Another NH!
 

Here are some photos of my new 1903 vintage NH. With my inside dividers and caliper, I come up with .830", just beyond the forcing cone area. The muzzles measure .740". I would say that F/F would be a good guess! I just sent for a letter. I hope it has some interesting data.

That is one big gun. A nice one too!

boy that gun sure has some kinda thick barrels..i like to look at all guns but these old big bores like yours really trip my trigger...this gun musta been made on a friday evening they gotta bored out to a ten ga and the whisle blew and they did not have time to finish boring the barrel to eight ga.. ha youve got a mighty nice piece there take her hunting often...charlie

What a great gun. Send it down here to Maryland for testfire. What are the barrel lengths and provenance? Mine has Vulcan Steel barrels but I still think it's safe to fire. Have you measured the chambers yet?

The barrels are 32-3/32". I do not have proper chamber measuring devices, but I improvised and came up with 2-7/8" to the beginning of the cone area. I just dropped my check in the mail for a letter. I would imagine that the customer asked for a heavy gun. Would Parker have taken it upon themselves to assign a 6 frame? TPS is loaded with great info, and I have been digging in earnest. The little '+' marks on the very edge of each chamber are unknown. The workings are gooey and stiff, so I will clean the gun thoroughly. The stock retains most of its finish, so I plan on a gentle cleaning and maybe some wax afterward.

When a large bunch of extra heavy guns were sold at auction several years ago in California, no hint was given about the wording of the orders. On heavy guns I have researched, little information of "why" are included in the order entry, including my 9 pound 16 gauge bird gun. Maybe that one was ordered as a "loaner".

Are you able to pick the gun in one piece to weigh it or do you have to break it down for that? :)

What does she weigh? I'll take a guess, 12lbs 3 ounces.

Pete, she's in pieces right now. I will weigh it when I reassemble it. The gentleman I purchased it from said 13 pounds. As for the .830" bore, would that have been done to help reduce felt recoil? Would that, along with the weight, have made this gun easier on the body after a full day of shooting?

Mark, I can't wait to see the letter on this great gun.

you can bet you want feel much recoil in that gun with that weight...with 1 1/4 ounce loads she willbe very gentle on shoulder.and i bet even with the old 1 5/8 ounce load it still will be gentle on shoulder...cant wait till you shoot and pattern this gun and tell us about it... charlie

Only if shot all day from a seated position using a boom crutch from a small sailboat to support the barrels...:shock:

What a gun! It is essentially an 8 gauge (.835 standard) with 10 gauge chambers. I would think the long range patterns would be superb to incredible as that is quite an overbore in a 10ga. 13 pounds is going to really tame the recoil of the heaviest loads in 2 7/8". When it was built 1 1/4 ounce was the heavy load. 13 pounds however is a beast of a gun and getting it to your shoulder quickly will take some muscle. Last year I actually slightly sprained my arm/shoulder by grabbing/mounting/swinging on a crow that surprised me and my gun is a mere 10 pound 5 ounces. Once swinging on a target the inertia of 13 pounds is going to make stopping your swing a lot less likely. What a neat gun.

Thanks, Pete! I will be sure to get her out in the woods next fall for a 'nostalgia hunt'. I won't feel too bad if I don't fare so well with flushing Ruffed Grouse. On the other hand, if I see a bird scampering off the edge of the trail 60 yards away (as it happens so often!) I may stand a chance:cheers:

Here are some photos of the forend. There was quite a bit of finish under the crud, actually, with the exception of the entire checkered portion. The checkering was filled in with 100+ years of various types of funk, also! I applied two coats of 'Tom's 1/3 Mix', followed with a coat of Johnson's Paste Wax. I have used 'Tom's' on numerous other old guns that had remnants of original finishes. I think it will help to preserve what's left, plus, it gives a nice mellow(?) look, not glossy or tacky.

I don't understand the .830 bore. It sounds like an eight bore gun that has had ten gauge chamber sleeves put in it. Of course, the gun is in the SB as a ten gauge, not an eight. I may have posted earlier that my #6 frame ten weighs 13 1/2 pounds. That is way heavier than it probably was as an eight, but it has eight gauge barrel profiles and standard ten gauge bores with 3 1/2" chambers.

Question
 

Mark, Can you give some more information on "Tom's". Is it a cleaner or polish or finish? Thanks, Tom

http://www.thegunstockdoctor.com/index.html

It is a finish, Tom. It was originally formulated for military use in the late 1800s. Here is a link to the site where I bought the paste from.

Thanks Mark, I just ordered some. Cheers, Tom

AND I THOUGHT I HAD A BIG TEN

I just removed the stock and was pleased to see that the serial number matched. Along with the serial, 'P.B.' and a '0' (zero) are stamped in the wood. Is 'P.B.' marked on all stocks, or does it signify repair or rework of some sort? TPS had nothing on these marks. There is a 1/4" hairline crack that will be stabilized with Acraglas, otherwise, the wood is great! Thank goodness for no rust, unlike my previous NH. Lotsa dirt, seeds, twigs and an insect, though. Even though the plant matter and bug were miniscule, I wonder how they got in there:shock:

They probably snuck in through the firing pin bores.

Wow! I thought the last NH was the dirtiest gun I ever owned......this gun is horrible! Upon my initial examination, it appears as though the entire interior of the receiver, moving parts included, was coated with some sort of varnish or shellac. I mean every tiny nook and cranny. There was so much dirt and crud built up and compressed under moving parts I am surprised it functioned as well as it did. I am soaking and scraping in layers. I feel like an archaeologist!

The auto safety actuating push rod is semi-seized in the wood. Has anyone removed the spacer to gain access to the little push rod? Will it simply unscrew?

I am still curious about the 'P.B.' and '0' stamped by the stock serial. Cheers!

The spacer will unscrew but be sure to use the proper sized screwdriver. You can damage the wood if the screwdriver is too large. The spacer has threads only on the top 1/4 " or so. You will have to drive or pull it out when the threads are out of the wood. Be careful. Cheers, Tom

I am so glad Mark is getting good advice about working on my next new guns. I want them in prime condition when I write the check.

Here are the 'P.B.' and '0' marks in question. I tried the photo with natural lighting and flash:o

New NH
 

Was someone at Parker Bros. looking at a design with twist barrels and able to handle smokeless powder hot hunting loads? There has to be a correlation between the thickness of the barrels, the period when twist was going away and steel tubes were coming in. An executive's decision to see if twist could stay around a little longer by bulking them up some? Looking at the rough chambers and muzzle finish it could be a sample for the engineers to study. :whistle: in the dark?

John, I also wondered why twist barrels were being used, well into the fluid steel and smokeless era. My other NH is on a number 3 frame with 32 inch twist barrels also. It was made in 1906 and the barrels are almost 2 pounds lighter than this NH!

According to my letter, this gun was ordered December 12, 1902 by Sutcliffe & Co. in Louisville, Kentucky. Instructions stated to ship the gun to S. Sankey in Hatchechubbee, Alabama. It was shipped June 8, 1903. The requested weight was 12-1/2 pounds, but shipped at 12-3/4 pounds. Cost was $70.00. The chokes could not be determined.

Building a 12 1/2 lb gun with steel tubes probably stretched Parker Bros. ability to produce it since the suppliers could not or would not do a one off order for steel that thick within the 32" length. The twist steel ribbons were probably still lying about as excess inventory. So they were utilized to fill the order and the #6 frame was built to handle the excess weight hanging on the hinge pin and the lockup system. Talk about going the extra mile to fill an order. I would in interested in knowing the difference, if any, between the NH on a #3 frame and the #6 bolt-to-slot locking system, hinge pin size and doll's head dimensions.

This oversize example provides evidence that in the olden days manufacturers valued their customers above and beyond today's standard. The gun was ordered for a buyer that lived, in 1903, in a still existing hamlet 28 miles SW of Columbus, GA. The largest body of navigable water is the Chattahoochee River between Columbus and Phenix City Al. A fur piece to go for river ducks. Maybe its intention is to be used for upland birds such as quail or turkeys.

This could add another redneck joke to the repertoire of Jeff Foxworthy. "You might be a redneck if your quail gun weighs more than 12 pounds and you never come home with birds suitable for eating."

The cocking crank has an extra component. I will take a photo today. The receiver has an extra piece fastened to the upper tang, by a screw (hidden beneath the top lever), to take up space between the top of the bolt lever and the receptacle where it pivots. I will take a photo of that, also. My theory about a market hunter shooting a bazillion cartridges per day fell by the wayside when I found the little town on a map.

Here is the cocking crank and its extra pivoting part.

Very interesting Mark. Learn something new everyday. Can you post a picture of it installed so that we may see how it works?

I most certainly will, Dave.

More photos. The case colors have certainly faded on the exterior. The trigger plate suffered the most from 'patina', which, when carefully scraped off, left it as you see in the last photo. Mechanically, the gun is in great condition. It suffered some neglect over the years, especially the bores.

Here you go, Dave. If you look at about 7 o'clock in relation to the top lever hole, you can see the screw holding the little spacer block in place.

Thank You Mark!

I carefully removed the safety components from the stock. The little pushrod was quite rusty. I used a drill bit that was .001" larger than the pushrod and slowly, with my fingers, turned the bit and cleaned out the hole in the wood. I polished the pushrod and now it moves freely in the stock. Is there anything I should put on the pushrod to lubricate and prevent siezure, or should I leave it clean and dry? The stock is in very nice condition. A handful of Q-Tips with 91% isopropyl alcohol removed all the oil residue. Thankfully, this gun was never deluged with oil. I cleaned the head of the stock down to bare wood, with ease! The right sear was bearing against the stock, so I carefully removed a small quantity of wood to allow for the sear to move freely and the stock to move forward against the receiver, like it should be.

I'll bet if you use a cotton swab with some linseed oil and just brush the inside of the push rod hole you will have sufficient protection for the future. As to the patina, I've been using a diluted molasses sit-in-it-for-awhile bath to remove light rust and discoloration on various tools, devices and rube goldberg thingies that get old looking through no fault of mine.

That sounds like an interesting concoction, John! I have acquired some very old loading tools made by S&W and UMC that have some rust on them. I am able to remove all the crud that is removable, but am left with stained steel.

The 6 frame gun is now reassembled and it functions properly, even the automatic safety! A .001" stainless shim on the hook reduced the barrel/breech gap and brought her back on-face. My next task is loading some ammunition for testing. Even for the occasional 'nostalgia hunt' I am going to be eating lots o' Wheaties!