Mixed S/N's on my P grade

[Bill Murphy]

If the gun is well fitted and on face with nice wood, it should be a great conversation piece for the rest of your shooting life. There are a bunch of such guns out there that are working well. To educate you young guys about those guns, I will volunteer the following information. In the late fifties and early sixties, we could buy average to high condition P grade Twist Steel guns for $85 to $100. We could send them to the people that would rebarrel them with Italian barrels for $125. We could also send them to Lefever to install original Parker barrels on those guns for $250 or so. However, we could also buy perfectly good original VH grade guns with steel barrels for $125 to $150. That's why we don't see many of these rebarrelled guns. Lefever rebarrelled guns are the bargain of the century in our eyes, but in 1961, it was a stretch to spend two hundred bucks to get steel barrels on a gun that could be bought with steel barrels on the used gun market for the same price or less. The amazing fact is that no one seems to be able to do the quality of work that Lefever did except Kirk Merrington. It isn't rocket science. My Lefever sleeve job is beyond wonderful and was probably done by machinists making three bucks an hour.