doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com So you said you wanted a Prussian Chas Daly

I'm considering it. It's not much worse than the Syracuse "Hollenbeck" I recently bought. In fact, the finish is perhaps a little better, I'm spending beaucoup time striking the pits on the Hollenbeck barrels. However, right now the bid price for the Daly is higher than what I paid for the Hollenbeck. It'd look nice next to the Daly hammergun I'm currently restoring..
Ken

Eightbore hit the real problems on the head. If the stock is not too bad the real problem is most likely the barrels. If the barrels are pitted inside and or outside they may bee too thin to save. If they are decent then all the rest can be fixed but at a lot of time or money spent to do it right.

I think the triangles are leather glued on to hide a split head repair on the stock. Why that shape and size is a question. If the repair is holding you could inlet new wood into those areas and try to blend it to match. The 12" LOP is another real problem. I hate two inch plus thick recoil pads so only a extension would be an option for me. That would be another blended repair problem.

Might just be much easier and cheaper in the long run to just re-stock it. The fore end has a small area missing but I would try to just repair that area. I may be slow, but fore ends seem to take me as long as butt stocks or longer sometimes. They have a lot of surface area to fit and need to be tight fitting to look and work right.

It all comes down to the barrels for me. If they are useless then the project becomes almost impossible to justify. My wife has pointed out to me that some of the worst projects guns are those I bought off GunBroker.com. Not as a knock against them but that is where some of the roughest guns seem to end up for sale. And I was not only silly enough to buy them all but happy to do so at the time.

KyJon, my wife only experiences the long drives to gunsmith who are taking care of my "Projects". She has no idea of the tears I shed. I hope someone else takes over the Daly in question. Just the stock work on this gun would exceed the price of a nice Diamond Grade, which this is not.

Someone is betting money that this gun is in restore-able shape. 571.00 to be sure is a fairly decent bet given that chances that the stock and barrels both are suspect. Perhaps the 12" LOP is no major concern. Be interesting to see that project gun being restored or just put into a safe for some future project.

$596. Of course, I paid more than that for the only Lindner 16 gauge hammer gun I've ever seen, and it has holes in both barrels.

If the barrels were good and the rest could be re worked then why not?
Some here have the time and talent to bring it back.
It would be a great "advanced beginner" gun for a hobby smith.

If, If , If is not a great way to start out on a project gun. As a rule I try to limit my project guns to one If. If the barrels are good then yes you can fix the rest but you will have to do it yourself, or else you will end up with a gun worth half as much as you have invested in it, if you are lucky.

If the barrels are bad you just bought a wall hanger or expensive set of carrier barrels for a pair of Briley tubes. I have nothing against tube sets but barrel heavy doubles are not that much fun to shoot or carry.

Then you need to deal with the stock. Restocking it will cost 3-4 grand unless you do it yourself. Putting an extension or two and a half inch recoil pad and spaces could be done but it looks like crap to me.

Linder made Charles Daly's are fairly rare. But they were in fact guns bought in the trade, in the white or as semi rough actions and finished up. I do not know if the gun started out as Sauer or some other makers action but Linder did not make his own actions from a block of steel. In many ways he is a lot like Becker finishing up Fox guns for a customer. High quality work, on a basic gun, made in part by others.

3 day inspection

Battle do you see this gun as anything but a major project? If so the three day inspection if just a "hope" the barrels are perfect. Because if not it is a tomato stake. Cracked stock, old, crude repairs, stock cut to 12.5", barrels with black paint on them and rust or pitting where the paint is gone. I have bought guns like this for too many years and fixed too many of them up to even have a slight interest in this one. If this gun was across town I might well ride over and look at it but to spend $50.00 shipping it back and forth just does not interest me.

Major project? Depends. If the barrels are no good then yes, to me it would be a major project and one that I won't deal with. Like having to sleeve because of pitting or too thin walls. But IF the barrels are good. And i do have the tools to measure wall thickness choke and chambers, then to me it isn't a major project. I can do all metal work including Damascus refinishing. So what's left is the wood. Which yes of course has issues. I have already spoken with two wood people and they so far agree with me that a butt transplant will be the best cost effective fix. But until I actually get the gun in hand no decision made on it yet.

So I'm in it so far for 600. If I go the transplant route for 800 and I don't count my time on metal and Damascus refinishing cause it's free to me, is it a 1500 gun? I don't know I dont care.