On opening day of Dove season my VHE doubled, quite an experience!! I know that it wasn't dirt as I had sent it to a gunsmith to be Case colored and had fired it twice after it was returned with no problem, however it was with low pressure cartridges. This time with higher pressure shells. Any suggestions?

Did you also try low pressure shells?

who recolored receiver? and how was it done? low heat or high heat?

No not again,please.

45: my point, is that who ever did this work should have known better. parker single triggers are notorious for doubling. once, you get erm working right, do not mess with erm. and certainly, do not disturb the delicate and precise metal to metal fit of the receiver and internal parts.

We don't know that it had a single trigger. I have had Parkers double on me with double triggers.

doubletrouble does it have single or double triggers?

The Parker site has instructions for disassembling the gun. Sometimes trash gets in the sears.

If it has a single trigger I would send it to a smith.

Best,

Mike

Double trigger guns that are doubling can be from the same causes as single trigger guns. Gunk under/around the sears or damage/wear to the sears. I've had guns wear the sears round. These were guns shot many thousands of rounds.

If you're not familiar with this type of work, find a good smith that you have references for. Trigger/sear work isn't every gunsmith's expertise.

i do hope it is a double trigger gun, as that would be much easier for an experienced mechanic to fix...

and we should all know who it is that messed up this fine gun, and then released it back to the owner in this dangerous condition; so we can all avoid him in the future?

ed you are full of it.

well mike, in my humble opinion, when we trust someone to do extensive work on one of our guns, we should expect the gun to be thoroughly tested fired by the workman, and determined to be safe, before it is returned to us...to do otherwise is inexcusable.

ed I apologize for writing "ed you are full of it."

I should have written "ed it is my humble opinion that you are full of it."

Can only comment on Smith's doubling, but after thousands of shots, the upper edge of the tip of the sear (usually the right) becomes rounded, causing a light trigger pull or doubling. This is JDW's excellent image



Dan Lammers of DL Precision left Phoenix for Redding, CA a couple of years ago, but before leaving he worked over the locks of my lowly 00, and for the first time I became aware that a crisp trigger is truly a joy and wonder.
Unfortunately, my hopeless flinch is even worse with any trigger but

well mike, there you go again...trashing another thread with your off topic, obtuse posts...

sounds like you do not know how serious this topic is? put yourself in doubletroubles shoes for a moment. here you sit with an otherwise fine parker vhe shotgun, that is now unreliable and unsafe to shoot. all because you trusted your fine gun to an incompetent and irresponsible gun mechanic who botched it up.

mike, maybe you do not think this is serious, but others certainly do. if you knew someone, as i do, who was injured by a gun made unsafe by a botched case coloring job, then perhaps you would be more understanding here.

drew: it has been my experience that doubling is usually a result of worn triggers and or sears...however, parkers do not usually have that problem... in the case of the parker vhe, which is the topic of this post, it sounds like the trigger plate may have warped in the recoloring process, which put the triggers or trigger out of precise alignment with the sears?

in any event, doubletrouble needs to get his gun to an experienced smith, who knows what he is doing and stop fooling around with these recoloring cranks.

It doesn't sound that way to me. It sounds to me like we don't know anything with the information we have.

ed we still don't know if it is a double trigger or single trigger.

ed we don't know if he tested the gun with modern ammo before he sent it off. It may be the case that if he had shot modern ammo before he sent it off to the gunsmith it may have doubled.

And Parker sears (seers?) do round off. I have a VH that had that problem. And the rounding of the seers may have just become severe enough to double in his last box of shells. There was a poll just a few months ago on the Parker site about doubling. There were several respondents with doubling Parker experience.

It may have been one of the guns you paid Mr. Landers to heat up with a torch and make the birdseye spots. Someone may have steel-wooled the spots off that gun and then sold it to doubletrouble. But it may be one of the guns you screwed with and then sold. Perhaps you may post a list of serial numbers of all the guns you have had case colored. If you didn't keep track hows about a list of all the serial numbers you have sold? Now that would be making a contribution to the hobby of double gun collecting.

You lately have been touting chemical and torch case coloring process but several years ago ya'll were just using a torch.

We don't know and you don't know what the problem is with doubetrouble's gun. And the things it may be run into dozens of dozens of possibilities.

I think everyone here agrees that when two pieces of metal rub together, some metal comes off. We all get all worked up on what kind of grease to put on the hinge to prevent wear, but a sear is loaded to a much higher specific pressure and is not lubricated as well as a hinge. Granted the parts are generally harder, but that doesn't eliminate wear, just reduces it.

So why is anyone surprised that a sear gets rounded after many thousands of rounds? It's just another wear part.

Chuck and Mike, are you guys saying we shouldn't sand off the bone charcoal case colors on our guns and send them off to Ol' Ed Lander for torch coloring to make them safer?

Did we ever even get an address or phone number to contact Ol' Ed? Does Ed Lander really exist? Should Doug Turnbull be looking for another line of work?

The answer to your last question is YES!

sadly, you guys are off topic here...it is inappropriate of you to use this thread to launch personal attacks against yours truly and others...

hopefully, doubletrouble will find a good smith to fix his gun for him and, who ever messed up will be more diligent in the future.

May not have anything to do with worn sears but more to do with the reasembly of the frame, the gap between the sears and trigger blades could have changed, you should check and see if there is contact...try to wiggle the triggers when the gun is cocked, they should have a little up and down play, if not, they're under tension and mat not be fully engaged, wich would lighten the pulls and ultimately cause it to double.


CJ

Based on the information doubletrouble posted here it may be the case that no one messed up. It may be normal wear. Or trash in the seers.

Either way we can't tell what happned from the information we have here.

well mike, not to beat a dead horse, but if you read doubletroubles original post that started this thread, it sure sounds like his gun worked fine before he sent it off to have the receiver recolored...otherwise, why would he even post his problem here, in the context of having the receiver recolored?

it is nice though, to see you are back on topic.

a lesson we should all learn from this is that, in an effort to make our guns look better, we some times run the risk of making them non functional and dangerous...maybe the best course is to leave erm as they are and only fix erm when they are broke?

ed if you will re-read doubletroubles original post you will see that he doesn't say if he tested it before he sent it off. He still hasn't said if it was a double or single trigger gun. He still hasn't said if he has it fixed yet. If so he hasn't said what the fix was.

And since when do you speak for "we" as in "a lesson we should all learn from this is that..."

Or do you mean "we" to indicate you and your alter ego Bilious Bob?

you know what happens when you beat your head against a stone wall? you get a headache...i have grown weary of this and my head is beginning to hurt...and so ends another encounter with hammer head mike.

ed I accept your surrender.

Sorry for being so late in responding. The gun is a double trigger, ejector with 34" barrels and no safety. It was originally shipped as a 12 gauge on a #2 frame but apparently was sent back to Parker for a set of 16ga. barrels. They are marked JG in an oval. I had the gun restocked and while I was at it had the iron re colored. I believe it was sent to Ohio to " Color Case Hardening" but not sure. The work was done by a smith that I have the utmost confidence in and is well known as he worked for Pachmeyer for years.
Tom

Something I forgot to mention. I had not fired to shotgun before sending it off to the smith. The gun was given to me when I was about 14 and 50 years later when I had put together a little money I decided to get it fixed as the stock was broken in half.

so ed you think restocking might have something to do with it? you had no info but still ran your suck about coloring the action.there is no ed landers listed with an FFL in you area ed.

Why don't we take the beat on Ed business to another thread, elsewhere, and address doubletrouble's problem in the normal, gentlemanly way things get handled here. I know I've picked on Ed in the past (I still have that quart can of miner's lamp carbide if you want it. ) but doubletrouble came here with a legitimate problem asking for application of the collective knowledge of the site. So let's go there.

FWIW, if you go back on some of the late Ballistix999's threads about learning to do CCH, you'll note he was quite worried about things like warping the frame during the process. And everyone here just fawned on Tony and his concern. And rightly so. Ed raises the possibility of the same issue and you guys back up the manure spreader.

I don't know a hell of a lot about Parkers or CCH, but it does stand to reason that any of the possibilities already raised here - frame warp during re-CCH, crud, sear wear, worn insides generally, botched re-assembly - or a couple more I can think of (It's a no-safety gun - are they more prone to doubling? What effect re-stocking? What effect from the old rebarrelling?) might well obtain.

Dave there are quite a few constructive suggestions in this thread already.

As mc points out it could be the restock - wood interference.

It could be worn sears.

It could be trash in the sears. I repeat that there are directions on disassembling a Parker action on the Parker site.

It could be a warped frame from a re-case hardening. But doubletroubles has twice referred to the process as case coloring. We don't know the process that was used for the case coloring or if it even involved re-case hardening.

CJO had a very specific possibility, easily checked.

I wasn't disputing the possibility of re-case hardening causing warpage and the doubling.

I was disputing ed's jumped-to conclusions that it has been re-case hardened and that that re-case hardening caused it to double and his blanket condemnation of the process.

Best,

Mike

Doubletrouble,

on a double trigger gun, about the only thing that could mechanically be wrong is a tired sear or maybe a tired sear spring. If the spring is weak, it may not be putting enough dowward pressure on the sear when cocking to fully engage the sear on the hammer.

If the gun was restocked, it could be that not enough wood was removed in a particular spot and causing the problem.

Never say never, but... IF the trigger plate was warped, it may or may not cause this issue since the sears and all other related cocking parts are attached to the frame, not the trigger plate. But the triggers are on the plate and they could be contacting the sears a bit if the plate was warped. Who knows.

I hope I was able to lend a few ideas as to the root of the issue.

I agree with a few of the other "calmer heads" on this thread- Beating up on Ed "Da Torch" Lander and his personal experiences with double guns is like trying to teach a pig to sing German opera-- You get frustrated and it just annoys the Hell out of everybody- there are plenty of other venues for personal attacks, let's take the high road.

I agree with Herr Dudley here. I have two older 12 ejector doubles, one with double triggers, and one with a single selective trigger, and both have doubled a few times, but i found out the cause without any diss-assembly required.

Case 1-- 1945 pre-Marlin (Feb with hang tag) 12 LC Smith Ideal FWE 26" barrels, DT-- I bought this from a local dealer at the "Yooper" shoot, after my 12 GHE developed recocking problems (since cured by Brad Bachelder, my preferred gunsmith) and I needed a 12 double to complete the SC program. I was using RST 2.5" 1 ounce No 8 shot in the Parker, and continued to shoot that fine load in the Smith- A-OK. Later at home, using it for barn pigeons, I put a AA Handicap Trap load in the right barrel, and when I touched the trigger, there was a boom-pause-boom- so it had doubled. The gun is as new, hadn't been shot in years, and a removal of the lock plates showed no wear at sear bent or crud, so I went back to the RST lighter loads (always a safer bet with a Smith IMO) and no problemo.

I also have my Dad's 12 M21 field gun he got new in 1948-- SST, EJ--and with the trigger selector button set for right barrel first, no problem- if you move it to fire the left barrel first, about 1 in 10 times it will double, but only in that setting- As it is choked Mod right and Imp Mod left, I just leave it set for right barrel first-

Guns, like people, have their "quirks" and the "Gremlin" factor also can play a part. I just accomodate myself to those "quirks" and live with them--RWTF

I know nothing about Parkers, but it could be as simple as a few overtightened screws causing the trigger plate to come in contact prematurely with the sear/s.

Because it was restocked I would first look for a problem with the triggers engaging the sears. I have had Brad do quite a bit of work for me and believe he's one of the best gunsmiths there is. If you're interested he can be reached at 616-459-3636.

I'll second that-- I left the GHE with him in June 2010- the cocking slide had worn and was not engaging when you broke open the gun to recock the hammers-- I had it back in my hands 3 weeks later, and it hasn't missed a beat since--Brad Bachelder is a Master Craftsman in the truest sense of the word!!!

How 'bout dat Foxy... and he ain't even a union man !

Doubling of Parkers isn't THAT unusual. I have one that did it a number of times before I fixed it by honing the worn sear end to a better 'point'. Mine would double when the recoil of shooting the left bbl first would jar the sear on the right bbl enough to release it. Generally the right barrel gets shot way more than the left barrel so the sear wears quicker. It was a pretty simple job to jig it and touch up the point on a fine diamond stone. The left bbl sear was still fine. Whenever I buy another Parker I cock it and slap the bejeezus out of the receiver on all sides trying to get it to go off just to see if it's worn enough to do so.