The wood looks awfully nice. Good figure and good condition, compared to others of same grade and vintage

I notice yours appears to be flecked with house paint, too. Why are so many of these old guns found with paint spatters on them? It would seem to imply that house painting was generally an armed affair back in the day. :rotf:

Yea John,
That is complements of my sisters when they painted the celling of the house 30 years ago. We are most likely going to have the gun redone by the DelGregos so I hope they will be able to get the paint off as well as bring out the great wood grain on the stock. Dean thinks the stock may be Circassian Walnut from Italy but we just don't know. we do know that the stock has some really cool grain on it.

In my case, the paint flecks popped right off when touched with a fine steel scribe under 10x magnification. I'm sure yours will clean up similarly. One of the most important things to remember when approaching one of these old guns is to stop before doing anything aggressive that can't be undone. Touching paint flecks under a microscope is a far cry from assaulting one with a wire brush and brake cleaner, ya know? Unfortunately, many people don't seem to get that and many of these otherwise fine guns are ruined as a result. If you feel the need to do some exploratory cleaning, please post your intentions up here first. Folks seem willing to chime in almost immediately if you're about to do something irreversible.

Let us know how the refinishing project goes.

Depending on the day of the week, and the position of the moon, you'll get a wide variety of responses to "I'm going to get it restored". I'm surprise everyone thus far thinks that's a great idea.

The gun doesn't look that bad, to me, to require a restoration automatically. It's not a rare or high grade or valuable gun - you might spend thousands more than it's worth having it restored. And for a gun with sentimental value, which yours has in spades, restoring it will turn it into a gun that is devoid of all the signs of your ancestors having used it. It will look 'new' again but it won't be recognizable as the gun your father, or anyone else alive, ever carried.

If it were mine...I'd leave it alone other than a minor cleaning. I'd take the $3-5K you'd have spent on a restoration and use it to take your dad on a field trip where he can shoot, or watch you shoot, the gun at something wild.

Also, I'm not sure but I seem to have been told by someone that DelGrego won't restore old hammer guns or Twist Steel guns or???

If you have the money for a full restoration, go for it.

If not, farm out the work or do it yourself. I agree with Fishtail.

Get the sights off the barrels. Buy Frontier 45 pads and scrub away on the barrels and receiver removing the crud. You will be surprised how they look afterwards.

Not much oil in the head of the stock, then go for a recheckering of the wood after you have removed the grunge (chemicals, no sanding). Then you can probably do the finish yourself.

Once restored, no one will want to use it and your dad bought it used anyway. Better hundreds of dollars instead of thousands on a family heirloom that can be used.

Lots of great info and advice from everyone. This forum is really cool! as of right now we are open to all advice and will consider every possible route before we make any move on restoration.

I hope Dean gets off of house probation soon so he can pipe in on this conversation. We would like to shoot the ole gun again but it has to be safe and original also. we can only use black powder from what we know. I also agree that we will need to have Dad see it shoot also. His years are numbered so we are on a schedule.

thanks again everyone.

if the barrels are in safe enough condition to be shot- that should be determined by someone familiar with these old guns, there are smokeless loads that simulate the low pressure of BP and made for short chambers

check out RSTs http://www.rstshells.com/

These low-pressure smokeless rounds will work fine for you and they're reasonably priced, too. Not like WalMart promotional dove load pricing, but most anyone with a job can afford them.