LC Smith Arrived This Week -Before and After Pics
 

A number of months ago, I purchased a LC Smith 12ga w/28" Barrels Field grade circa 1998/99 I believe. The previous owner had the wood completely refinished (nicely) and the barrels re-blued (nicely). Although my dad shot Parkers all his life, he never ceased to tell me and my brother how nice the LC Smith's were. So when I saw this clean Smith double, on impulse and out of the memory of my father I bought the dam thing! But there were a few things about it that concerned me most. I didn't like the fact that although the blueing was nicely done, it wasn't original and I cared even less for the 3 position safety. I guess that in the days of live pigeon shoots, it was the thing to build these guns with the 3 positions (Those of you who are familiar with these old Smiths know what I'm talking about. In the rear most position, the gun will fire, safe ON is the middle position and the forward most position is OFF. (OFF-ON-OFF is the configuration). Since we live in a 2 position world today, I wanted to have this safety converted to a 2 position only so no one down the line in my family who inherits this nice double will confuse anything. Safety was my primary concern. I also wanted the frame case colored as close to factory spec as possible. Just didn't like the fact that it had been blued. One of our PGCA members was kind enough to recommend a fellow in West Virginia by the name of Jerry Andrews who he said was a LC Smith guru and could work wonders. (He was right). I sent the gun to Jerry, we discussed what was to be done, Jerry made some good recommendations and explained everything to me which I appreciated very much. The gun is back now. Jerry's work is self explanatory. Here are some before and after pictures. I would not hesitate to recommend Jerry for Smith work. :bowdown:

Before and After:

I do not know if the Smith three position safety worked the same as the Ithaca three position safety but on the Ithaca at least, the purpose was not to just have it in the fire position front and rear, but that in the rear position it was not an “automatic” safety. That is it does not return to the middle or “safe” position when fired and the shells ejected. In the front position it does act as an automatic safety, with it returning to “safe” or the middle position when fired and opened. Perhaps the LC Smith configuration is different.

You're correct Steve and that was my concern with this double - that it might be loaded and someone would pick it up not realizing that in the rear most position it is really ready to FIRE. It does return to the middle SAFE position from the forward most FIRE position after firing. I'm happy with this configuration.

Beautiful gun.

There is an Ithaca at my LGS that has a hang tag that says "three position safety." I had wondered what that meant. Thanks for the information.

beautiful ! very nice checkering to, how about some more pictures

He really did a great job on those case colors

I'll take some additional pics over the weekend and post. Been a long day at the shop (we were hammered all day long as the stripers have finally arrived in the Canal and everyone's fishing).

I failed to mention earlier that Jerry called me one day and said that the LC Smith lettering on the side plates was so thin from the earlier blueing process that we should re-cut the lettering so as to stand out properly. I readily agreed and Jerry had his engraver re-cut the lettering. Did a very nice job.

More pics as requested
 

Additional pictures as requested. By the way and so I don't offend anyone who feels strongly about 'restoring' an old double gun. This gun had been messed with before I purchased it so I figured that bringing it back to some semblance of what it may have looked like as it left the factory would be appropriate.:bigbye:

Allen, the gun came out very nice, i think you did the wright thing!:) scott

nice gun allen really beautiful...i have a coupla lc smiths with the 3 position safty i really like them but you do have to be careful... charlie