doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Parker question

Full disclosure, Not a Parker guy, I have owned several Repo's though.
Was at a local shop this past weekend and saw this nice clean Parker on the shelf. It was listed on the tag as a VH but best I could tell by the engraving it was actually a DH. I wanted to look at the frame and see what frame size and if the frame was stamped as a DH but could not get the barrels off. My friend tried and the guy at the store tried but we could never get them off.
Now I suppose I could have looked at the barrel markings to see if they were stamped as V grade barrels but was frustrated by the problem I just put it back in the rack.
Now I suppose the gun had some refreshing done as the skeleton butt plate was re-blued and had no engraving. It also had somewhat of a short LOP and overall it just looked like someone had did some cosmetic work at some time to it.
Now I could get the forearm off but could never get the barrels off the frame. Was there something I was missing doing? Suppose someone put V grade barrels on this DH gun or does it even matter.

Well anything is possible. Call the shop and get the serial number and post it and if it's in the serial number number book we can advise how it left the factory. Does sound like a cobbled up gun.

It would be unusual for a VH grade gun to have a skeleton butt plate. The VH guns basically have a border engraving. If you couldn't get the barrels off the gun there is something amiss.

Ken

Gun was identified as a VH, but clearly had what appeared to be DH engraving. No ejectors. I would suppose the skeleton butt plate was added since there was no engraving on it and it had a short LOP as well. A 1" solid pad would have gotten it out to an acceptable LOP for me.
Gun was priced at 3K so would that had been a good price?
If I could have seen frame size and additional marking I might had jumped as I would like to have a nice Graded Parker

As you have described, 3k would be high for that gun especially since you couldn’t get the barrels off. There are better ones out there.

lots of images an info here...

https://parkerguns.org/

Wow way too much if its a cobbled together gun.

I bought a GH with a replacement stock pilfered from another gun and a funky recoil pad for about $700. The Parkers seem to spawn a number of mixed and matched examples put together by hobby tinkerers. I struggled to get the same back out of it. It is the only gun I ever bought and sold without shooting. In any event, I wouldn't pay what seems like full freight for one that has been modified, or you even suspect has been modified, because it probably has.

Just curious-if the gun in question has extractors, not selective ejectors, and you cannot remove the barrels from the frame to verify this, how did you or the seller know this? The only double guns I am familiar with where you can visually determine if it is an ejector grade gun is the L.C. Smith- the end of the ejector axle pin can be seen on the forearm metal when the gun is closed. This Parker at his asking price of 3K sounds like a "run, don't walk away deal with your checkbook in your pocket"'. RWTF

I've read about that problem on the Parker Collectors. I think it's pretty common on "dry" guns with congealed oil or no oil. I believe it's caused by the cooking hook remaining engaged. I'd check with the Parker guys.