Well, I'll cut to the chase This problem started at around 1:00 this morning and becasue of a damned thick skull lasted until 2:30, at which time I went to bed, problem unresolved.

Took my recently acquired William Evans out of its case post midnight and put it together for the first time.
I'd been cleaning and fooling with other guns and instead of just going upstairs caught sight of that old leather and wood case and just had to get a look first.

The rest is a blur. I took the gorgeous 30" damascus barrels out of the case and released the attached forend, assembled the gun.... You know the rest. Looked great, fit me wonderfully, ejectors shot the snap caps like rockets....Just great. OK, take it down and get to bed.

Couldn't get the forend back on the barrels. Wha? NEVER ran into this problem with any other double in the past 18 + years.
The ONLY way I could is if I pushed the Ejector hammers down (laterally) which then pushed the exracters out. THEN the forend snapped into place perfectly. But the extractors were frozen in the "out" position.

Although I thought I'd taken the gun down uncocked, I looked at the frame and saw that I hadn't. Somehow after firing the triggers I somehow must have cocked the gun when taking it down. Again, never experienced before. I put the wood to the pins and "fired". There was the proof.

So now I'm wondering if the ejector hammers are in the cocked position(?) They are acting as one; that isthe tgwo hammers are one single unit. So, I thought, get the barrels back on the frame, get the forend back on tghe barrels and....Flawed thinking past at 2:30 in the morning, and of course in the attempt everything went to hell, the upshot being there's now a small but fairly deep gash in the wood which resembles in a way the Egyptian symbol for Horus.

So that's par for the course. Can't leave it alone until something else gets messed a bit. The good result is that now I won't be timid about hunting in the bushes and brambles come October

That is, if I can get the damned thing put together!

It's got to be a simple problem. I haven't picked it up again since I woke up at 7:30 and I'm waiting for the cafeine to do it's thing, but more importantly, hoping that one of you guys out there can tell me what went wrong and tell me HOW to right it. Many Thanks and deep gratitude in advance to any and all who can - Marc

Last edited by Krakow Kid; 09/02/10 08:48 AM.