I've had successes and failures with project guns. My biggest failure was trying to have a set of new, unfitted 32" Utica Fox barrels fitted to a Philly Fox I have. I sent it all to a well renowned doublegunsmith in the Pacific NW to be fitted. He came highly recommended for doublegun work, though I didn't check out his abilities to fit barrels. I wrongly assumed that he was capable. As I said, the barrel set was new, having never had a file or stone put to the hook. Chambers and chokes had been cut, barrels were struck and polished, rib was matted and roll stamping was all in place on the tubes, no beads and never blued. I had a good many $$$ in those barrels in just the acquisition, in the high three digits.
The gun came home with the worst job of fitting you could imagine. Ray Charles could've done better with a worn out chainsaw file. The hook was no longer round, but egg shaped. There was at least .005" daylight on the left barrel/breechface interface and the right barrel breech was barely making contact with the breech face. I would say 30% contact at best, when smoked and examined, and that's really being generous in my estimate.
I've been enlightened about fitting barrels to doubleguns in the ensuing years. Word up .......a nice set of files and stones does not a barrel fitter make. There are far more otherwise accomplished doublegunsmiths who cannot do the job right than there are who can. It's as our resident English friend Ernie puts it, and I paraphrase him ......... "the lessons that I really learned cost me dearly". That one certainly did for me.
