Come on guy's! This is getting to sound like another episode of As the world turns, no soaps here just great Parker guns!

edgar: for what it is worth, old ed is slowly assembling a kit of shotgun parts for me. the kit was made up from left over parts from the now defunct ithaca nid repro effort in the 90's. anyway, non of the parts have been hardened. so once the gun is assembled, he plans to send it to turnbull for hardening...based upon that recommendation, you might wana contact turnbull regarding your metal hardening needs. good luck and a pleasure learning from you.

mike: with your experience, you would probably be ok driving here in nh. however, should you come this way, think twice about driving anywhere within 50 miles of boston...they are nuts down there!

Thanks Ed. I'm not a huge fan of Turnbull's colors, but that's just me. From what I've seen, and based on experiences posted by others, I'm a little more inclined to have Brad Batcheldor do one I have in mind. Have you compared examples of each guy's work?

I asked one of North America's best gunsmiths about cc a minty Sterlingworth. He said don't do it because of the risk. I act on advice when I'm paying an expert to do my thinking for me.

edgar: turnbull has been around for a long time and does fine work. batchelder is a relative new guy. from what i have read and pictures i have seen, he also does fine work.

now the bad news. both guys charge big bucks for their work. so, who ever does your work, get a receipt, so you will have a chance of getting your money back come resale time. if i had to choose, i would go with turnbull. and only because he is so well known and respected among high end gun guys.

Which begs the question; If it was 'minty' why would you be thinking re-hardening the receiver to begin with?

king: good advise... as for foxes in particular, i am reminded of a c grade i saw years ago. it was a beautiful gun, exhibiting a complete professional refinish, including wonderful bone charcoal case colors...however, upon close inspection of the receiver, i noticed a hairline crack in the metal at its weakest point, which was at the origin of the 90 degree angle where the water table meets the angle of the breech...that, and some other fine guns that i have seen that have been ruined by rehardening the receiver is what turned me off on the idea of rehardened any shotgun receiver, regardless of the method utilized.

ed you are the only one that I have ever heard of that has seen a problem caused by bone charcoal case coloring. Out of all the thousands of posts I have read over on the Doublegun, here, 16ga.com, the shooting sportsman. And there were recent extensive discussions on the Dolublegun about this subject. You are the only one and you have seen at least three.


Pretty amazing statistic.


Best,


Mike

well mike, think about it...what do you do with a shotgun with a ruined receiver?

you part it out...and destroy the evidence of your failure.

if you looked on gunsamerica, you will notice that i have several parkers for sale with two sets of barrels, usually with one set of barrels numbered to the receiver and the other set numbered to a different receiver...ever wonder where all those extra sets of barrels came from?