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

Just taken delivery of this one from a recent Southams Auction. The only marking on top is PARKER HALE stamped on top of the right barrel.



From the specifications it is clearly a Model 602, listed by PH at £270.64 in their April 1984 price list (just over £1K in today’s values). Curiously the fore end wood is stamped M104 which would be their side-lock (then £387.60). I suspect that is an error as it seems unlikely that the fore-ends would interchange between side locks and boxlocks.

With 1981 Spanish proofs it shows very little sign of use in the intervening years although someone has fitted a light gathering pipe sight behind the bead.

It seems very well engineered, but is let down somewhat by the dark stock lacquer or varnish that hides the wood grain and seems vulnerable to chipping off.

I am intrigued by the stamps on the base of the chopper lumps. Any thoughts?

No idea about the stamps. All the proofmarks appear standard Spanish for that time period.

Those Parker-Hale marked guns were imported here in the States by Cortland Precision Sports. Also sold as Bill Hanus Birdguns with some minor modifications. They generally got good reviews in terms of representing value for the relatively modest price.

I had a Parker Hale marked Ugartechea in .410 bore and it was a solid gun as are the 2 Ugartecheas that we still own. I sold it when we moved into a retirement community and decided for space reasons to only keep those guns that would fit into 1 cabinet so we're now down to 14 long guns and 8 handguns. Since I also have no place to reload here all my .410 bore guns and my 24 gauge along with guns that neither my wife nor I had shot in over 10 years were among those gifted or sold.

I just checked and both my wife's 16 gauge and my 28 gauge Ugartecheas have the "D 2" on the same lump as yours. The other lumps are similarly marked but the numbers are different. I have no idea what the markings mean.

Just above the 18.5mm marking on both barrels I see two stars and three stars. Presumably these indicate the degree of choke??

Sorry, no idea about the lump numbers.

[quote=L. Brown]


Although they were the same basic specifications (BLE with chopper-lump barrels and disc-set strikers) I got the impression Bill Hanus Birdguns might have a superior finish. Perhaps it was just good advertising but oil finished stocks would have made a good start.

It is in fact 2 stars (3/4 choke) and 4 stars (1/4 choke)

Translated to American that's Improved Modified and Improved Cylinder.

nice, light, solid hunting gons...should work fine...

That's entirely possible. When Hanus switched from Ugartechea to AyA for his bird guns, I saw several of them in gunsmith Hugh Lomas' shop. I don't recall exactly what Hugh was doing, but it was to set them apart from standard AyA imports.