They never left the factory finished. They were in the white, never proofed or fitted to a gun.
Not willing to alter the very tightly choked original barrels (as they patterned very well with my 3/4 oz reloads), I started looking for a donor Ideal for a second set of barrels- a daunting task, being 16 ga. Instead, almost three years ago, I found a seller in France with a set of NOS barrels in the white for my Model 314. I watched him relist the item on the auction site every ten days for about 6 months, and then made him an offer, with assurances I could walk him through the export/customs process and would pay all the fees.
So they are near the end of a long and very expensive (spending more than the gun itself four years ago) journey from St. Etienne: engraved by an up and coming artist in Eastern Nebraska, fitted to the gun and chokes opened by Kirk Merrington, and now polished and blacked by one of the best anywhere.
I only await Fedex's resolution of hundreds or perhaps thousands of miles of screw-ups and unnecessary travel to see and enjoy them: supposed to have them Thursday. What's a few more days anyway.
Mike
