Greetings To All From Louisiana
 

I am a new Parker owner and very excited about the gun. I recently purchased a 16 gauge Trojan. It is not in original condition for it has had the barrels re-blued, new case coloring, and the furniture upgraded therefore, I know that this effects the guns collectible value. But who cares...not me. It is a classic and a beauty...a classic beauty which I am very proud to own and pass along. I am looking forward to learning more about the Parker guns from you guys.

Cheers:bigbye:

Welcome aboard

welcome to the board

what were the "furniture uprades"?

post some pictures - we all love pictures

and clean out some space in the safe- if you love your first Parker, wait for the second Parker, or the third, or the sixth :rotf:

Welcome Mike.

Yes, please post some pictures of your Trojan. I had a Trojan 16 that I really liked a lot. It too was refinished - very professionally and tastefully. Problem is I loaned it to my brother-in-law about four or five years ago. He never gave it back but finally last summer he paid me a (in his mind) fair price for it.

welcome no place like the parker bunch...charlie

Parker Pictures
 

To All:

I am out of town just now but I will be posting some pictures of the Trojan in the very near future. And thanks for the interest. I do have a question. Both barrels are full bore. I am planning on having them re-bored to IC (right) and perhaps IM (left). Plan on using the gun mainly on pheasant or woodcock however, I also plan on doing a little crow hunting with it. Please feel free to offer me your opinions on the matter.

Regards
Mike

Mike;
Welcome to the forum. Your "new" Trojan sounds like a nice Parker and if it were my gun I'd leave the chokes as is. Once you remove the original chokes from the gun, in my opinion only, the value of the gun is diminished. Others will disagree but as your gun is tightly choked now it would be fine for pheasants and crows. Woodcock are a different story. This just might require you finding another Parker already choked for those close flushing birds. You really did'nt think you'd stop at one Parker, did you?:)

FS, I will weigh in with a slightly different thought on choke modifications. I have a long history of upland birds and waterfowl and have always believed that open chokes for water fowl and middling chokes for upland birds. Then I found Parker shotguns and taught myself some new ideas. The first thing I learned is that full is not as devastating a handicap as you might think it is. Second, the second shot is usually +35 yards and often further.

Consider this, shoot 2 cases of shells through your Trojan at clay targets, then make a decision about what chokes you would prefer.

I have a VH choked IC and Full and while I expected to ream the full back to IC or Mod, after a lot of clays, I decided to stay with what I had.

Either way I think your Trojan is a shooter so make it what you feel most confident with and you will never look back.

So my advice is caution. Hunting season is not for another 9+ months. You have time to make a considered decision. And as someone already pointed out this is a great excuse for another Parker in the future.

Thanks to Blue Collar and Double Lab for your input on my choke question. I think I will leave the chokes as they are for now and take the advice to put a few shells through the gun first on the skeet field, then make my decision. As for another Parker, I do not know if I can slip another gun past the Boss. If you get my drift.

Happy New Years!