Grade O top lever Hammer 16 with 34" barrels
 

The 34" 16 project came today. Unfortunately a little rougher than I had hoped
, but I believe salvageable. I cant seem to upload pics from my phone to my laptop, so will add them later from my phone. The bores are rougher than I had hoped, but cant show you a picture of those. A quick check with my little drop in choke tool shows a tight IC and tight M--I had anticipated F/F. A letter is available but haven't ordered it yet( ser #46296).
The exterior of the twist barrels is decent, with a small dent 19" from the breech in the left barrel. The ribs are tight. The unstruck barrel weight is 4 lbs and they weigh 3lbs 10.3 oz on my postal scale. There is no frame stamp on the lug, but dont know if they even had a 1 frame or O frame at that time (1885).
The forearm is smooth, with no checkering--there are very few pics of the Quality O gun on the home page, none show the forearm. Did they checker it back then?
I am missing the left hammer. Were hammers ser # to match the gun?- this hammer has #119852, but the barrel, forearm, and frame all match #46296.
One of the parts to the hammer mechanism appears broke, and am no doubt missing a few screws.( I set my self up there!)
The pictures are not of good quality ,but my camera no longer works. And of course I need a stock.
Looking for honest opinions here, you wont hurt my feelings. Hoping to bring her back to life. Probably wont do anything until Hausmann's, when I can show it in person.

Pics

Pics

Harold, The hammers have the same number on the back of them as the rest of stamped parts should.... all matched at one point. With that said, please bring this Parker back. The sum of our parts....

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Pics

Barrels

Sorry about the poor quality pictures. I may have found a stock. I would like to have the twist barrels rebrowned. I will have them checked out first of course. I am not a fan of recase coloring, but with a refinished stock and barrels, that may need to be done.

having the barrels evaluated would be your first task of course

its an unusual piece- but as a shooter - the barrels are safe or its a wall hanger

as far as rebrowning - they can be done to less than brand shinny new - refinished with some artificial age showing

i'd certainly like to see it at Haussmans - and the right people to give you gunsmithimg advice will be there

Harold, you can determine the frame size by measuring the distance between firing pins. One inch for zero frame, 1 1/16" for a #1 frame. How do the bores look after some scrubbing?

Surprised me, just figured it was on a 1 frame, but measures exactly 1 inch between pins.
Bores are still rough--but better. Used a wire bore brush, then wrapped a 20 ga brush with a scotchbrite piece soaked in Hoppes 9, and put cleaning rod in a drill. May do a little more
today. Just snapped barrels onto the frame, and they are way off face.

Off face

Looks like someone ground off the breeches on a wheel or a stone. Try those barrels on another 0 frame hammer gun to see where the metal is missing or worn.

it does looks like the breech end of the barrels have a rounded edge especially on the top - badly cleaned up?

how worn is the hook? and the hinge pin. I am just guessing that one or both have abnormal wear

i guess you could measure the depth of the extractor and compare it to another 16. does the rim cut look normal? if the back of the barrels were actually ground down - the extractor would have to be as well- i just doubt that was done

I have another very nice Quality O, O frame 16. The barrels will snap right on it but look the same, way off face--can this be fixed?

This is the old barrels on the other 16 gauge frame. Sure does swing nicely.

just about anything can be fixed, just takes time and money

that's a lot of gap - but off face issues are not the end of the world, most can be fixed by the right person

if good barrels fit the same. i would take a good hard look at the hinge pin, or better yet, have Brian look at it at Haussmans. he had some oversized replacements made

Very cool gun but it looking like a money pit to me. Is it me or does it appear to have a bulged chamber area.

No chamber bulge, Craig

I think the burlap strands are deceiving the eye, but I could be wrong.
There are some pits, that money just needs to be thrown into. I think this is one of them.

I had a stock lined up, but it is for a 1 frame.

If the barrels are sound, it would be an expensive, but worthwhile project. I would have a new stock made, if it were mine.

some fair looking stock blanks come on ebay from time to time...and even complete stocks also...i look forward to seeing this gun completed...charlie

This is definitely a project that will take lots of time and money. I doubt the investment will ever be recovered but thats not what it's about anyway. Good luck with it Harold.

Absolutely right Rich. But I am looking into it, just to see if it is possible/feasible. I first need to find out if the barrels are safe/shootable, and if the barrels can be fitted to the action. Then of course, I need a stock.
If the gun can be put back into shape, and I like it, will see about refinishing the barrels etc.
Was at Brett Hoops house yesterday, and the wall thickness seemed to be OK on his gage. May try a little more barrel clean-up tonight with a frontier pad .
Because of the extensive barrel and fitting to the action, I talked to Dave Fjeline, and will send it out to him this week, and will have some answers then.
Been meaning to call you, will try this week .

Why doesn’t TPS list any 16ga. plain twist grade 0 barrels of the more than dozen guns with lengths of 34” and 36”

I wondered about that myself Edgar, don't know how many of these 34" 16's were made, maybe only about a dozen. Shipped it out to Dave Fjelline today

Dave can work miracles. He's worked a few for me

Dissapointed, but not surprised , with the opinion on the 34" gun. Dave Fjelline checked it out, and pronounced it terminal. It was in rough shape, and he deemed it not feasible to repair, and Dave loves hammer guns, the longer the barrels, the better.
I knew when I had it sent to me that I was taking a gamble-and I lost the bet .
Sure did get the old juices flowing, thinking about a 34" 16 ga.:crying:

That is disappointing, but it happens. I have lost some bets too

I started thinking about your gun, after reading John Davis' article in PP. The entry dated October 20, 1883 talks about the front face of the rear barrel lug, and how it is what keeps the barrel from pushing on the roll joint. You indicated that the barrels fit onto your other 16, so, it stands to reason that the gap between the end of the barrels, and the breech face, could not be closed by moving the barrels back. Therefore, the breech end of the barrels would have to be built up, all the while working around the rib extension.
In conversation with Dave one time, he remarked how many people were unaware of the perfect fit of the rear lug, front face to the mating surface with the gap of the receiver.
I'm sorry he deemed it a non starter, because if he wouldn't attempt, I don't image anyone else will either.

You are right Edgar, if its broke and Dave cant fix it, you are screwed. He was very apologetic, a very long discussion of all the very serious problems ensued. He was excited when we first talked, as long barreled hammer guns are his thing. I was not looking for anything like this in the first place, so am disappointed, but not going to lose any sleep over it.

That gun did look very rough.

Sorry to hear the bad news about your gun Harold. I was looking forward to seeing her brought back. Good for you for at least being willing to take on a project like that. Now, go find another

In the ~I Learn Something New Every Day~ category I must say Thank You to both Edgar and John on this topic. I had not known about the close tolerance fit of those two surfaces until I read it in John's article "Parkers in Pulp" and Edgar posted about it in the practical application on Harold's gun.

I just came up from my gun room where I took the forend off a 16 gauge 0-frame GH and shaking it, got a bit of wiggle so knew it was a tiny bit loose. I smoked that front surface of the rear lug and put the barrels back on and then took them off again. The soot was cleanly rubbed off the entire surface of the lug.... I was surprised to have seen that on a 'loose' gun.:shock:

So Thanks again guys! That's definitely something to keep in mind in the future when attempting to fit barrels from one gun to another.





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As long as it's on face, and your fit of the lug to frame is that good, the looseness is probably a worn front hook, and Brian's oversized roll joint would take care of that.
What I am wondering is how many times people had an off-face condition, on a Parker, where a non original set of barrels are being fitted by some means of moving the barrel back, thus opening up the lug/frame fit. This would seem to me to be a temporary fix that will only worsen again.

And it will worsen very quickly lacking that contact surface.





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I have had a recent experience with this I'd like to share. I apologize if it's lengthy. I recently took on the task of rejoining a VHE 16 that I've owned for a couple years that was REALLY loose and off the face. The gun had it's metal finishes and wood "restored" at some point in it's life and looked good but was rode hard and put away wet prior to "restoration". The barrels were sitting hard on the action flats. When determining what size joint I should purchase from Brian the considerations I took into account were how far I was off face and the diameter of the worn joint to come up with the oversize joint size I needed. As I closely examined the fit of the barrels I noticed that when locked to the action the barrels were sitting hard to the right of the frame. The rib extension and the rear barrel lug were rubbing hard to the right when smoked. I confirmed this by checking the gap between the barrels and the frame, 6 thou on the right barrel and 4 thou on the left. It appeared that at some point during this guns hard life someone that it was a good idea to use sand as a lubricant on the joint. There where deep gouges in the hook and joint. Upon removing the joint and measuring the diameter I found it was .537 on the right and .542 on the left. I wanted a little extra to square up the hook as it was worn so badly so a .550 joint it would have to be as a .545 would be to close. After fitting the joint I decided I would have to heat treat it first due to the fact the hook was so badly mauled I didn't want to damage the surface of the joint in it's soft state during barrel fitting. Here is where things got interesting. After cleaning the hook up and getting good initial contact between the hook and the joint the barrels would not close due to the rib extension hitting the frame. Carefully continuing to remove very small amounts of material from the hook while maintaining good contact the barrels began to close against the frame. I did not like the way the rib extension was rubbing the back of the frame, and not wanting to remove any material from the rib extension I continued to work on the hook. However, I knew I had to be very careful because I didn't want to end up off face again. The end result after many hours of smoking and fitting was I ended up having to take a couple thou of the face of the rib extension AND the rear barrel lug to get the barrels to close. And the front, rear, and sides of the rear barrel lug are not to touching the frame! If I had taken any more material off the hook to bring the rear barrel lug in contact with the frame the barrels would have most likely still been on face but touching the action flats based on my measurements by sneaking a feeler gauge between the rear barrel lug and the frame. I should mention that a fair amount of material needed to be taken from the face of the right barrel but nothing more than a cleaning up and a good polishing on the left barrel face to get good contact. There is a good 3 thou of gap between the barrels flats and the action flats. I am not sure what someone had done in the past to these barrels (previously removed material from the faces of the barrels?) but it was the best I could do without adding material to the barrel faces which was not an economic option with this gun. And I want to add these barrels are original to the gun.

I wonder how easy or difficult the fitters/filers in Meriden found this process to be.
Their skill always has amazed me.





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It is important to note that when the guns were built new, the rib extension was not on the barrels when they were fitted to the frame.
The initial barrel fit was done without them. So fitting was far less involved without that in the equation.
After the flat breech was fitted to the frame, the rib extention was attached to the barrels and fitted to the frame. Then the rib concave was final profiled along with the frame and top lever. Then matted.

You will note evidence of this in TPS where they name that Rib extension fitting was a separate operation in the factory.