How many of you guys have seen the thread on the Parker Site showing the main barrel lug ''Falling off''
a Parker Repro shotgun ? Some say its only the second one they have seen. Talking to some gun smiths I know,
they said they know of about 12 of them. But only because most Repro's are not used much. ...
Once upon a time, anecdotal evidence like that single photo of a single lug failure might have impressed me and made me leery. Now, I would want to see full details and evidence of the other eleven supposedly known failures... especially after all of the hysterical and inaccurate stories of alleged frame cracking problems in smallbore Ithaca Flues and some Fox shotguns.
Literally millions of shotgun barrels have been produced with the shoe lump method. Virtually all of them have the lump attached by brazing or silver soldering. The number that fail must be infinitesimally small, or else we'd be seeing failure Threads here.
A close up look at the failed joint on this Parker Repro shows a very poor braze joint with roughly 50% wetting. I'd sure want to know if the same barrel-maker who did that one did all of them using the same materials and methods. That kind of braze joint failure can be due to a number or combination of several factors including contamination of the braze material, incorrect temperature, burning of the flux, poor fit and clamping, and more. If that was some part that contributed to a commercial jet crash, the NTSB would do a year-long investigation without jumping to conclusions.
I never wanted a Parker repro. If I did own one, I might want to do a close examination, such as the poor man's Magnaflux, to check for signs of impending failure. As much as I like Lefevers, I was never excited about all the hoopla when there was an effort to create a reproduction Lefever. Why would I, when I can easily have the real thing?
