Could be 100 yrs. of crud accumulated under the floorplate. At the first Greenwich Fine Arms show in CT, a man with his 3 kids in tow brought an 1899 VH to our table, hoping someone could find out what was wrong with 'Grandpa's old duck gun'. He asked us to take it apart right then and there. Luckily Eightbore and I had enough of the correct tools between us that we removed the floorplate to look at the internals. It looked like someone had carefully packed the action with heavy wheel bearing grease, then screeded it off on the surface under the floorplate - you couldn't see a thing but heavy black gunk! Before we took it apart, when you dropped the hammers it sounded like someone hitting a 4x4 post with a bung starter. By the time we got it cleaned out and reassembled, the hammers rang like a tuning fork! The father was mildly impressed; the kids went wild! Dad asked what we thought he should do with it now; we told him to go kill some ducks!!
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