Defining "Unfired"

[Wild Skies]

Occasionally we see ads for Parker guns listing them with terms and phrases such as: unfired, possibly unfired, never fired, new, New-In-Box, etc. All of these guns were either test fired, went through a proving process or maybe some were test fired and some weren't -- those going straight from the factory to the dealer to the customer.

I realize all Parkers were stamped as being proved, but were, each and every, Parker Bros. gun proved individually? Were each and every Remington Parker proved individually? How about Parker Reproductions, were each and every one of them proved individually?

In the strictest sense of the term unfired, any gun that has been test fired is not truly unfired. I guess we're still kind of living in the Wild West when it comes to defining unfired. How do we make sense of it all?

[Ken Hill]

Greg,

Guns are proofed in the white not in a finished state. An unfired is a gun not fired by someone outside the factory.

Ken

[Mike of the Mountain]

Let’s not forget graded guns were ordered with specific requests. Choke was one of those options. The only way to have a true measurement of choke would have been shoot/pattern/count. Definitely tedious but still shooting the gun and that is after proofing the barrels.

[Dean Romig]

I believe that in order to stamp their product “proof tested” or “proved” a manufacturer must have done just that or face a very expensive liability. It’s not simply a matter of stamping as such when you have the reputation of your company’s good name to protect.





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[B. Dudley]

Factory test firing would not count since they all have been proofed and patterned. The idea would be that a an “unfired” gun was never fired after it was sold to the consumer. 99% of the guns advertised as such simply are not. It should just be interpreted as a high condition gun. Many would think that if there are no brass shell transfer/impressions on the breech face, that means the gun is unfired. But realistically, a gun can be fired for at least a few boxes of shells without leaving a physical trace.

[Woodcock survey]

I have a VH 12 1 frame that had no marking on the breech face but hand carry wear on the trigger plate. Carried a lot, shot little. After 6 boxes the breech face was showing it

[Mills]

I have owned one likely unfired Parker (a Repro) and it very quickly became "fired" and is one of my favorite bird guns. I leave the high original condition Parkers to collectors

To answer the original question, though, I take "mint" "100% original" and "unfired" with a grain of salt.

[Dean Romig]

I owned one, a grade 1 T/A 16 gauge hammer gun on the 0-frame with 28" Laminated Steel barrels. As long as I owned it (more than 10 years) it remained unfired, and I'm sure it still is.

"Grain of salt" or not... they exist.





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[Andy]

I saw a Superposed at the Southern NIB UNFIRED. I literally laughed my ass off at the guy. Breech marks, scratches all over and dirty bores. There is "very high condition" and idiots who fool idiots (me included sometimes). In between is where you fall into trouble. I will never be a collector. It's like buying a 427 Cobra and letting it sit : )

[John Bastiani]

I have only been collecting Parkers for a few short years and can't really comment on how people who collect Parkers define a gun to be unfired. Although- I have collected Winchesters for over 40 years and if a gun has been proofmarked then its been fired. So anytime someone list a Winchester as having not been fired then just asked if its got proofmarks(W-P). I did own one gun that was unfired that came out of the Winchester display room in New Haven and sent to the Cody Museum. The gun was not proofed-no serial number and had a metal tag with a number that was listed in the Winchester Reference collection. The gun was a model 1904 that was in new condition. I was skeptical about buying the gun but after I sent the numbers to my buddy Herb Houze who was the curator at the Cody museum and wrote the book on the reference guns - he convinced me that this was a great gun to put in my collection. He also said that Winchester never proofmarked the gun because it was for display only.