Mark, I think you are going to find you have a broken spring inside one of the locks.

Thats what Kirk thinks. Im standing fast until he says grace over it.

It should be an easy repair.

Mike,

I Remember replacing a Lifters firing pin for you in the parking lot at Elk Creek, Did I replace a top lever spring for you there on another Parker. I kind of remember doing it for someone in an odd ball place on the tailgate.

Harry

No sir wasn’t me. Although I think you did mention I had a screw loose :)

UPDATE

I just left Merringtons, and upon taking my 28 bore VH apart, found the little actuator “knurl” snapped off! The metal inside of the break looked like pot metal....very grainy looking.

Now I need an early 00 frame toplever! ����

I've been trying to understand how the Parker action works but I am not fully up to speed. I hope it is okay to interject a question here to further my learning. If I understand correctly, on your gun the small piece on the end of the top lever shaft that engages the bolt is what broke off? So the top lever would no longer move the bolt rearward to disengage it from the barrel lug to allow the gun to break open? Glad you figured out what the problem is and I hope a replacement top lever is readily available for your gun.

Yes, the old style top lever linkage consists of 4 separate parts. The lever and the bolt are at opposite ends of the chain and there are two pieces of linkage in-between. If the bottom of the bolt gets damaged, nothing else can be moved.
The later style (post 1910) linkage is a direct connection between lever and bolt this eliminating everything in-between.

The top lever is a hardened part. It would take a good amount of wear and force to break the bottom of it off.

The here a photo of the parts in both mechanisms.
Early on top. Late on bottom. Their corresponding springs are shown as well.

Attachment 73989

Thanks very much Brian, this is helpful. I've been working off an exploded-view diagram and your photo shows the diagram is depicting the post-1910 mechanism.

TxHuntermn's gun has the pre-1910 mechanism, so perhaps one of the pieces circled in red in the photo (taken from your photo) below must have snapped off?

I am working up the courage to take apart one of my Parkers to actually see this stuff for myself.