doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com saw a disaster today /A Fox

I went to look at some hunting,fishing stuff at an estate today,back in a corner of the basement laid a A.Fox double,20's/30s gun,barrels cut to about 12 inches.the stock cut at the pistol grip.Nice original checkering,what a shame.I thought maybe the reciever would be salvagable,but when I turned it over,bubba had welded it to something years ago and had since cut it off,even ruining the reciever.The only things that may have been useable may have been the trigger guard and top lever.I passed it as I was afraid of getting caught with a sawed of barrels.Not sure what grade it once was but sure a shame to see it destroyed

A lot of fine doubles have been ruined in one way or another. Bobby

Not to mention the occasional "Cowboy" who doesn't know the difference between Parker and a Stevens.

I have found a couple of guns cut to illegal lengths in the past and managed to salvage the action and other parts by a quick trip to the nearest pond or river....

Sometimes that's just not possible in a public sale, and any public transportation of the action with the barrels could turn into a legal nightmare if one were to suffer a fender-bender.

I saw a very nice Remington graded SxS just action and forend iron that I assume had the same problem. It was cheap enough but at the time I figured I would die before finding wood and barrels to make it a whole gun again.
CHAZ

I picked up an L.C. Smith 12 ga. Ideal grade last year with barrels less than 18". I ended up parting it out and destroying the barrels.

I think I will add this observation from last weekends gun show:
I wonder just how many otherwise collectible firearms have been ruined because some Doofus actually took the police departments recommendation to engrave their SSN on their valuables back in the 70s?
I saw a couple of mint condition Browning's that had received such treatment at the show. They have now been reduced to their value as shooters.
Jim

Isn't there a process whereby the barrels are cut just past the chambers, or out to even 8-10", and mate new tubes/barrels to the original piece?

existing barrels cut into a monoblock - ahead of the chambers
the process for adding new tubes is called sleeving

Transportation and/or possession of a set of barrels cut below 18" could get you in a fair amount of trouble with the wrong people, BATF for one group. I am not a gunsmith so I could be hard pressed to prove that I was sleeving them and just cut the down for convenience. The last double I bought that had to be sleeved had a section cut out of both barrels about mid way down the barrels. I do not know if auction housed even will let you get that now.

I bought a double years ago some clown had cut the barrels down to 12". Ruined a fine shooter. Before I took the gun home I flattened the barrel ends and folded them over. Was told by a BATF agent several years later that he thought I was OK at that point because the gun was un-shootable but he said technically I was still in violation of the law. I replaced the barrels with an extra set I had at home. I think I threw the short barrels in the trash or sent it out with a large amount of metal recycling.

IF the barrels were originally mono-blocked then simply remove the old tubes & re-tube. IF on the other hand the barrels were assembled by some other method then sawing them off "Does Not a Monoblock Create" but simply a short breech section of barrels. This section can then of course be bored out & sleeved as stated to provide a usable barrel set.