I'm biased, as I enjoy doing these processes myself.
To me, restoring a Vintage gun, especially one that was not usable, is very satisfying. I consider it breaking the "Downhill Slide" of deterioration, eventually leading to "parting out" or relegation as a "Wallhanger" gun. Rather than being concerned with "like new" restoration, restoring a gun to what I think of as "90%, very-well cared for" condition is more appropriate. For example, since so many old guns have a bolt through the flats, removing the bolt, doing an internal pin repair, then inletting over the holes before refinishing can save the cost of restocking.
In my opinion, and I ran into this when looking at new guns for my sons, was that the Vintage one's, even the field grades, are far superior and have more character.
Sure, cost of work is important, so getting a little higher grade gun for restoration is always better.
There's lot's of options out there to save a few bucks, especially if you refinish your own stock. Case-coloring and Damascus refinishing are things you probably don't want to try yourself, unless you take a class, or have multiple guns to do.
Once these guns are gone they'll be gone forever, bringing one back for future generations is very cool.
Last edited by Ken61; 06/04/15 04:26 PM.
