[Bruce Day]

Ray,lots of times pits and uneven bores look worse than they are. Some people will take emory cloth, wrap it around a bore brush, apply lots of oil and scrub away. Others will take automotive paint rubbing compound and gob that on a bore brush. Just scrub away a lot and those bores may clean up, as pitted bores tend to collect dirt and look worse than they are.

Here's the issue. Lots of Parker barrels, fluid or damascus, were made around .032 to .038 wall thickness. Many people, such as me, feel that .025 is a comfortable minimum, although the Brits will go down to .020. Many older guns, such as yours, were sent back to the factory to have the bores "cleaned" in the days when people were still using black powder. Burnt black powder contains sulfur compounds, moisture collects, and sulfuric acid results. So bores were cleaned, wall thickness reduced, and so what because a person could always get new barrels from Parker and many did. So each rehoning costs .006, maybe more, in wall thickness and after two of those, you have very thin walls.

Now I like damascus barrels and shoot modern smokeless loads in them up to Parker's design psi ( not proof psi) of about 11,300 for a 12ga, although much of the time I shoot loads that run between 7500 and 8500psi. I like wall thickness, and for some unfounded reason, particularly like wall thickness in damascus barrels. Honing reduces wall thickness and adds nothing functionally. Shiny bores are merely cosmetic. I'm talking about the normal ripples, rings, small pits, that you see in old bores, not deep cracks, holes, etc that show structural issues.

Good luck with your A grades. Some of them, including those made around that time period, can be spectacular. "First, do no harm," And by the way, some of the same people that are telling you to exercise caution here are the same ones that are known to collect guns such as yours may be.