doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Who Did This Restoration?

Finally after several years I found a small bore LC Smith today at a small local gun show. It's a 20 gauge, 1948 Marlin era,28" barrels, mod&full. The older gentleman I bought it from stated he bought it in this condition in the 80's. To me it appears to be a total restoration.
One thing I was impressed with was how close the case colors are to original LC Smith colors, close enough to make me wonder if original, bluing is perfect with the barrel stampings pretty crisp. has had a leather covered recoil pad added.
I'm wondering if anyone would have an idea on who might have done the restoration on this gun. I was not really looking for a restored small bore but the price was to good to turn down.
Thanks, John

I've owned a number of Elsies over the years and yours looks to be fine and original. Chops

I would bet on it being original, I can not see any of the clues of restoration

Very nice. You did good.

I agree with the other posters--the color looks original. The pad-- not likely original.
If the colors are not original I'd like to know who did them!
Beautiful Elsie !

Appreciate the opinions so far. OK, so here's a question and maybe I'm showing my lack of knowledge but wouldn't it have flat pointed checkering being a field grade and not sharp pointed checkering. Or, did small bore guns have better checkering?

Looks factory to me as well,especially the CC,nice find.

I'll be the spoiler here. That's a gorgeous gun, and there's nothing about it that looks factory to me. I have an all original '48 closet Smith here and neither the wood nor the bluing on the trigger guard look anywhere as fine, and the checkering is not as crisp. Similarly, the case colors are not as brilliant. Man, that's a good looker, though!

Original or not, it's a good looking, classy gun. I assume it carries at least as well as it looks?

Dave, it carried from the gunshow to the car fine. Seller threw in a nice Americase also.
One thing I have left out and forgot to take a picture of is there is 0 breech face wear, looks unfired since restoration if in fact it's been restored.