Repro's are great guns overall, but there's a few things I look for especially in the wood on them. One of the best things about repro's is the nicely figured wood on them. With that said; you really need to know what your looking at and not fall in love with wood right off.

The wood used on the repro's for the most part came from fruit orchard tree's in California. These tree's have a lot of grafting done to them to help with fruit production and because of this can have branch graft lines in places you don't want any weaknesses like the wrist layout or figure changes. The other thing you see quite often is white/sap wood patches that stand out like a sore thumb if they are in the wrong area. Do your home work & know what your looking at when inspecting the wood.

Inspect each gun for it's own merits and know what you want for a gun. Know before you start looking what gauge, triggers, grip, forearm, barrel length, chokes, etc. & keep in mind that they came in two different length's of pull 14 1/4" & 14 3/4". They can be rather high dimensioned, but if you look hard enough you can find one with more drop at heel & comb.

One of the biggie's for me is a repro must still be wearing it's skeleton butt plate, if someone cut the plate off & installed a recoil pad, I have no interest in it. IMO the removal of the SKBP devalues the gun by around a grand.


Good luck with the hunt for one!!

A brand spanking new 20/16 Parker side x side shotgun..20 for the upland east, and 16 for the upland west all designed specifically for time in the field with a bird dog? And, it comes in a case?? And it's within reach of a schmuck like me???

Pffft...sign me up, I'm in.

Did someone say "split some firewood"??? Do I have a deal for you! C'mon up!!

Is that a Holz Hausen, or some variant of, Richard?

It's a solid pile of split birch, stacked so that it will shed the rain better. This was half what I had to deal with; the other half is in the background. This was in 2012 and I'm just now burning up the last few pcs of it.

To summarize: what to lookout for? Basically the same as any firearm: stay away from Repeos that have been altered (stock cut or screws buggered). Find one that floats your boat and enjoy it.

Nice, Richard.

After moving into our house, I gathered about 4/5 cords of fresh cut & split white oak that I mined from our woods and built "Holz Hausens", which apparently, are popular throughout Europe, obviously. I stacked it all on a hill-top in an area that would maximize exposure to our predominant winds so they'd blow through the stacks while also maximizing sunlight. Assembled the stacks in August/Sept and by Oct/Nov the next year, it was dry and burned great. (actually burned some the same Dec I stacked and it burned pretty good, but not quite there). That's fast for white oak. Next year, one full yr later, it was prime firewood and about fully seasoned. It's a pretty good and effective technique of stacking firewood but a bit slow building until you get the hang of it. Dry's out firewood quick though and if you build the "roofs" (which I didn't do) will shed water. I've included a link to a quick overview.

(sorry for the hijack)

You people are nuts :bigbye:

Any Repro is a great buy in todays market - they're all great guns, even the heavy 20's.

https://www.trybackyardfarming.com/b...irewood-stack/

Here’s a quick shot of my first go-around and what ultimately became an ambitious 18/20’ diameter stack about 7’ high, that failed miserably. Failed b/c it was just too big & b/c of the volume of wood that was moving and shifting around as it dried. Lesson learned.

Stacks at about 10/12’ diameter work pretty well if you build them up to about 4’ tall, give it time to shift a little, and then pile the stack up to about 7’ tall for the season. Multiple stacks put a lot of firewood in a relatively small area.

I can really appreciate those stacks of firewood ! We heat our home 98% with wood and dry hardwood is a precious commodity and a beautiful site ! I hope you had a log splitter ! Best,Paul