Morning all,
I've seen a few things in my time, but I recently bought a gun at an auction that I knew needed a restock, but the gun (small bore graded Fox) was in my opinion worth a restock. Contacted someone on this forum to redo the barrels in advance and laid on a stocker. All was well until the gun arrived. While everything else was as disclosed, apparently the auction house missed a rather dandy repair to the rib right behind the front bead (which had no doubt been replaced). Well, a picture is worth a thousand words and here tis:
Whether is was a sprung rib or something else, it appears as if a hole was drilled in the rib and then a small screw or pin inserted and dressed down. For what its worth the barrels rang. While I was pretty sure I was going to send them back I sent the pictures to the forum member and then we talked. I leave his name out of this but he can certainly chime in with input if he desires.
Our collective opinion was this might fall into the "Pandora's box" category and the only way to know was to drill out the pin, and pull the top rib to see what we have and then relay the rib and re-mat the top of the barrels after Micro TIG. Our belief that was a bridge too far. After consulting with the auction house and sending the attached picture they agreed immediately to a full refund which is in route now. I shipped the gun back to them the day after receipt.
Morale to the story is make sure you deal with an auction house that will make things right if there is a problem on their end. Second morale is trust your instincts to walk away. Goodness knows where this would have gone in a worse case scenario.
PS. The hunt continues for another 20 bore Fox with 28" barrels to have restocked to fit me that doesn't cost two arms and at least one leg.
