Right after the 12 VHE came to me from my wife's side of the family, a friend and I took it and his 12 gauge LC Smith to the local Cabela's-just for the fun of it- to see what they would offer us for our doubles. We were greeted at the door, and we uncased the shotguns and tagged them, and they then called the Gun Library for an "escort" back to that area of the store. Long story short-- they offered me $600 for the VHE- it has 30" barrels and is unaltered, about 70% metal finish and blue, 80% wood varnish-when they looked over my friend's LC Smith 12, they told him that someone had shot steel shot loads through it, as the muzzles and barrel bores were "bulged" and it was worth maybe $200 "as is".
My friend is not a duck hunter, has never bought steel shot, and usually hunts with a 20 gauge Browning Clitori over and under. The Smith belonged to his late father-in-law, and had been stored taken down in the fitted case it came in from V,L&A many years ago. Like the VHE, it has double triggers and auto ejectors, more engraving than the VHE however.
We both work for Beecher Tool & Die Co. and although we are not gunsmiths by any sense of the word, we know how to use a straight edge. When we returned home, we laid one on both barrels of the LC Smith from "stem to gudgeon" and never saw a gap or daylight- straight as a carpenter's chalk line before the snap--
I don't know about the other Gun Libraries in the Cabela's line-up, but the one we visited seems to be staffed with the uninformed, if not outright crooked folks. A darn shame too!!
