An Interesting Lindner Daly

It's interesting because it has rifle-style bolsters on the frame, but it has shotgun barrels.  It also has quite a bit of drop and a manual safety.  German doubles with rifle and shotgun barrel sets are not unheard of, Sauer and Merkel made quite a few.  Maybe there is a set of rifle barrels for it somewhere, who knows?  In any event, it needed to be cleaned, a new left-side mainspring had to be made and the sear engagement needed to be corrected.

Here is the broken spring with the finished replacement.  I've detailed making springs elsewhere in this blog and so I won't get into it here.

There seems to be some confusion among some about which sear does what in a Daly (or most other German) boxlock that is equipped with interceptors.  For the record, in an interceptor-equipped Daly boxlock, the BOTTOM sear is the MAIN sear (in standard Anson & Deeley fashion), while the overhead sear acts as the interceptor.  The following photos show the internal parts and also clearly shown is the hammer held in the cocked position while the overhead sear is free to move and catch the hammer, should the main sear slip.  The geometry is such that the overhead safety sear is moved clear of the hammer by the trigger blade before the main sear releases.

Finished up and ready for some more use.

A Leather Covered Pad for a Parker Repro

Here is a 12 gauge Parker reproduction that was a bit short for its owner.  He opted for a Silver's pad, with spur, and wanted it leather covered.  There were also numerous dings and scratches in the wood that needed repair, so the butt and forend were also refinished.  It's no secret that I think pretty highly of the reproductions but they do have a few aesthetic shortcomings, such as a wood finish that rivals the finest assemble-it-yourself furniture, a wrist that is slightly tapered to the thumbhole (not much can be done about that) and the curvature of the heel is far too great.  Here, I've corrected the first and third issues.

Due to the small amount that the stock was shortened, combined with the width of the spur of the original buttplate, the resulting spur inletting necessarily had to be a bit larger than the spur that is supplied on the Silver's pad.  This was corrected by building up the spur with epoxy.  Since the pad was being covered, I didn't bother dying the epoxy.  At this point, the pad has been fit and its periphery reduced by the thickness of the hide. 

Here is the pad, covered.  The leather is still "in the white", meaning that it has not yet been dyed.  The wood appears much darker than it really is, due to the lighting and camera setting.

 This shot more accurately shows the color of the wood.

Here is the finished job.  I also made, engraved and finished a new breechscrew because the original did not index properly when tight.

These photos illustrate the curvature of the heel that I mentioned earlier.   The repro buttplate is a stamping (the originals are a machined forging) and the exposed checkered portion of the wood is a separate piece, glued on.

The WtF? Files

I realize that the title could cover a large portion of what comes into the shop, but there are times when the damage is simply not cost-effective to repair and the owner decides not to take the plunge.
Even so, it's worth sharing the photos to illustrate the damage that can be caused by the toxic combination of hubris, incompetence and ignorance.  Sometimes I wonder about the thought process of the hacks that commit these egregious acts of mechanical mayhem.  Did they really think that they were doing good work?  I guess everything looks like a nail when your only tool is a hammer.  The saddest part is that almost all of this is done by actual (supposed) gunsmiths, that are charging money for this bodgery.  As has been said before, you get what you pay for (and sometimes, more than you bargained for).

First up is a Prussian Charles Daly BLE.  These guns used Deeley style ejectors with the lockwork  housing attached to the forend iron by two integral pins at the rear and a single screw at the front.  Somehow the locating pins had been broken off and the "gunsmith" decided that brazing the housing to the iron would be a good idea.  It wasn't.  Since this gun had also been "restocked" by (apparently) the same individual, the owner wisely decided to cut his loss and put no further money into the gun.
Had he commissioned the repair, I would have machined the offending areas off, welded new material to the housing and remachined it to fit.  Since one does not simply order parts for these guns from the Brownell's catalog (the book that launched many a hack's career), it would not be an inexpensive repair.  A not-butchered example is shown in the photos for comparison.

A client brought a Fox AE grade in for a pre-purchase inspection with concerns about the auto safety not working properly.  Upon removal of the stock, this was found where the safety pushrod normally resides.  Yes, it's a nail.  I machined a new pushrod of the proper length and diameter and repaired the gun.

Here is some "glass bedding" work on a Parker stock.  This was done by a name that everyone in the gun world would know.

This Ithaca Flues Grade 4 had suffered at the hands of some doofus in the past.  I'm not a fan of the Flues model (or most American guns for that matter) but there is no excuse for this level of "workmanship".

This Krieghoff Neptun drilling was damaged by someone apparently trying to cock the tumblers with a screwdriver, the rear sight pivot pin was "replaced" and the frame was damaged by someone forcing the barrels without having the extractor properly positioned. The damaged screw slots were no surprise either.

Repairing a Woodward "Automatic" SLE

Here is a Woodward Automatic SLE that came in with internal cracks in the head of the stock at the top horns.  The right horn had sprung upward because of the crack, allowing the toplever to come into contact with the wood.  The gun had been completely refinished some time in the past (very common with English guns as the English don't generally engage in the original-finish "fetishism" that Americans do) and the edges of the stock surrounding the lockplates had been rounded well off.  The drop-points were also rounded over.  Missing completely was the anti-rattle spring for the triggers, and the cocking roller on the tumbler of the right lock was binding and would not rotate.
The cracks were repaired after removing the finish and soaked oil from the head of the stock.  At that time I also restored the sharp contours that had been previously sanded away and refinished the head of the stock.  I then fabricated the anti-rattle spring and repaired the roller in the right lock to finish the job.

The anti-rattle spring, whose purpose is to keep the trigger blades lightly pressed against the sear tails so that the triggers don't rattle.

The finished job.  No doubt you'll notice that hallmark of an English refinish, buffed and heat-blued screw heads (ugh!).  Since the slots were in good shape, the owner opted to avoid the expense of having new screws made.

Heel and Toe Plates for an A&A Model 37

Here's an A&A (AyA) Model 37 over-under that came in for a butt extension to correct the pull length and a set of heel and toe plates.  The plates are charcoal blued and the screws are color case hardened to match the peripheral parts of the gun.  The butt is checkered at 24 lines per inch to match the rest of the checkering.  The original lacquer finish was stripped from the butt and the three-piece forend, and was replaced by an oil finish.  As always, the plates are hand made and the engraving is by Geoffroy Gournet.