doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Worthy of restoration?

Gents,

I have an E M Reilly boxlock in fairly sad shape and am unsure if it is worthy of restoration.

It has a couple of interesting features, such as a crossbolt that does not protrude from the action and a neat little flip up rear sight .
I am not sure of age but am picking 1890's

Barrels are 30 inch blued bit I am pretty sure they are damascus.

The faults as I see them best to worst:

-There is a good sized ding in the left barrel
-They have some pitting but most of which I think would come out with a mild hone.
-The action is loose but tightens right up with a 4 thou brass shim on the hook with no light visible on the action face.
- Barrels have two dead spots and solder is visibly missing at same but there is no movement
-The right barrel is bulged at the choke but not between the ribs.
-The stock is a replacement, fit to the action is not bad but the wood itself is rubbish.


Now I could just shorten the barrels , tighten the action and call it a shooter, or spend some real money and get all the faults fixed.

I guess it boils down to what such a gun is worth against what it would cost to restore.

You opinions are appreciated.

GDU

I'd say she's served her time...

The engraving looks to far gone for a face lift and with her barrels in the shape you described...

I'd opt for a divorce.

that was a special purpose built gun, I'd bet it originally had a provision for spinning the ball, ie maybe rifled chokes or another method. You may want to research rielly ball and shot guns. Do the bores look like your standard shotgun? oval bore? rifled choke? I'd want to know for sure before I wrote her off. looks fun
Steve

"Worthy" of restoration and "worth" restoring are two very different equations. To "restore" the gun you are looking at will be very expensive. Just to get it firmly on face, repair the bulges, reblue, and restore the stock will drive you north of $1600 if done by someone like Kieth Kearcher. Replace the stock and you can double that number. Reset the engraving and recase color and you will need to add yet another $1500 or so. I suspect the "worth" restoring argument begins to break down with that investment. It may, however, still be "worthy" of restoring.

The critical path is the barrel bulge. As SKB notes, this is potentially a special gun. It was obviously built to take to the hard places where it could be both a shotgun and a 12 bore "rifle" firing a slug or ball over that 50 yd open sight. You will need to do some research, and someone here may know, but suspect Reilly configured those bores differently than its standard shotguns. If it did, the trick will be to find someone who can repair that bulge AND restore that bore magic, whatever it was. That, likely, will be fairly expensive, pushing your investment, if successful, well north of $4k. Counting the cost of the gun, I suspect it is hard to make the worth argument at that point.

Still, it is a very unusual gun, it might be made to shoot as originally intended, and if you are willing to use it till you pass it along, then it might very well be "worthy" of restoration. I have a $2400 William Cashmore at Turnbull's getting a $2700 restoration which will turn it into a $3400 gun. Worth it? Probably not. But it is unusual and I can't wait to use it for the rest of my life.

being in NZ Gegs options differ from ours by a good bit. Geg, I have some good friends in the gun biz down your way(south island). Email me and I may have some good local sources of info for you.
Steve

I think it depends on whether you pay to have all the work done or do some or most yourself ... and whether or not you REALLY like this gun.

"I have an E M Reilly boxlock in fairly sad shape and am unsure if it is worthy of restoration."

You need to decide on what "worth of restoration" means.
If your restoring to like "NEW", or just getting the gun back to respectable shooting condition. Myself i wouldn't want it LIKE NEW. If your looking for a shooter, i think you can restore it for much less. Especally if you can do some of the work yourself. Plus thats the biggest part of all the fun in projects. Can't you live without a restock?

I have to agree with some of the others. I have paid more than I should to get some guns shooting and looking good, because I liked the gun. The gun really isn't for sale, it was done for my enjoyment. If you are doing it for profit, it may be a totally differnt answer.

I'm not much on restoration...I see it more as maintenance. I like to start with a gun that has been some what properly maintained.

I don't think many people want to dump money into a gun they can't get their money back out of....peoples likes in guns changes.

It's nice to know you can recoup at least part of your investment after using a gun.

I would return it to the maker for warranty work. They obviously mismarked the right barrel as the "ball" barrel, causing the bulge. Obviously, the left barrel is the "ball" barrel.