The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

This was a nice job. A 12 Bore Moor & Colton badged side by side hammer gun came in for a tidy up. The gun itself was tight enough and with a reasonable bore on the 30" Nitro proofed steel barrels however everything else was a bit tired. The customer wanted to get involved in the project and a plan to move forward was agreed.

I finished the last couple of bits this morning and here it is ready to be collected.

A big thank you to Greg Morris at Gun Stock Restoration for his hard work on restoring the woodwork. I do not mind tidying chequering however this was way past anything I would want to get involved in having already been attended to, so it went off to Greg who rebuilt the damaged forend chequering and did an exceptional job all round. What I particular like is it is not a hideous wet look finish which I have seen a couple of times on guns. This is a 135 year old ish gun. I feel the finish is both good looking and practical and quite fitting for such a gun. If I have to go to anyone for such work it is only Greg I call.

Mechanically, everything has been stripped, repaired, polished, blacked where necessary and generally looked over and I see no reason why this gun cannot be shot for many more years to come. oddly enough it was the smaller details that took the time, I had to rewind striker return springs which took a few attempts to get to the correct length without binding and a hammer screw was missing which took an hour to sort. It is amazing just how much time even the smallest parts take sometimes.

Very nice work.
Best regards
JCS

Looks good. Never really been into shotguns but I like to see the hammer guns.

Redcat

Very nice indeed.

very sweet

Great work!!
What do you use for wood restoration? I've tried Birchwood Casey kit and it worked great on shotgun stock, but not so much on rifles stocks, specially on Anschutz Match 64. But now I am running out of it and I need to buy some and I wanted to know what is best, as your work really shines.

I have few hammer guns in really bad shape. Bought them for peanuts money at auctions and now I want to restore them.
But I am caution in approaching a hammer action as I never worked on one, never owned one before now.
But I was always fascinated by them as, theoretically, you can carry them loaded but not armed and they are perfectly safe?
Do you have, by any chance, an article about how to start working on them in your shooting shed? Or should I just ship them to you?

Btw, is there a shotgun barrels manufacturer in UK? The only barrel manufacturers I could find are in USA.

The finish on this one is BLO (Boiled Linseed Oil) I also make my own red oil and we worked with Nick B to create the wax we use. It is exceptional stuff.

As long as the gun locks up and is not off the face with reasonable barrels there is very little to worry about. They are lovely things to work on.This one was a rebounding hammer so I would not carry it closed with the hammers up or down if it was loaded. I will never carry any shotgun closed and loaded. If you want one looking at just send it over with a budget figure.

Barrels? There are still a few shotgun barrel makers in the UK.