[John Havard]

I'm relatively new to the club of collecting Parkers and have brought home my share of three-legged dogs that I shouldn't have. Not being a dedicated collector limited to only pristine "collector-quality" guns (and not being able to afford as many as I'd like) I sometimes find a poor old sickly shotgun that needs to be rescued. Parker 125155 is such a project.

Hiding in relative obscurity, I bought it sight-unseen online for a very low price with the understanding that if it was mechanically unsound or if the bores were a mess I'd be able to send it back for a refund. Once in hand it proved to be mechanically sound with good/great bores at .731" each. Reasonable dimensions to the original skeleton butt plate and a svelte semi-ball grip added to the appeal. Lightening plug cut in the butt indicated that someone wanted to make this gun balance well. The major downside was that it was pitted on the exterior with a ratted-out trigger guard and some unsightly pitting along the otherwise beautiful damascus rib. The stock was dented and gouged in a couple of places too but underneath many decades of grime the wood showed promise. The research letter offered the usual lack of interesting detail, but at least it matched the research letter and was unchanged. A 2-frame DH with 30" damascus barrels, good wall thickness and original bores, reasonable dimensions and weighing less than 7 1/2 #, this three-legged dog had found someone willing to rescue it.

Off to Brad Bachelder it went with the admonition on my part to take his time and make it as right as possible given the sad condition in which he received it. I wish I had taken the time to snap some "before" photos for comparison to the "after" ones shown here, but I didn't.

Call me a sucker or worse for bringing home this three-legged dog, but now with Parker 125155 having a new lease on life I think we'll get along just fine.