Personal curiosity only. I maintain a note file on each of my guns with details on the Guns so my son will know everything worth knowing about each of the guns I value. It will also aid in their sale should they go that route one day.
The Purdey in question was a fixer up salvage. Made in 1898 with 30 inch barrels a philistine destroyed its value cutting off the gun at 26 leaving no choke. The barrels had also been reblued at some point, but not to Purdey standards. The gun was sold with rubber pad in 1898 that along the way had been replaced with a thick Heavy Pachmayr pad; All said a butt heavy gun.
Luckily min thickness was 0.027 & 0.029. The dimensions were within an eighth of my ideal. So I brought it, refinished the wood myself, had briley put tubes in it as the barrels were trashed anyway. I replaced the Pachmayr pad with a lightweight cervellati recoil pad and the gun balances now exactly where the original production entry says it should. The most important bottomline is I shoot it well.
My only current real issues on the gun is I manage to lose a chip of wood off the forend and I will need to replaces the forend Wood one day. And I want to leather cover the cervellati recoil pad.
I would love to find someone in the states who could properly rebarrel it. but that is unlikely and as the current barrels are shootable sleeving makes no sense. Maybe in ten years or so I will ship it back to England for rebarrelling, just not by Purdey as they currently charge twice what I have in the gun now for a set of 27inch barrels with fixed chokes.
Every time I shoot it I remain awed how everything on it works just like it should 121 years later.
Last edited by old colonel; 04/14/20 10:28 AM.
