Seeking information on newly acquired Parker

[Bruce Cianciolo]

Two gents at the Hartford show told me about this site. It’s been very helpful. The serial Number is 218027. This puts it at 1926. The barrel has Trojan Steel barrel. Frame is 12, making it a 12 gauge I’m guessing. Barrel weight is 4 with the number 3 above it. The grade is “OV” inside a diamond. The barrels have some pitting by the fore-end. The safety isn’t sliding up. The plate on the butt is cracked. I’d like to find out as much as I can about this piece and if pitting has hurt the barrels. I’d also like to get the safety fixed and replace the cracked plate. Any help in this research would be awesome. Also, can anyone recommend a gunsmith for these fixes? I'm going to upload pictures that will help I hope. I can more pictures.

[Bruce Cianciolo]

Here are some more pix. Thanks in advance for everyone’s help.

[Dean Romig]

Bruce, that poor ol' Trojan looks like it was left out in the rain for a few days. It probably isn't as bad as it looks. You should probably get somebody to measure the depth of those pits just to make sure they don't compromise the integrity of the barrels. It should clean up pretty well. How do the insides of the barrels look?

[Bruce Cianciolo]

The gun was on a boat in Montauk. The inside of the barrels has some pitting near the front site. The chamber and ejector looks good. Should I look for someone that specializes in Parkers?

[Dennis]

Bruce what do you want to do with the gun? Are you looking for simply a decent looking shooter or are you going for a total restoration which will cost more than the gun is worth? The cracked butt plate can be replaced with another plate or recoil pad if you like, the barrels can look much better by scrubbing them with a piece of 0000 steel wool or a Big 45 Frontier Metal Cleaner pad from BIG45METALCLEANER.com, both wet with oil. It will make the outside much nicer. The wood might clean up really nice without refinishing and if, as Dean points out, the pits aren't unsafe it would be a nice inexpensive shooter. The safety could simply need some oil or maybe there is a broken piece in there that needs to be repaired. Give some thought to what your end product will be and maybe go from there. Best of luck with it.

[George M. Purtill Member #28]

The gun went to Remington for a repair at some point.
Thats probably a fine shooter of a gun but as Dean says have it checked out.
Repro buttplates are available all day long.