I had been looking for a suitable case for my A1 Special for the past year. I picked up a nice 28” Westley Richards case at the southern that was going to be it. Until I found this Oak and Leather case on Gunbroker a few months later. I picked it up for $400.
I do not know what the case was from or what its back story was, but it was of good quality and was for 28” barrels. Perfect. It is of more modern manufacture as the interior was lined with UltraSuede. Identifying the material was the first challenge and Kevin McCormack helped out with that. I brought a block from the case with me to the Vintage Cup and he told me it was UltraSuede.
I was able to find a very very close match to the color for Toray who makes the actual Ultrasuede brand. It was from their HP line, color Emerald. A yard of it cost me $140 off Amazon. I was very happy with the material. It is very heavy duty and has a great feel to it. It really does feel like real suede.
My plan was just to redo a few blocks and areas in the case, but that ended up turning into just gutting out most of the case and starting over. The only parts that I reused was the long oak barrel divider and its covering, the dust breaks and their covers, one block under the muzzles and the lid covering. Everything else was made new and wrapped with new material.
It was a little bit of a fun process. I have done a little bit of case work in the past, but this was one of the more extensive ones so far.
I still want to find or have made a canvas dust cover for the case, but all in time. And I still plan to add a nickel Vaseline jar under the grip to fill up that space.
Much thanks to Matt Hanson for hooking me up with the cleaning brass rod retainer and the small brass knobs for the compartment covers.
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