I was eyeballing a clean pre-war Greifelt O/U today, getting ready do finances in my head. It looked to be in nice condition, till I asked about the chokes. The guy across the counter pulled his handy dandy choke gauge and said Improved and Mod. That seemed a little odd, because in my experience most of the Germanic guns have been full and fuller, or something like that.
I took a good look at the muzzle and darned if the barrels hadn't been cut, not very well, to about 28". Don't know if it had a bulge or what, but the end of the barrels, rib and joins had been lopped off. I could still feel a burr and a lip on the rib and the bluing was gone on everything at the muzzle. I didn't have a wall thickness gauge, but am optomistically wondering if I can simply have the muzzle squared, rib and joins filled, barrels threaded for chokes and be back in business.
I'm guessing a lot of value left when the hack/chop saw came out, and wondering if that would offset the cost of making things right. Thoughts?
