The Parker
 

Nice short story titled "The Parker" in Gray's Sporting Journal, The Bird Hunting Edition, volume forty-two, issue 4, August 2017. It's about a 12 ga Trojan that a guy inherited from his Grandfather and got him into grouse hunting.

It includes a photo where you can see some of one side of the original instruction and care tag that came with the gun. It must be a generic tag included with both hammerless and hammer guns as you can see in in big bold letters: "IT DOES NO HARM TO SNAP HAMMERS DOWN ON PARKER GUNS WHEN NOT LOADED. SNAP THEM ALL YOU PLEASE." Of course the subject Trojan is a hammerless gun.

It also describes that allowing the ejectors to snap open with no "exploded shells" in place can cause harm to the gun. I don't own a Parker with ejectors, but I will keep that in mind for when the time comes.

Who is the author of the story... is he a PGCA member? We should all have our new by-laws and membership roster by now and can look up such an author's name.





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The author is Bill Kavanaugh and he is identified as "a freelance writer living in central Pennsylvania." I received my latest Parker Pages over the weekend with the membership list, however I am in my office and the list is at home.

Mr. Hixie, snap the internal hammers on a Trojan all you want. It won't damage them.

Allowing ejectors to trip without any resistance against them (e.g., spent shells; holding your thumb or fingers against them) is THE primary cause of the tiny square ejector stop plate blowing out. Once this occurs it can become a major repair project and is almost without exception a VERY expensive proposition. The rebated milling cut in the end of the rib extension that holds the plate in place with its accompanying tiny screw usually must be recut and a new or replacement plate fabricated and fit. If (God forbid!) these are lost in the field as a result of the 'blowout', it becomes even more of a nightmare. I know of a gorgeous BHE 16 ga. that suffered this fate, with the actual ejector being lost in the field as well. Worst of all was a super-rare DHE 28 ga. that had a badgered repair job on the installation of a replacement stop plate and was never mechanically right again. Beware!!

I once bought an orphan set of Peerless Steel 20 gauge barrels that had had a very poor repair of the same issue, among other ham-handed shade tree gun smithing butcheries. I returned them immediately. I pity the guy who finally got stuck with this set.





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Thank you Mr. Day! I often do, but I mostly use snap caps anyway just out of habit I guess.

The writer of the article is not mentioned in the latest membership list.

He's a freelance writer and lives in State College which is in the center of the state. He may be associated with the Pennsylvania State University. I don't know him.

I had that issue of Gray's andmany other magazines laid out to take to Hilton Head--was supposed to leave tomorrow, but Hurricane Irma has changed our plans.