first, i want to thank fab500 for his post last march, with the link to the grade 6re, and numerous pictures that show this rare variant of the ideal....a gun i would have never expected to see - much less buy. i am now awaiting receipt of such a gun - that i won in the recent morphy on-line-only auction, that ended a week ago....https://auctions.morphyauctions.com/LotDetail.aspx?inventoryid=598253.
the auction featured mostly "less desirable" items, and was a pretty streamlined process with few photos, and brief descriptions. i requested additional information, and evidently got the guy who had cataloged the gun, and authored that brilliant description....i asked for customary useful measurements, and pictures of the proofs, and close-ups of all sides of the action. couple of days later i received 9 clear and useful photos, and some pretty screwball information - "the chambers were longer than 3 1/2 inches", and chokes were cylinder & cylinder. the photos showed a very clean gun, and the proofs are "fusil ideal perfection", double proofed with powder type S, chambers marked "7" (but photographed so that you could not see if it might be additionally stamped), 18.2mm bores, stamped with the mdf under the crown - for exceptional/special order guns, and marked with the stereotypical "choke and demi-choke" stamps that seem to be the default choking on most manu guns.
i then asked for clarification regarding the "longer than 3 1/2" chambers, general conditions of the bores, and whether forcing cones were present. and, i posed a specific question - do the "bores appear to have been mutilated". here it got really screwy, on the morning of the closing day of the auction, i get a response; "when these bores were reamed out they were not rechambered properly. the bores are bright and smooth....but the chokes are gone, and the chambers are too long for shotgun shells to be safely used."
at this point, i chastised the fellow for marketing a gun with a pitiful description that would seem to say the gun is useable - when, in fact, it is not....and i "demanded" bore diameters, and mwt numbers - and asked if i could withdraw my bid. evidently this alarmed the fellow, and he carried my emails to another person (who did not choose to provide his name)....but did tell me that expert #1, had measured the gun assuming that it was a 16ga (with the barrels clearly marked 12ga).
thus, his chamber gauge was swallowed up in the bores, the forcing cones were mutilated, and the chokes were off the scales. this responder stated that "another cataloger had remeasured the gun to ensure they were correct and listed the following; barrel wall thickness, left .027, right .028
internal bore diameter, left .722, right .729
chokes, left .042, right .042
chambers, 2 3/4"
drop at comb, 1 1/2"
drop at heel, 2 1/4"
length of pull, 14 3/4" bores bright and smooth, sorry for the delay and miscommunication."
i decided that it was not a lost cause, and preceded to bid the gun up to the sale price shown on the auction page. certainly hoping the gun is as pictured, and the second "expert" was as accurate as he was sincere. if this comes to pass, i have realized that the "first expert" may well have sabotaged the sale of an exceptional shotgun - and allowed this old retired fool to get my hands on such as rarity.
best regards,
tom
in spite of the useful information recently regarding how to post pictures - i still don't have it down - so if anyone wishes to do that for me, i will gladly email the messages and photos.
and, one additional discovery, on ebay - a woman who has what she describes as a portfolio of advertising prints, put out by manu in 1909 as publicity, and she states these are not copies, but actual original prints of a fairly wide number of guns they were producing at that time.....https://www.ebay.com/itm/176348592515?mkevt=1&mkpid=0&emsid=e11304.m43.l3160&mkcid=7&ch=osgood&euid=9e2132133ae54b9592a43a3d051825e7&bu=43061095167&exe=0&ext=0&osub=-1%7E1&crd=20240425165724&segname=11304
that would be quite close to the subject gun's dob, as it's serial number appears to indicate 1908 as likely production.
Last edited by graybeardtmm3; 04/25/24 11:56 PM. Reason: added content
