Grade O top lever Hammer 16 with 34" barrels

[Andy Clark]

Originally Posted by edgarspencer

As long as it's on face, and your fit of the lug to frame is that good, the looseness is probably a worn front hook, and Brian's oversized roll joint would take care of that.
What I am wondering is how many times people had an off-face condition, on a Parker, where a non original set of barrels are being fitted by some means of moving the barrel back, thus opening up the lug/frame fit. This would seem to me to be a temporary fix that will only worsen again.

I have had a recent experience with this I'd like to share. I apologize if it's lengthy. I recently took on the task of rejoining a VHE 16 that I've owned for a couple years that was REALLY loose and off the face. The gun had it's metal finishes and wood "restored" at some point in it's life and looked good but was rode hard and put away wet prior to "restoration". The barrels were sitting hard on the action flats. When determining what size joint I should purchase from Brian the considerations I took into account were how far I was off face and the diameter of the worn joint to come up with the oversize joint size I needed. As I closely examined the fit of the barrels I noticed that when locked to the action the barrels were sitting hard to the right of the frame. The rib extension and the rear barrel lug were rubbing hard to the right when smoked. I confirmed this by checking the gap between the barrels and the frame, 6 thou on the right barrel and 4 thou on the left. It appeared that at some point during this guns hard life someone that it was a good idea to use sand as a lubricant on the joint. There where deep gouges in the hook and joint. Upon removing the joint and measuring the diameter I found it was .537 on the right and .542 on the left. I wanted a little extra to square up the hook as it was worn so badly so a .550 joint it would have to be as a .545 would be to close. After fitting the joint I decided I would have to heat treat it first due to the fact the hook was so badly mauled I didn't want to damage the surface of the joint in it's soft state during barrel fitting. Here is where things got interesting. After cleaning the hook up and getting good initial contact between the hook and the joint the barrels would not close due to the rib extension hitting the frame. Carefully continuing to remove very small amounts of material from the hook while maintaining good contact the barrels began to close against the frame. I did not like the way the rib extension was rubbing the back of the frame, and not wanting to remove any material from the rib extension I continued to work on the hook. However, I knew I had to be very careful because I didn't want to end up off face again. The end result after many hours of smoking and fitting was I ended up having to take a couple thou of the face of the rib extension AND the rear barrel lug to get the barrels to close. And the front, rear, and sides of the rear barrel lug are not to touching the frame! If I had taken any more material off the hook to bring the rear barrel lug in contact with the frame the barrels would have most likely still been on face but touching the action flats based on my measurements by sneaking a feeler gauge between the rear barrel lug and the frame. I should mention that a fair amount of material needed to be taken from the face of the right barrel but nothing more than a cleaning up and a good polishing on the left barrel face to get good contact. There is a good 3 thou of gap between the barrels flats and the action flats. I am not sure what someone had done in the past to these barrels (previously removed material from the faces of the barrels?) but it was the best I could do without adding material to the barrel faces which was not an economic option with this gun. And I want to add these barrels are original to the gun.

[edgarspencer]

Originally Posted by Andrew Clark

And I want to add these barrels are original to the gun.

All the while reading this,the question you answered in the last sentence was on my mind. I have always enjoyed my skill of visualizing a good engineering drawing, or mechanical description. This was one of those moments. It boggles the mind how things which were once right can be so wrong.

[Andy Clark]

Originally Posted by edgarspencer

All the while reading this,the question you answered in the last sentence was on my mind. I have always enjoyed my skill of visualizing a good engineering drawing, or mechanical description. This was one of those moments. It boggles the mind how things which were once right can be so wrong.

You are not kidding Edgar..I realized after I posted it that I didn't include that info. Which would have been your first question

[Harold Pickens]

Well, a possible solution has been proposed. Since the chambers are in bad shape, someone either ground a ring in the right chamber, or a hull rusted in it. Briley's chamber inserts tubes could be used, the ones that are approx. 14" long, to go from 16 to 20 ga., or 16 to 28 ga . I would much prefer 20 ga.
There would still have to be a lot of work to be done at the breech.
These might then be able to be fitted to my other 16ga O grade hammer gun, making it a 2 barrel set. The other gun sports 26" and is extremely nice.
The wall thickness was .033 to.035, but there was a lot of concern as to whether there might be tiny pits much thinner. Of course full length tubes could be fitted . There would be a lot of work fitting it to the new gun. So going to explore the possibilities before giving up on it.