20 gauge CHE found in a garden shed
 

This poor old girl spent a few years in a garden shed,. It has 30" barrels, an "O" frame and no safety from the factory. Butt stock is an absolute mess, . Any ideas on what to do with it? The top rib can be saved. I have all the internals.

Would make a worthy restoration project.

I agree, it would definitely be worth restoring. Titanic steel, that's interesting. I don't see a circle T on the barrel flats though.

A 30" CHE 20 gauge straight stock gun would be a very desirable configuration when restored.

Gawd, who would do that to such a gun???????:crying:

I agree with all of you but I don't think these barrels can be saved, the bores are clean and bright with exception of the last 1" of choke. The exterior of these are ROUGH with some pretty deep pits.

[B][I]Brian: You need a REAL gunsmith / restoration expert for that job. My pick would be Jim Kelly of The Darlington Gun Works, Darlington, South Carolina. I'm sure that there are others equally qualified. That's a restoration project that's worth doing, IMHO.

Best of luck with it, George

We should all be so lucky to have garden sheds like that.

To my novice eye, 5-6K would be well spent on this project.

Exterior pits can be filled and filed by a micro welding technique, the same way molds are repaired. Here is a B which had one of the bolsters badly corroded and which was weld filled , filed and re-engraved so that the repair is imperceptible.

Exterior pits in barrels , fluid or Damascus are easy in comparison and regularly corrected.

Reconstruction of this gun will be a costly and lengthy process requiring the owner's patience and pocketbook and a master gunsmith's expertise. There are also several stockmakers that could do the project. A nice stick of thinshell walnut will run $1000 to maybe $1500 that is appropriate for the grade then maybe a year or two for the woodwork.

Mr. Butler's estimate may be close on the low side. Done right, the finished gun should be worth in excess of $15,000. Done wrong, its a do over.

If it were mine I would have the work done. it's costly but the cost is going to be spread out over a year probably two maybe even a little longer.

I would send your pictures to Jim Kelley, Brad Batchelder, Brian Dudley and Doug Turnbull for an estimate on the cost and a time frame.

In my opinion, Brad Bachelder is the only choice for this one. No slight to the others.

Brad is a master stock maker?

The stock is not my concern. The forearm can be saved and I would assume the butt can be straightened around for about $2,500 give or take, The butt can be duplicated although it is not usable.. The receiver I know it can be saved at a cost.....welding and engraving. What I have no understanding of is the barrel restoration and the barrel welding you describe. Any thoughts of the value in its present condition??? This may be something I pass on to someone with more patience than me.

The wood is no issue with this gun. And the frame is a secondary concern as well. I agree with you that the barrels are your major concern on this gun. They should be deemed as safely restorable first. The bores being good are a big plus. You will have to check out wall thickness of the barrels first and have the barrels examined in person by who will be room the work to see how deep the exterior pitting is and how it can or cannot be fixed. Being an 0 frame, the barrels are light. But at least it is not a 16g. The 20g will give you some more wall thickness to work with.

This is quite the gun and should be properly restored if you have the time and resources.

Why don't I find guns like this? Is it because I don't have a garden shed?

The issue with this gun is not cost effectiveness. It is already beyond that. The key here is passion for a high grade Parker's survival and an honouring if its past. Pride of ownership will repay part of that.

Value as a distressed CH? What someone is willing to pay for the honour of putting it back right... and not fretting the cost. Perhaps $1000 to the right person?

And yes. Bachelder or his outworkers do very fine stock work!

The first thing I would do would be to order a PGCA letter and see who ordered such a gun with such rare features.

Bill am I missing something here? What rare features do you refer to, the straight grip and 30 inch bbls?

If the gun is to be redone I wouldn't try to save the butt stock if it's going to cost in excess of $2000, a new stock can be made for that not including the cost of wood.

Bruce who did the work on Charlies Chicken coop 20ga hammer gun?

By "saving the stock" I think he meant being able to use it as a good duplication pattern.

I would call a straight grip 20g with 30" barrels and no safety somewhat rare on a whole. But not super rare. Those would be relatively common features on a target gun. Which is likely what this gun was originally used for.

Yes, a research letter would be the very first place to start. I do not think that the butt treatment was mentioned on the stock. But I would suspect a factory ordered pad might be the likely.

The pictures show a skeleton butt. I missed the part of no safety. A worthy project none the less.

And I missed the SSBP.

Since all we have regarding the buttstock is "absolute mess" I don't see how anyone can say what might be done with it. I've seen some absolute messes come out quite nicely.

When I get home tonight I will post stock pics and the rest of the parts. I will post pics of the barrels in better light........they are pretty rough

Thanks all that have responded

I'm sticking with my "rare features" comment. Even the "check writers" in our organization would have a hard time coming up with a CHE 30" 20 gauge with no safety and a letter indicating original ownership.

To far gone to consider a restoration in my opinion, it would be a huge money pit. Sad to see such a rare example end up like that. Yuck!

Brianedward, I'm just curious, was this a yard sale find?

When I move, I'm going to leave a Parker in the garden shed, stacked up with the snow shovels and see how long it takes to get mentioned on this forum.

The first D.M. Lefever I ever saw in person was covered in red rust as a regular fixture in the hen house at a college friend's Grandmother's place near Fischers Mill, Oregon. Could still be there for all I know. Seemed beyond hope then, 1968, froze solid, couldn't move the safety roller or the top-lever.

Kevin McCormack will remember the AHE 12 gauge bird gun that a local person of our long time acquaintance had in his possession. I had seen the gun in fully rusted shut, long left outdoors condition some years earlier, before our friend ended up with it. Believe me, if that AHE could be brought back, this 20 gauge can be restored.

In my opinion the restoration of this once wonderful Parker is definitely a worthwhile project. If it were mine, I would certainly have it restored.

I wonder what some of our gunsmith compadres would venture to guess what a full restoration assuming the worst would cost. I have an idea but will hold that thought for now. Brian, Brad what do you guys think?

Those are interesting barrels... Titanic Steel is stamped on the rib but where the steel type is generally stamped on the right barrel flat there is a K. I have never seen this stamp before and am curious as to its significance... any thoughts?

Thank you for all the interest in this gun. I sent away for a letter today to see what that brings up. I have had 11 offers to purchase the gun and a few other folks give me some sound advice on proceeding. At this point I am not a seller to those that have offered, although it would be more helpful if you have interest to give an assessment of value as a few were willing to do. I am on the fence to proceed with any work myself although the $$ investment over the 2-3 years it will take is not that significant in my opinion. $7K-10K is not a bad way to get an amazing gun.....like 3 years same as cash on that new convertible! I will tell you this gun was not given to me, or found at a yard sale. I paid what I considered a value worth it to me in its current state and it was in excess of the $1k a few of you offered to me......but not too much more. Where are you going to find a 20 ga. CHE ejector gun? Barrels or not its like owning a LS6 454 with everything rusted out but the cowl and the ID tag attached to it....................you can build another car around that!

More of the important stuff such as gun info:
The butt stock was given to me in a box with the rest of the gun, it does not appear to be from this gun after close inspection, although it is a skeleton butt stock (SSPB) with a straight grip that could be modified as a pattern for duplication.
It is missing a few parts such as the trip, spring and pin.
Funny to see case color under the locking lever!
I have to believe the barrels can not be saved, but you never know....I used a green scotch bright on them after these pics and they actually look quite a bit better. The choke cleaned up very nice with now only about 1/4" inside the muzzle with rust the rest of the interior is clean and bright. I see 3-4 areas that appear to be a bit deep but small in size.
Besides the exterior rust, all the internals operate freely at they should.

Thanks again to all with constructive helpful comments.

The barrel appear to be deeply pitted but can be saved by the right guy. Do NOT dismiss those barrels.

.....I think it's a great find, though sad.

That said............I don't see this gun after being fixed being worth nearly what people think (and shame on those who would offer $1K for it).

If I were buying a CHE 20 that had been heavily reworked, I would not go wild with the money. Let's assume an original CHE that had never seen that sort of misery were to bring $20K (and I am not sure it would). That means I'd be all done at $15K for this gun, and that's assuming the work had been done very well.

Like it or not, this gun will always be a 'George Washington's Axe' gun.

I believe the restock to include blank will run about 4K. Recutting the engraving another 4K. Can everything else be done for additional 3K? Course that assumes the barrels can be salvaged/sleeved. Is it worth 11K to put it back to where it was? Don't have the answer but I think 11K might be in the ballpark to get everything done correctly. Sure hope someone does it as I'd love to see the "after" because we've all seen the "before".

In the right hands this gun should more than likely become a nice gun. If your desire is to keep and enjoy the gun, I say forge ahead with patience and investment.
Restoration for re sale will most likely be a marginal idea. Best wishes with your choice.

PS- Whoever left that gun in a garden shed should have been taken to the wood shed!

George I need to shop where you shop.

Agree if the barrels are salvageable you can do it for less then 11K. However Gournet (or someone of that ilk) is going to charge a good bit to rengrave and restocking with high grade Turkish will certainly cost 4K because the blank is going to cost probably a grand. Now if someone is capable of doing a lot of the work himself then that changes the dollar investment considerably. If one sent it to Turnbull I don't think my 11K figure is far off.

You asked for an assessment of it's value in it's current state and some here have offered a thousand dollars, that's the assessed value to them. you obviously thought it was worth slightly more because that's what you paid for it. In it's present state it's worth whatever it will bring.

I think full restoration is going to run close to $10K and if the barrels are to far gone then you can add another couple of thousand for a replacement set of barrels. At the end of the project you will have between $11-15K in it. Is it worth it? Only you can answer that. I would spend the money and have it done if it were mine.

An original CHE 20 can easily bring $20K in good condition.

I have to agree with Greg. This would not be a financial rewarding project.
I had an initial interest in doing it, but believe I could purchase a nice all original
CHE 20ga 30" at pretty close to what this would cost to have a Bachelder or Turnbill restoration. In my experience a restored C grade Parker sells at a significant discount to a decent original. I have seen projects like this take 3-5 years. I did not make an offer for the parts , am no longer interested, but $1,000-$1,200 would not be a steal.JMHO
David