your old parker is something special especially being your grandfathers gun...all my parkers are shooters but each one is priceless..when you take your gun hunting you will not forget the 1 st hunt with it...most of the time while hunting i catch myself just looking and admiring the old parker..you ll do the same i m sure....charlie

Can't believe I forgot to ask - my s/n is 139228. Anything in the book about it?

I ask, because it has 28" barrels, they appear uncut, but there is no "smooth" part on the rib in front of the bead. The wavy pattern continues right up until the end. I thought there should have been a smooth part on uncut barrels?

book has it at 28

Thanks. Are the wavy lines supposed to go all the way to the end? Here is how mine look.

Christopher: The barrels do not look cut to me. The barrels touch and wedge appears intact. Also, the lines appear to stop just short of the muzzle. Could be that someone milled the muzzle slightly to correct an "ouch". Others here will be able to tell for sure. Bob

For whatever reason, the matting ends correctly and there is no line marking the end of the matting... however, the end of the rib has been engraved with the 'zig-zag' border similar, but longer than, the border engraving or "graver walk" on the V-grade frames. I've only seen this on a very few Parkers.

The "wavy lines" are called 'rib matting' and this was done on Parker Bros. matting machine.
Parker Pages published a two-part article on Parker Bros. various machining processes in manufacturing the Parker Gun. Rib matting was fully described in the articles.

Bob refers to the "wedge" appearing to be intact - I agree. The "wedge" however, is called the "keel" and there several of these spaced strategically beneath the top and bottom ribs that were used to properly align and space the ribs for the soldering process.

Thanks Bob. I guess I was expecting to see a distinct area without the lines at the end of the rib.

Interesting Dean. Does it look like Parker original work or possibly added when the barrels were reblued? Would a letter tell me anything about this?

The zig zag engraving on the end is very interesting. First time I have seen that. Everything else looks legit to me. Well... Except for the screw for a sight bead.

I have a Stevens 20 ga. pump that had a crummy adjustable choke on it when I bought it new in '64. I cut the barrel just behind that thing and drilled and tapped it and installed a brass screw and filed it to a nice ball.

Don't knock it til you've tried it :biglaugh:

The few other Parkers I've seen with this feature all looked original to me, as does yours.... but we'll never know for sure because I'll bet a nickel a research letter wouldn't mention it.

Dean