doublegunshop.com - home Forums Thread Like Summary - 1891 Quality 1 Elsie

It's here.









My early American Pigeon gun. Big and heavy, lots of drop, and choked mod & mod. Fresh from a total tear-down (to bits!) and a thorough ultrasonic clean-up (it had oxidized whale-oil residue just about everywhere inside it), checkering re-cut, laminated steel barrels refinished & the original stock stabilized. It's been pronounced "fit" for almost whatever I'd want to feed it (w/45-thou tubes at the breech & ~40-thou at the muzzles). Bring on Whittington!

Finally got some sunshine here today (it was supposed to snow, but not till tomorrow now).



These barrels look so good to me (the whole gun does as well, actually... it looked a bit shabby before all this). The process of refinishing them is quite labor intensive in that they have to be stripped, stuck down, dents lifted, polished, and then go through several stages of an immersion bath with various chemicals to get a contrast on these "Laminated Steel" tubes. Black & White on a set of Damascus tubes looks quite different (much more contrast) but this works for me. It's been quite a process to get it here and... to have it turn out so-nicely really feels pretty good. Better than Christmas (but maybe not Grousemas).





I don't think this is the "Single Sighting Plane" rib, but it sure is big (compared to my other English doubles).



This is a "transitional gun" in that it still has the more-defined lower bolsters from the Syracuse-era, as well as the rounded screwheads (the breech-balls are shaped differently too). It also has its original English walnut stock. The post-1913 guns were reportedly using American walnut by then, and the "cracking" issues became more common after that.



My original "Double Dog " buttplate is looking a little worn after 132 years, but you can still make out the dogs if you look closely.



According to the authorities over at the LC Smith webpage, 1,399 Quality 1 guns were made in 1891 but...I've never seen another in person. It's my theory that the higher grade guns received better care and accordingly, they had a better chance at surviving until now. Overall, this is a much better gun than the one I herited from my grandfather back when I was 14-years old. I'm going to be much nicer to this one.

I've looked at hundreds of Syracuse L.C. Smith's, both in hand on in pictures and have never seen one with cracks behind the locks, why, because it was the more dense European walnut not American walnut. The L.C. Smith's pre-13 higher graded guns with a lot of figure used some of this European walnut and root or crotch American walnut. American walnut is not for side lock shotguns.