I find this thread fascinating as it amply demonstrates the two extremes of the sleeving debate: those who wouldn't p*** on a sleeved gun if it was on fire and those who genuinely don't have a problem with them.
I shoot a lot of sleeved guns and I sell a lot of them and I really don't see what puts people off properly done, TIG sleeved guns aesthetically. I would depart a little from Dig in that I am afraid that the joint is always visible if only as a slight greying of the area of the TIG weld but, hey, perhaps I have an over active imagination.
Interestingly, in my experience this grey area becomes less visible with age. I had my 'falling in ditches' Blanch Backaction SLE TIG sleeved some 12 years ago and the joint IS pretty invisible unless I get some very strong light on it.
This is the very opposite of most soft solder sleeving which does tend to become more obvious with age. I suspect this is caused by the soldering flux bleeding out of the joint over time and doing what flux does and fading the oxide blacking.
I can understand the argument about value but I'm with Dig on this, you invest a lot more is a original barrelled gun and then pray that someone is going to value it higher than you when you want to sell it. And worry about using it in the meantime!
Really good sleeving of a gun costs about 10-25% of what it costs to re-barrel (depending on how illustrious a 'maker) and yet devalues the gun by perhaps a third.
You can always re-barrel a sleeved gun and in the meantime you get to use and (forgive me) abuse it with a clear conscience!
And forgive my ignorance, but isn't Woodward defunct? Purdey I think hold the rights to the name so one would have to ask them to re-barrel it. Now we are talking telephone numbers and all for a SLNE? And would it have been rebarreled by the 'maker in the eyes of a purist? I would feel obliged to catalogue it as 're-barrelled by Purdey'. And given their attitude to rank and file, I don't consider that much of an accolade!
