Yesterday I delivered my ancient O grade L.C. Smith to Keith Kearcher, our local gunsmith who specializes in bringing back damascus barrels. He is going to take the action down, clean it and repair the safety, which is probably just out of alignment. He is going to freshen the checkering on the wrist and forearm to about half way to new. I don't want to make the gun look like a new gun. Nor do I want to re-do the case colors. A bit of cleaning will be fine.
He is going to open the chokes to IC and Modified. I'll shoot it at skeet using RST. He peeked down the bore and said he'd be able to hone most of the roughness out. The pits aren't too deep. I want to shoot the gun, tho so I don't want the bores opened up too much, or honed too thin.
He miked the bore and said they measured .30 at the thinnest point, which was enough meat to work with.
Cost will come to something like $650. I will end up being into the gun about $1100, which is okay with me, but about max, I think, for an O grade, gun dates to 1900. But she'll be a pretty gun and fun to break out of the case at various shoots.
So, now I have a Fox Sterlingworth, Lefever I grade, Parker GH and this Smith 0 grade. All of them are in super fine condition..not new, but very fine, classic low grade guns with great bones.
Kearcher said it'd be about 3 weeks to do the work. I'm like a kid at Christmas. As soon as the gun comes in, I'll post pics.
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