 12 ga. with a straight stock and beaver tail for end. The gun was converted to a straight grip and you could easily see where the extension had been added to the trigger guard. I could do better welding at ten. The shape was not right and looked to flat and too wide. The engraving was not very good on the new portion.

Then the barrels had been rust blued but all the lines were just so soft, almost loosing definition. At first I thought they had been buffed but I think they got pitted too much while being rust blued. Case color was 10% in protected area on the receiver. Screws were not buggered so much as the slots had been widened to fix that. But most of the engraving on them was wiped out.

I was not impressed with the restock job or the choice of wood.
The butt stock was not well inlet and the shape was just off. The checkering was too fine on the butt stock with terrible execution. The fore end checkering looked decent and fit was a decent looking job until I looked at the amount of glass bedding used. Looked like a bondo job almost. But the worst problem of all was that they had used a feather Black Walnut blank and did a crappy job of layout instead of finding a decent English Walnut blank. I thought it might have been a original for end but that glass bedding job never left the factory like that and Black Walnut just was wrong. I guess they might have used Black Walnut near the end or at a customers request. I just never saw one on a C grade.

Mechanically it was fine but such a mess. I started to count up what I would have invested into it if I bought it and tried to straighten it out. The bill just keep growing and growing. I started with the most obvious problem of needing to restock in in a decent English Walnut blank. But then figured I would need to have all the engraving picked up. New screws made and timed. Then the metal all refinished. So I asked what price he was thinking of and he hit me with a 99% BlueBook value. It was after all in such high condition. I just handed it back and said way too rich for my blood which seemed to make him feel good.

So is it just me? When you look at a gun do you almost feel sorry for what some of them have endured? And I refuse to try to educate sellers when they have such a basket case. They just get mad or defensive about stuff. I try to be polite and wash my hands of the gun. Hand it back and say nothing to encourage them but also nothing to insult them or their crappy gun.

I do believe that the restoration of vintage guns has come to the point where they look like they came off the finishers bench yesterday. And of course, it is the owner�s choice to restore to new condition, or the owner could just have enough restoration to stop the guns slide into mechanical oblivion.
As for myself I lean more to letting a gun show its well looked after condition and letting its age shine through and growing old gracefully, rather than displaying what a re-finisher thinks the gun should look like.
But in the end, it is the owner�s choice.

It's just you.

I don't waste time critiquing bad guns for sale, or arguing or commenting on the price of a gun I have no intention of buying. Consequently, I have more time at a show to search for guns I am really interested in.

I'm like KY Jon, I don't say anything that the seller would find insulting but I don't give them any encouragement either.

I've seen a lot of 'overly restored' guns - while I don't know what it looked like prior to all the work the owner/seller put into it, I suspect it might have been in pretty good original condition before the butchers when to work on it. Like Damascus said, I prefer to see a gun in its well-aged condition than one made to "look like new." But that's just me....

I'm sure many on this forum have picked up redone guns and thought "What were they thinking"? We however are probably better then most in the real world who don't know much about doubles and compare the redone gun to perhaps a Remington 870 with a Birch stock. In their minds the gun is exceptional with the "enhancements". Couple of years ago at the NE SXS a gentleman came by the booth I was helping to man and said he had a couple of Parkers out in his car that he wanted to sell with eye popping wood at a good price. I strolled out there and yes, it was somewhat like what you mention. Pretty blank of American Walnut that didn't fit the grade of the gun and all the restocking and other work was no where near what one would expect to see on any grade Parker. I had zero interest at any price (well perhaps at a 870 price) and remarked that that indeed was a wonderful stick of wood that was put on the gun, but that I was mostly a Fox guy and really didn't need it. Did thank him for taking the time to show them to me and wished him well in finding a buyer.

Don't forget sentiment's powerful voice. I've workaday guns I'm proud of because of the circumstances by which they came into my possession. I have no exaggerated illusions of their market value. They remind me of previous owners and where I came from. Price and looks isn't everything.

One would expect that the owner of a Fox CE would have some indication of what he had, and pursue work befitting of the grade of gun it is.

One would be wrong. Some of these guns are ending up with second cousins step nephew-in-laws after the owners cashes in. I believe I read that about 5% of the population still hunts, and bird hunters would be a subset of that 5%. I recently came into a Darne that a liberal witch couldn't wait to get out of her house. Clear thinking on a subject outside of her political realm would not appear to have been her fort�, and I was damn surprised the gun simply didn't go into her trash can, rolled in a rug, under cover of darkness.

So it goes. You can lament, or, you can simply move on.

Best,
Ted

http://www.gunsinternational.com/guns-fo...un_id=100919080

Arrrrggggghhhhh....

I weep at every gun show