BTF

[John Davis]

On the General Forum there is a thread about Parker Skeet guns. I noticed that the configuration of the BTF on a Parker Skeet gun is different from that of a Parker SBT. Do you ever see any factory cross over? I'm asking because I just picked up a late SB. It's a Remington Parker but I think made during the transition. The barrels are marked Parker Brothers Makers, ...... Of course a fair amount of monkeying around has been done to the gun (we all know trap shooters just couldn't leave these guns alone). However, the BTF "appears" to be original to gun but looks like the skeet configured forend as opposed to the trap configuration. What do you think?

[Dave Suponski]

Pictures John?

[John Davis]

Dave, I figured someone would ask for that. I'll try and take some today and post. Thanks

[John Davis]

Pictures

[John Davis]

Couple of more

[Dean Romig]

Can you get a letter on it John? That would be the only way to validate that forend.

That said, it looks quite original to me but would certainly have to have been made like that by ‘special order’ as the shaping of the wood is not like other SBT forends I have seen.

However - the cutout in the wood for the forend iron appears to be too long for the iron... leaving me to wonder...?



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[John Davis]

Dean, I agree with everything you said (typed). The gun does letter and the seller is suppose to be mailing me the one he had done. If that doesn't arrive, I'll order another one from Chuck. That being said, all info on this gun is on an IBM card so I'm not holding out much hope for a lot of detail. The ultimate answer doesn't make much difference as this gun has plenty of other non-factory "alterations". It's a shooter no matter how you cut it.

[Dean Romig]

John, the checkering style on your SB made me think of a .410 Parker BTFE (wood only) I once had. Very, very similar in design and style and I always believed it was original Parker but never attempted to document it. They could have been checkered by the same hand.





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[John Davis]

Dean, the cut out appearing too long is caused by a shadow in the picture. Not to say that means it’s original. I was wondering if perhaps they could have used a skeet btf in an attempt to use up parts?

[Dean Romig]

Not possible IMHO John. A Skeet BTF would have been for a SXS gun and would have been considerably wider I think.

Here's the .410 BTF I used to own. The similarities in checkering style are remarkable.

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[Dean Romig]

And....


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[Brian Dudley]

John,

The forend on your gun certainly APPEARS to be on the wider side of what is considered typical for a Parker SBT forend.

I have 5 forends from 12g. SBT guns here and they all measure about 2" wide, give or take a 1/16".

[Dean Romig]

I wonder how the width of John's compares to the width of an original 12 ga. Skeet BTF??... or even a 20.





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[John Davis]

Dean, I agree. I don't know what I was thinking, ie double vs. single. Brian, this BTF looks like 2 4/8 width +- 1/16. Also including another pic showing fit.

[John Davis]

Went out and gave the old girl a try. She has a release trigger and I wasn't sure how I'd like it. Fixed the trap to throw straight aways from Post 3 and shot a box of shells randomly from the 5 posts. After that I felt comfortable enough to try a real round of trap . First round I shot an 18 and realized I was releasing the trigger before I got to the target. In the second round I slowed my release down and shot a 24. Starting to like it.

[John Davis]

Another pic of the forend checkering.

[Brian Dudley]

So, wider by 1/2”.

[John Davis]

Roughly. It also appears from the Serialization book that it is the next to the last SB made. Maybe.

[Russ Jackson]

John , I now own the forend Dean referred to when I get in this evening I will take some pics and post them !

[Dean Romig]

Russ, did you ever fit that forend to a gun?





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[Russ Jackson]

John ; so sorry this took sooooo long to post ,I was at work today on break when I said I would post this and believe it or not ,I am just getting in and able to do it !
Dean ; I never did fit it to my 410 , I bought a 410 Forend and metal " Paid Too Much " and when it arrived only half of the metal parts were there and the opening lever had been soldered and was broke:banghead:!!!!! Maybe some day !

[John Davis]

Reposting these two pics for easy comparison.

[John Davis]

Dean, to my untrained eye they do appear very similar. It's like someone said, Have at it.

[Dean Romig]

There are a couple of pictures of checkering of stocks and forends on very high grades with similar fili gri styles.





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[Bill Murphy]

John the picture you posted at 6:15 this morning seems to be of a higher grade gun than an SC. Am I mistaken?

[Dean Romig]

I think John said it is a SBT





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[Dean Romig]

I do see that the two forends have different styles of mullering.





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[John Davis]

Bill, it's an SB.

[Bill Murphy]

Thanks, John. I thought I was going blind. How about a full picture of the SB?

[John Davis]

Bill, here are some more pics of the SB

[John Davis]

And a couple of more

[John Davis]

I thought I had posted this. Here the research letter that the seller provided.

[Dean Romig]

Yup, that's the problem with the Remington IBM cards - there is scant little information in there that we don't already know by looking at a gun, and what we really want to know is rarely ever in an IBM card.





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[Dean Romig]

Interesting to me is that the scroll engraving all over that SBT looks very much like the work of Robert Runge but the floral arrangement on the floor plate is unlike any of his work that I have seen before. It isn't as deep as some of the cuts in the scroll and is overall much finer... possibly done by a different engraver?

Can someone with more 'Runge experience' than I comment on this?

Actually, John's picture can be enlarged while it seems my copy of his can't.


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[Bill Murphy]

Lovely SB, John. Some SBs have more flowers and some have less. I assume Runge was the engraver in that era.

[Mike Franzen]

The letter states in 1937 a SB listed for $256.00. That’s at the height of the Great Depression. I wonder what $256.00 would be equal to in 2018 dollars? I would assume Mr. Pancake was a wealthy man.

[John Davis]

According to an inflation calculator I found on line it would be about $4,500.00