Jeff:
Thanks for sharing the above photos; and I agree that this gun does indeed have a funky screw in the top lever. Other things that are not original: obviously the white line pad; this aftermarket alteration would have been done 40 years or more after the gun works closed. The standard butt treatment for this model would have been a simple hard-rubber plate; plain at the toe and heal, with intersecting diagonal lines in the center. Period catalogs listed only one pad as optional, a Silvers pad for an additional $5.00. The fore end wood has also received an aftermarket repair, as the small diamond shaped escutcheon near the tip is not original. Based on my experience with Syracuse ejector guns, to inlet their ejector mechanism required so much wood removal that it left the front and rear anchor points very weak. In this instance I suspect the wood securing the front anchor screw cracked, and the original wood thread screw was replaced by a machine thread screw secured to the diamond shaped escutcheon visible in the checkering pattern. Maybe the same guy that performed this repair also performed the less than desireable stock repair? As FYI, what is the serial number of this gun, and can you post a picture of the bottom of the frame? Thanks, Tom
