What an incredible experience! Well folks, with your help I have dismantled my 1880 Lifter 10 gauge and now the stock and fore end are raw wood. It is amazing to me that at the beginning of this thread I had assumed the restoration of my parker was beyond me. I could not have done this alone mind you. A big thanks goes to Richard especially who walked me through my first exposure to side locks and the internals of this gun.
I have many more questions and am in need of further assistance. But I will be opening up a new thread in the restorations forum. Questions like weather or not to remove the sheild as I refinish the stock, should I refinish and re-tool the checkering (I'm a woodworker by trade, so I'm confident in my skills). These questions and others will come up in the new thread. Especially David's notion that the gun may not be a grade 0, in fact being a possible higher grade.
Again, thank you to everyone that has helped! I couldn't have done this without you.
new thread:
http://parkerguns.org/forums/showthr...=9213#post9213