Greetings To All From Louisiana
 

I am a new Parker owner and very excited about the gun. I recently purchased a 16 gauge Trojan. It is not in original condition for it has had the barrels re-blued, new case coloring, and the furniture upgraded therefore, I know that this effects the guns collectible value. But who cares...not me. It is a classic and a beauty...a classic beauty which I am very proud to own and pass along. I am looking forward to learning more about the Parker guns from you guys.

Cheers:bigbye:

Welcome aboard

welcome to the board

what were the "furniture uprades"?

post some pictures - we all love pictures

and clean out some space in the safe- if you love your first Parker, wait for the second Parker, or the third, or the sixth :rotf:

Welcome Mike.

Yes, please post some pictures of your Trojan. I had a Trojan 16 that I really liked a lot. It too was refinished - very professionally and tastefully. Problem is I loaned it to my brother-in-law about four or five years ago. He never gave it back but finally last summer he paid me a (in his mind) fair price for it.

welcome no place like the parker bunch...charlie

Parker Pictures
 

To All:

I am out of town just now but I will be posting some pictures of the Trojan in the very near future. And thanks for the interest. I do have a question. Both barrels are full bore. I am planning on having them re-bored to IC (right) and perhaps IM (left). Plan on using the gun mainly on pheasant or woodcock however, I also plan on doing a little crow hunting with it. Please feel free to offer me your opinions on the matter.

Regards
Mike

Mike;
Welcome to the forum. Your "new" Trojan sounds like a nice Parker and if it were my gun I'd leave the chokes as is. Once you remove the original chokes from the gun, in my opinion only, the value of the gun is diminished. Others will disagree but as your gun is tightly choked now it would be fine for pheasants and crows. Woodcock are a different story. This just might require you finding another Parker already choked for those close flushing birds. You really did'nt think you'd stop at one Parker, did you?:)

FS, I will weigh in with a slightly different thought on choke modifications. I have a long history of upland birds and waterfowl and have always believed that open chokes for water fowl and middling chokes for upland birds. Then I found Parker shotguns and taught myself some new ideas. The first thing I learned is that full is not as devastating a handicap as you might think it is. Second, the second shot is usually +35 yards and often further.

Consider this, shoot 2 cases of shells through your Trojan at clay targets, then make a decision about what chokes you would prefer.

I have a VH choked IC and Full and while I expected to ream the full back to IC or Mod, after a lot of clays, I decided to stay with what I had.

Either way I think your Trojan is a shooter so make it what you feel most confident with and you will never look back.

So my advice is caution. Hunting season is not for another 9+ months. You have time to make a considered decision. And as someone already pointed out this is a great excuse for another Parker in the future.

Thanks to Blue Collar and Double Lab for your input on my choke question. I think I will leave the chokes as they are for now and take the advice to put a few shells through the gun first on the skeet field, then make my decision. As for another Parker, I do not know if I can slip another gun past the Boss. If you get my drift.

Happy New Years!

The only suggestion I have for that predicament ........ :whistle:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5...n%2520lamp.jpg

And I forgot, welcome to the forum and Happy New Year.

Get your drift??? Ha! I guess we get your drift... we all could write a chapter to the book "What She Doesn't Know Can't Hurt Her" as we try to come up with ever newer evasive techniques in getting another Parker smuggled into the house.

A friend told me many years ago "Never make a fuss over a new gun" This applies especially when your friend comes over. Also, If she catches you with it in hand, throw it on the couch and say "Hi Honey !, What's for lunch?"

I think it was Gene Hill that did the most masterful job of explaining the science of getting a new gun into the house.

Gene's advice works pretty well too.

Believe it or not, I have found that the best way to keep (hide) a new gun is in plain view in my gun cabinet. I hang a small flag (with suction cups) on the glass door and all she can see is the ends of the barrels and the ends of the butt stocks. She never counts them.

well, the fact here is i don't need to hide them -- she actually has encouraged me to buy a few of the last ones

Your are a lucky man.

thanks - and don't I know it - I don't know what I did to deserve her - but darn sure glad I did what ever it was :)

I have finally gotten a chance to post some pictures of my "new" Trojan. For those who are interested you can find them in the "Albums" section. The albums name is "Faybon Sotherland's Restored Trojan 16ga."

Just got my first case of shells in today from RST. Really looking forward to "firing this baby up!"

Michael, for what it is worth, your "new" Trojan is actually a "new" VH, by my reckoning which is a grade better than you thought. Nice gun. And well played my friend, well played.

Maybe someone else figured this out already, but nice.

Well, I'll be dogged. That is excellent new to me! Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Thanks Blue Collar

Well, we will wait for someone with more technical experience than I but I am pretty sure. If you have photos of the barrel flats should in fact tell us for sure. Your serial number does not show up in the Identification and Serialization book so that is no help to us. The gun itself will tell us on the flats.

My judgement is based on 4 indicators. The first is that the fore end has a latch rather than just a pull off, second there is a pistol grip cap (Trojans do not) third the Dog's Head Butt plate (Trojans have a plain horizontal lined butt stock plate) and finally the engraving, while simple is more than a Trojan would carry.

I am sure others will have much more sophisticated judgement, but those indicators tell me you own a VH grade gun and not a Trojan. Nice.

If I am wrong, I will have learned something and will owe you a sincere apology, but I believe that not to be the case.

A short wait and someone with knowledge of such things will weigh in.

Russ is correct - your Parker is a VH also known as a Grade-0.

I just added five new pictures to the album of the barrel flats and the front of the receiver. I am not much of a photographer (had trouble keeping the flash glare out of the pics) so please forgive me. However, there is some inscripted dates on the front of the receiver: " Pat'd Jan 18th, Aug 16th 1887" and "May 7 - Oct 8, 1889". There is not much on the flats themselves (as you can see in the pics). And, across the rib is the inscription: "Parker Brothers Makers, Meriden, Conn, Vulcan Steel" Hope this info helps you guys and thanks a bunch.

Mike

Yup, that confirms it. VH = Vulcan Hammerless

very nice find

I just checked out the album. I couln't see the frame size. If it is an O frame, you really have a good one. Any one else see the frame size? I have 2 "O" frame 16's, but my VH is a "1" frame. That little extra weight is really no problem and actually helps it to swing a little smoother.

On the rear lug it looks like a 0 (zero) is stamped with a 6 or a 9 very much smaller stamped within the 0.

Harold, I see a "V" right above the tail end of the serial number.

The original photo

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-2...eE/s640/VH.jpg

Here is a cropped photo of the tail end of the serial number and "V"

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-0...%2520Stamp.jpg

I hope this helps.

Yep, I see the V, but dont see the frame size marking on the lug clearly. I agree with Dean, it does look like a 0. An 0 frame VH 16 is great.

After looking closely (under good light) there is indeed a '0' (very faint) on the lug in question. Thank you guys for pointing this marker out to me.