Parkers in the Remington Museum
 

On my way home from the Meriden gathering this past weekend, I made the point to stop in Ilion to see the Remington Museum. I did not get there in time for a factory tour... some other time maybe. They have quite a bit of Parkers there on display. 11 Parkers in total. Among them a Try Gun, the Trojan Skeet Gun, an huge 8ga. GH straight grip, an A-1 Custom (I am sure built by Remington) and a SC trap gun. However, the most interesting gun on display was another Trojan, that was on the wall directly below the Trojan Skeet Gun.

I have done some searching on the forum, as well as reached out to a few of the Parker Pages editors and it does not appear that this gun has been previously discussed.

What I believe this gun to be is an actual finished prototype version of James P. Hayes cost reduced cocking mechanism!

The Parker Story talks about this improvement that Hayes designed and tried to implement on pages 132 - 134. Figure 4.16 shows a drawing of the mechinism that is notorized April 1, 1911. His design reduced 18 parts in the Parker cocking mechanism down to 4pcs. It had the gun as being cocked by an extension on the forend iron (similar to Fox guns), which pushed on a pair of rods to cock the hammers. Since thebell crank was elimated, the dolls head on the trigger plate was not required and the screws that cover the crank pin are eliminated. But, since the bellcrank acted as a barrel stop, Hayes had to resurect the check hook from the hammer gun design.

Figure 4.17 in TPS shows a photo of what is stated to be the known prototype of this new design. This prototype is a very rough graded frame and is not finished.

Pictured below is the Trojan that I mention above that hangs in the Remington Museum. It displays ALL of the features of Hayes modified design, but this gun is fully finished! You will observe no dolls head on the trigger plate, no front screw on the side of the frame. And what appears to be a check hook pin at the base of the water table. Also, the forend iron has the Fox type extension clearly visable. Another interesting feature is the forend latch. It is of a different design than normal and it is also important to note that the Trojan Skeet Gun above it has a similar exposed latch on it, but it is different.
The gun also has blued metal parts instead of CCH.

Now... I do not know the Serial number of the gun. But I am in the process of finding this out thorugh the Remington Society. One would think that maybe this was a very early Trojan which was made with Hayes design as a fiished gun. This would be assumed since the Trojan was introduced only a year after Hayes new design was created. But... Look at the safety and top lever! It has the later style button which was not used until nearly 1920. So was this gun an farther attempt to explore hayes design? Maybe, but it is my suspision that this was a later attempt by Remington to revive Hayes' design. I come to this loose conclusion based on the fact that it uses the same unusual forend latch that the Trojan Skeet gun has, which was a Remington designed model.

TPS states that there was 4 different experimental Trojan guns in the stock books and it was before the 1938 move, but under Remington management. They are 236738, 236972, 237018 and 237447. The last, S/N 237447, is the Skeet model on display above this Trojan that I write about. Is it possible that this Trojan is one of the other 3 numbers? I hope to find out.

Another important observation is that this Trojan has the "Parker Bros" engraving on the side, but the Skeet gun does not.

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Well, if nothing else, it has an interesting forend latch.

Is that a Remington Model 32 forend latch?

No, it is not a 32 latch. It looks like it may be a roller like on a Model 21. However, a Trojan doesn't need a latch and neither does the 21. I own a prototype 21 with no latch and it works just fine. The "latch" is just a sign of a higher grade gun in the trade. A latch on a Trojan may be to secure a beavertail forend which is more likely to come off under recoil than a splinter.

Any forend I have removed from a Trojan has been pretty stubborn in allowing itself to be separated from the barrels. It would be hard to imagine a beavertail forend on a Trojan might be likely to come off under recoil... but that is likely the reason a latch would have been incorporated on a Trojan nonetheless.

you got a sharp eye for details brian...bout all i no is if they shoot or not...thanks for the notes on the guns...someday i hope to see the musem my self and the town the parkers were made in... charlie

I am in the process of finding the contact at Remington that is responsible for this gun to see if I can get the S/N and maybe a chance to see it up close. I believe this gun to be truely significant and I am excited to be able to document it formally.

It took a bit of leaning over the lower glass cases and careful angling of my camera to get the photos that I did. Good thing that there was no one around. They would have thought I was nuts. lol.

The latch reminds me of one on a special order Fox with a BTFE . Sadly, I no longer have the gun.

The Parker Bros. Trojan Grade gun wasn't introduced to the trade until 1912. Could this gun be an early experiment in producing a lower priced Parker Bros. gun? That roller forearm larch looks like the latch used on Tobin ejector guns.

The actual forearm latch used on the Trojan Grade as introduced is a version of the J.C. Kremer & A.H. Fox Patent No. 1,029,374 latch used on some early Ansley H. Fox graded smallbores and some of the early Sterlingworths. A.H. Fox Gun Co. finally settled on using their F.T. Russell Patent No. 1,029,229 latch on all their snap-off/on forearms. The year the PGCA met at the gun show in Richmond, Babe Delgrego showed me some letters he had between Parker Bros. and A.H. Fox Gun Co. about their use of the Kremer & Fox latch.

Years ago, there was a "1 of 1000" 3200 on display in the museum with serial #1 or 2. One of the Remington directors at the time had bought one of the 1 of 1,000's which had the same serial number. When he saw the identical gun in the museum, he asked (Demanded?) that the museum gun be destroyed. It was, I believe