Alright, Raimey asked for the "full story" on my foray into drillings so I'll try to abbreviate it as best I can.
About three months ago I decided that I wanted a drilling at which time I saw an advertisement for what I learned was called a "Henri Roux" style bottom lever opening shotgun/drilling. I then went onto Cabelas website for some other reason and ended up browsing over to the gun library and searching for "drilling".
Up popped a beautiful drilling that we'll call #1. #1 was a Henri Roux type drilling that Raimey went over the proofs in detail in another thread. The drilling had some rust so I did several home remedies on the gun such as using 0000 steel wool and gun oil all over the receiver, then used gun scrubber several times to flush out the dirt, and finally used a pink eraser (a gun engraver's trick) to thoroughly clean the engraving. In the end, #1s engraving was what I consider to be, fabulous. The shotgun barrels on #1 were really nice and clean with a decent 1" forcing cone and overall it was a lovely gun.
The first inkling of disappointment with #1 happened when I looked closely at the gun's stock and realized the stock was a crude replacement. It was checkered using a box cutter and even though the fit was pretty good, it didn't match the forend. Oh, and it was really short.
The second thing was that some of the screws were buggered because somebody opened up the gun with a flathead screw driver once upon a time.
Even with the problems above, I still loved my cabelas drilling they shipped in from WV for me. Then came the chamber cast which raimey posted above. The chamber cast was for a 8x58 Sauer and Sohn Express and I specifically bought a gun 8x57JR. I was more than angry about this point. The gun barrel was also really fired out with almost no rifling left in it.
The mislabeling was the final straw for me and I marched the gun back into Cabelas and said "you know how you don't do returns on guns? You do now!". They agreed and gave me a credit for Drilling #1.
Cabelas felt pretty sheepish over several errors in representation they made on #1 including the chambering error so they decided to make it right. They found me drilling #2 at their Maine store and they shipped it in to town for me.
#2 is a beautiful drilling with PERFECT bores on all three barrels. The engraving is not as good as #1 but it is still very nice. #2 also has a Greener safety which #1 did not have. #2 also had a beautiful bullet trap in the stock and 27" barrels that made me think this gun could be my standby hunting gun in the future.
Cabelas worked out a reasonable deal in exchange of #1 for #2 and I paid the difference since #2 was more money. Cabelas also appreciated that the gun #1 came back to them in MUCH better condition than it was sold to me. The pink eraser work on the engraving brought the gun back to life.
The next day I returned to Cabelas excited to get my gun and then head to New England for a family vacation. My wife and infant were in the packed car and I went in to Cabelas to literally grab #2, put it in a case and drive 15 hours that day.
This is when Murphy's law set in. Someone at Cabelas had played with #2 in the 24 hours since I had purchased it and through jamming the gun together and tinkering with it, they broke the lever spring on #2. Since I had already paid for it, Cabelas told me to take the gun and just send them the gunsmithing bill.
After driving through the night I made it to New England, dropped the family off and went into town to the Orvis Flagship store to see world renowned gunsmith Jordan Smith about this drilling. Jordan took the gun for 3 weeks in which time he did the following work: He removed the horn butt plate and created a 1-1/4" leather covered pad making the LOP 15". He choked the gun IC/M for me. He forged a new custom spring. $950 in repairs later, the gun arrived on 8/9 and I had the first chance to actually touch the gun I had bought a month earlier.
I open the gun case to find the brand new pad had been sliced and split (a $300 pad mind you!). The lady that packed the gun up at Orvis grabbed this plastic hang tag that held the broken gun spring and put it back in the box with staples extended open, right on top of the gun pad. During days of UPS travel the gun shifted and those staples cut that pad open severely.
Of course Orvis offered to replace the pad immediately but I decided to just keep the pad as it is. I have 3 lovely guns on the for sale list and I intend to keep the 1 or maybe 2 that don't sell. I didn't want to be without the drilling #2 in case it ends up being the one that goes.
The nicest thing about Jordan Smith's pad is that he created a 1/4" spacer and shaped it to the curved butt of the gun, then covered it and the pad in leather so the pad fits flawlessly, yet the gun has its original horn butt still and they can be swapped out since the stock hasn't been cut in any way.
So that is my drilling adventure! Now I have to go into Cabelas and see what I must do to get the $500 custom fabricated spring reimbursed that they were kind enough to break for me. (which Jordan replaced)
