I've complained about this problem a number of times on this board and I hate to do it again but these barrels make me so d*** angry I'll do it one last time. Photo below shows the gun when its closed (you can see the barrels are tight on the breech). The only way to get the lever over is to slam the gun shut or wiggle and giggle the lever till it moves over. I paid to have them fit to my gun and here's what i got. Seller does not respond to emails or phone calls.

My 16 Ga. set fits about the same as yours in the doll's head area. My lever comes over and the gun locks up alright but the beavertail forend falls off in my hand at about every third shot. Lou tells me "send it back, we'll make it right." I shouldn't complain because I have never given them that opportunity yet.

He told me NOT to send it back... "it would wear in." Subsequent emails and phone calls have been ignored. I don't use it because I'm afraid it will damage my gun. Very very disappointing, especially when the tab was over 2 Grand.

Greg, popular legend has it that 500 Repros were sent to Krieghoff for fitting, but there were more barrels that were not fitted at Krieghoff. I don't know what the total 16 gauge barrel production was, but barrels were offered by Skeuse for fitting here.

500 set of 16 ga barrels were made by Merkel for the Parker repros. Not all of them were used up before they quit making the guns. About 4-5 years ago I obtained 8 sets of the original 16 ga barrels that were off premises. The remainder were submerged in the flood that also destroyed the rest of the Parker repro parts. Actually they were obtained as salvage by the insurance company after they settled the loss. They were then destroyed and not resold, I was told, to avoid any potential liability on the ins. company.

Bill Davis,

It has always been common knowledge that the original 16 ga. barrel sets that were "lost" in the flood were those made by Krieghoff. This is the first time I've ever heard they were Merkel barrels.... You sure about that?

Sorry--You are right. I meant to say Krieghoff--NOT Merkel. The ICD barrels in 16 ga. were made by Merkel. Sorry for any confusion.

Dave- although it is tough to diagnose these things remotely, there are a limited number of things that would prevent your toplever from snapping back on these barrels (presuming they function properly on the original set). I suspicions (as Ho'ace Miller was wont to say...) that the bolt is hanging up on the wear plate (mostly likely the angle of the plate is just a hair shallow. As one can not mess with the bolt on a 2 barrel set, a little engineers blue (or magic marker) on the plate might show you the spot and a stroke or two with a stone might make it work normally. Ideally, you could fix this easily and still complain about in retrospect..a win/win situation for you...:)

Don - I "suspicioned" the same thing and did file the bolt plate down a little (didn't want to get carried away). I next "suspicioned" it may be hanging on the side where the little flange on the bolt hits the side of the wear plate. I tried using some lamp black to diagnose exactly where the problem might be but no clear trouble spot was evident. I need to just send it off to someone and stop b****ing. I apologize for being so negative about these barrels but every time I read one of these threads smoke blows out of my ears.

These problems can be frustrating...I've been there and done that.