About 7 years ago I wrote an article for Gun Digest about restoring a Fraser single shot. Because of space constraints, a number of pictures of some steps were left out. This Farquharson was as poorly treated as that Fraser.
The first step was for retired gunsmith Bill Schultz to pull the barrel.
These are the pictures of it before the serious work has begun:



Here we can see where some one used a coarse abrasive to remove surface rust. This person has almost obliterated the George Gibbs logo. This Farquharson (action # 199 APU # 735) is reported by Jonathan Kirton as being rebarreled in .303 British. Both sides of the action were marred during this process. On Friday at the CADA show I will turn over the action to Fred Bowen of Lake Villa to work work his magic on it. I consider Fred to be one of the best engravers in the English style in the world. He will square up, properly polish and engrave it while hopefully sending me pictures of each step which I will post here.



As you can see by the quality of the wood, this is a very worthwhile project.

I am looking forward to watching the progress of this rifle, thanks for starting this thread.

You're welcome. I am also very anxious to see the progress as well. This rifle arrived while I was out of town and I have not had a chance to shoot it. I think I will just have Fred do his thing and have Dave Norin case color it at a later dater. Dave and Fred are artists who insist of studying original firearms before working on them. With the Fraser, I was lucky because Dave Crowley happened to have a mint Fraser for them to study. Every maker had their own style of case coloring and engraving and these guys really try to duplicate them.

I guess I need to dig up that gun digest as I have a Fraser project coming up.

If you cant find it, I can email you a copy.

That would be great! especially if you have more info than was printed.

Joel,
Looks like a wonderful project. I can't wait to see how it comes along.

John

Steve,
I emailed you a copy of the article. I will also send you the photos that were not included.

As with all projects like this, new problems crop up, but that is one of the reasons for starting this thread. With the barrel off I did a serious inspection of the bore and it is much worse than I thought. I have a number of big bore British single shots and love the idea of having one in .303. I emailed McGowen Precision Barrels and found they can provide a .311 barrel with the exact same taper as the present one. This is important because the taper must match the original so that the sights, swivel base and forend can be reused. Tomorrow I will have my retired gunsmith remove the sights and send the old barrel to McGowen.
This is the barrel with which I am starting:

A very interesting topic I'll look forward to learning more.

Thanks for sharing.

You're welcome Michael. Its my intention to demonstrate the patience required and the pitfalls of getting involved in a restoration project. If all turns out as well as I hope it will, then it will all be worth it.

Joel,
What Gun Digest was your article published in? I would like to read it.

Mr. Black:

Mcgowan has duplicated several barrels for me and has done a very good job of it.

If I my I would like to request the same information on the Fraser you are sending to Mr. Bertram. I am particularly interested in any pictures you may have of the tang safety mechanism.

Best of luck on the Gibbs project! The choice of the .303 will prove a good one.

Respectfully,

Glenn Fewless

gfewless@tds.net

I cant remember. It was about 6 years ago, but here is a link:
Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Very interesting thread and a really great rifle.

BTW, thank you for the info on McGowan duplicating barrels. I've shot a few rifles with McGowan barrels and was pleased with them, but have never tried to get a contour duplicated before.

These are some of the photos that were left out. Fred Bowen inleted a sliver of wood where indicated in the forend.

These are some of Fred's practice plates. At the time he had never done any English style engraving and was insistent on getting it right.

May I suggest the classic Rose & Scroll

Gentlemens:

While this thread has taken a turn away from Mr. Black's Farquharson, I wish to take advantage of all the Fraser fans that have appeared. Do any of you have pictures of the Fraser tang safety mechanism? I wish to duplicate it and all I can find to go by is Mr. DeHass' diagrams in his first book. Any help would be much appreciated.


Mr. Black:

Barring a remarkable circumstance, it seems that we have a mutual friend and are destined to meet this coming Saturday. I am most looking forward to it.

Best to all,

Glenn

Glenn,
I just discovered you are a friend of Dave's. I will only be there for dealer set up on Friday. If you can make there on that day, I'd love to meet you. He certainly has high praise for you work. Its a shame that both of my Frasers have in the trigger guard safeties. I'd be happy to ask Wal Winfer if he has any photos of the tang safety mechanism. Now that he has finally mastered email, its an easier task.

Joel:

I will be there on Saturday. I do not know if I will be able to come down on Friday, as I already promised the neighbor guy my services (brute force and ignorance) that day.

I tried communicating with Mr. Winfer via email in the past. I guess I now know why it did not work... <g> By all means, please ask Mr. Winfer if he has such pictures.

Please feel free to write me direct. gfewless@tds.net

Best,

Glenn

Sorry I can not help you with the safety.
However I am interested in why you want to have this type safety? From your perspective does it have attributes over the trigger bow design?

I used the trigger bow placement on the rifle I built. Mine tilts forward, which is different then Fraser's design, when you take the gun off safety and seems to work well.

Mr. LRF:

While I do prefer the tang safety, I am sure the trigger guard safety works very well. The main reason we wish to go with it is because the tang safety is more marketable.

Glenn

I am going to do a top tang safety conversion on a Fraser action I am building also. I am building the gun for myself, and my reason for the conversion is that it is much more natural feeling to me as I have always shot sxs shotguns with the top tang safety.

Joel,
Thanks for the article. I would love to chat with you at some point about British singles....they are my passion for sure.

One comment if I may from a design perspective. The tang safety as shown in the DeHaas book (which I will assume was drawn from an actual gun) has a concern in that it is a trigger blocking safety and not a sear blocking safety. I am sure most of you understand the difference that can entail.
When I designed my gun, following the Fraser footprint, I changed the safety to a sear blocking type. This could also be done easily on the tang safety design.

Everyone gets to choose their desires but if you have intentions of selling your gun and someone drops it and the sear bounces free of engagement, you could possibly be looking at negative legal responsibility. As is said you get to choose.

If anyone is interested I can show a pdf of the CAD design I did for my gun. If yes can someone tell me how you would upload a file and attach it to the thread. Or do you load it like any other image?

Back to the original thread:
I dropped the action off with Fred Bowen who, in turn, turned it over to Dave Norin who will disassemble and anneal it. Dave has created adjustable spacer plates to keep actions from warping when he anneals or case hardens them. Without that step, disaster can ensue.

Amen, brother.
Regards, Joe

Absolutely love the fact that you are keeping it in .303. Look forward to seeing the old girl rise from the dead!

Me too, but when I go into these kind of projects with each aspect being done by different craftsmen, I always prepare myself for the wait to be twice as long as predicted.
So far the best thing to come out of this is having been told by Dave Norin that he considers board member and fellow Wisconsinite Glenn Fewless to be one of the finest gunsmiths around when it come to English rifles. I have a Field side lever I am considering giving Glenn to work on when I find out how much money I have left over after the Farquharson is done.

?

I just changed it before reading your post Steven. BTW I love the B&W photos in your custom firearms book.

Just a quick update. I got very lucky this past week in that Dave Norin had a few case hardening jobs to do so he used that opportunity to anneal my Farquharson action. Fred Bowen has made some form fitting jaws to hold the action while he works on it. In a week or 2 I hope Fred will email me some photos of practice plates for his engraving design. He will be using these 2 illustrations I sent him for inspiration.

Fred Bowen has begun serious work on my Farquharson. This is the annealed action as received from Dave Norin.


This is the beginning of the polishing process.


These are Fred's practice plates. The first is a border.

Great looking work. The border is wonderfull.

Thank you for appreciating Fred's work. When I wrote the article about his work on my Fraser he claimed engraving was just a hobby. Now that he is doing it full time he is not attempting to remain anonymous. As a person with no talent, I could never understood how folks like Fred could be so modest. BTW your own work is top notch.

That engraving is, in my mind triple A Grade work, it's magnificent. Can't Mr.Fred Bowan be persuaded to do a video (perhaps for Youtube) demonstrating his methods?

I believe our Mr.Ken Hurst has some competition here. (No offence Ken), their styles are different but both show consumate skill. Now, if only I could persuade one of them to do this work at Victorian pay rates I may be able to afford it.

Harry

Harry,
I was overjoyed just to get Fred to take some digital photos. He keeps claiming to have no computer skills at all.

BTW Bailey, you may be interested to know that my Fraser came with a 7X57R barrel in addition to a 20ga barrel, so that beautiful Farquharson you made is entirely appropriate.

Nothin' like a 7x57R.

I ordered another bath of barrels from Shilen last week. One is a .311 bore for a .303 Brit. Always wanted one...

It will be interesting to compare how the Shilen barrel does versus the .303 McGowen barrel I have coming. Back in the early 60's I had Ed make me a .218 Bee on a low wall when he was with John Dewey in NY State. It was extremely accurate, but only with loads at the higher end of the pressure spectrum....very strange.

The new barrel from McGowen arrived today. It is perfectly contoured to match the original,as well as beautifully rifled and polished. I hope the photos demonstrate that the rear sight island and the forend will require no fitting!

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Fred Bowen has been toiling away on my Farquharson for the past few weeks.

The engraving looks very nice joel, are you reconciled to accepting the pitting?

As you know, that's always one of the considerations when restoring a firearm or any other antique. Generally I don't mind leaving some "distressing" because at the end I still want it to look like a 100+ year old rifle. I guess if I was restoring it to deceive I would take a different approach. With all the great craftsmen like you around right now I know a firearm can be made to look factory new. A number of years ago Dave Norin complained bitterly that a customer of his sold 2 spectacular High Walls through an auction house and allowed them to be described as "mint". Dave didn't see the catalog until a year after the fact. He immediately bought a stamp to mark his work so it would never happen again and has refused to do any other work for that person. Normally I would never restore a firearm, but in this case the heavy hand of a "bubba" required it.

i also enjoy this thread and your project. i have been having a sauer dr. restored and was pleased to see others shared my thoughts in leaving indications of restoration behind. the gun is what it is. just my thoughts on the matter and thanks for a very nice insight on your project. regards bob

I hope it won't be considered impertinent, but I would like to comment on the remarks in the first page of the article linked above.

The damage done to British guns and rifles is I think more likely to have been done when those arms returned to the UK with their owners from the hot and dusty corners of the Empire. They returned to homes mostly without central heating, to a cold, damp climate (except for a few summer months), often to be stored in attics & lofts and basements & cellars without in most cases I suspect, any preparation for storage in those environments.

The arms and their owners travelled to and from their overseas postings on ships, and the hold of a ship at sea is never a very dry place, nor is the salt air beneficial.

Despite the very generous leave officers could obtain before WWII, probably most of these guns and rifles spent months at a time in their cases unused.

The leather, wood and felt cases did little or nothing to keep out humidity and actually absorbed moisture from the air, which would be released when the ambient humidity decreased. That part of the moisture that escaped inward into the case would then tend to condense on the cold metal of the gun or rifle, as would any other that entered the by-no-means airtight case.

As there is nowhere in the UK to use an express rifle for example, there they would sit for decades with only an occasional cleaning if any. Many, perhaps most having a sentimental attachment for their owners, would be kept into the owners's old age, exacerbating the problems.

I remember a tailor from when I was a child who had been a district officer somewhere in Africa. He bought a .375 H&H before he went and was quite proud of the rifle, but when he told that story I doubt he had shot it for forty years. I wonder in fact when he had last looked at it, let alone cleaned it!

As we know, most of those who own firearms are not really enthusiasts or deeply interested in them; they are tools, albeit expensive ones. In India particularly, even private soldiers had Indian servants who would do much of the cleaning and polishing . I believe they were not supposed to be allowed to handle the soldier's weapons however.

In the case of officer's, they could have entrusted the cleaning of their sporting arms to their soldier-servants, or their household servants. In British regiments stationed in England, the soldier-servants (batmen) would be British of course, but there were dozens of Indian regiments which made up what was called "the Indian Army" and there the servants would be Indians of course. Probably that made little difference to the quality of the cleaning, but I can't agree that "the British Army in general did not stress keeping their arms in a pristine condition". I think if you ask any ex-British soldier, particularly one who served before WWII, you will hear in some detail just how fussy weapons cleaning and inspection was.

"FTR" or "Factory Thorough Repair" was only resorted to when necessary, and barring accidental or war damage, or simply a great deal of wear, it probably only happened once or twice in a rifle's service life. Most maintenance was done at a 'lower echelon' from what I have learned.

Joel,
I'm glad you took no offense and wish I had stated that I meant none..
I didn't realize the engraving was meant to restore the original embellishment, I thought it was a new design(?) making it more of a custom job than a restoration and it that case I would think about eliminating the pitting as much as possible without resorting to disfigurement.

Either way, it is a fine and worthy project and I'm delighted to see it presented here.
BTW: I think you know I consider Dave Norin a good guy and a good friend!

Steven,
I would never take offense from an honest question like yours. My purpose in documenting this project is so folks can see what artists like you, and some of the other gentlemen on this form, go through when restoring or creating a custom firearm. In truth when the inside of the barrel turned out to look like a sewer pipe (and it was not the original barrel to begin with) I supose this is more of a custom project than a restoration, but I really don't want it to look like it just came out of Gibbs works in Brstol when its done.

After attending a family event in Europe, Fred has gone back to work on my rifle in earnest. He has the tang on a piece of wood to take pictures of it.

Very Nice to say the least....you must be pleased!

I got so excited when the pictures arrived that I was all set to drive to Lake Villa, IL to pick it up from Fred and drive it the 10 miles to Dave Norin's for case hardening. Of course I forgot he still needs to do the right side and top tang.

Joel,

You sound very close to me. Drop me an email.

Pete

I'm probably not as close as you think. I live 30 miles SW of Madison WI. I do go to the Bristol show and hope to meet Glen Fewless there. I will also be at the CADA at the end of October and always hang out with Fred Bowen and Dave Norin.

Ok, sounds good. I will be up in Park Falls the weekend before the CADA show. I may see you there.

You're closer than Petrov

Pete

I will be there on Friday. Just ask Fred Bowen, or Dave Norin to point me out. Fred says he plans to use the Farquharson as one of the exhibits of his work.

Fred Bowen finished the engraving yesterday and drove the 10 miles up the road to Dave Norin's shop. With his usual meticulous attention to detail fashion, Dave emailed me his finishing intention for every inch of metal. I can't adequately express how fortunate I feel to live in the same area with so many wonderful craftsmen.

Mighty fine work.....Fred knows scroll!

What you can't tell from these pictures is how tiny the scrolls are. I couldn't believe it when I saw the work in person.

That engraving is absolutely magnificent, can't say anything more meaningful or better than that other than perhaps it's stunning craftsmanship.

Harry

Dave Norin just emailed me this picture to show me he has the metal finishing done. Monday I will drive down to his shop to pick it up and take it with the barrel to my retired gunsmith who will fit and chamber it and attach the rest of the parts to it. As you can see Dave managed to get the typical muted English colors just right.

Today I drove down to Dave Norin's shop to pick up the action and had a great visit with Glenn Fewless and Fred Bowen at the same time. From there I took it to my retired gunsmith for the fitting and chambering of the new barrel. He has agreed, in addition to accomplishing those chores along with resoldering on the sights and other fittings, to make and solder on bases for this vintage H&H scope. They will be low enough as to not interfere with the sights.

Yes, I saw the finished actions and was in full covet mode... It is going to be a lovely rifle. I also was able to closely examine a couple of Field patent rifles. I took a whole passel of pictures and notes and such... I wish to duplicate one of them, a wonderful Scott- Field, with an action I have.

My thanks to Messrs. Norin, Black, Bowen, and a friend of Mr. Bowen's with the front name of Glenn for the friendship, help and exaggerated stories....

Best to all,

Glenn (the other)

Glenn,
I want to see the egg shaped barrel when it is done. I had a great time trying to describe to my friend who is fitting the barrel how much fun I had watching a bunch of very talented lunatics examining some rifles.

My Farquharson is finally done the first 2 shots went into an inch at 100 yards. I made the fatal error of looking through my spotting scope and pulled the last shot to 2"s. My retired gunsmith took so long to get it done because he insisted on getting the scope bases he made to where the scope was dead on at 100 yards. This took many trips to his range.

Joel,
I would like to see more pics of the finished gun if possible.
Also, please refresh my memory if you have stated before, are the scope mounts see thru for the open sights?
Thanks,

Very nice, very nice!

Joel, that is ever so nice!

Very Nice, looks like the scope was always on it.

The scope mounts are not see through, but simply pressing in the side button allows it to be slide off. It really is an excellent design which returns to zero. This is the scope as pictured in the 1904 H&H catalog.

Such a good choice to use a vintage scope, and sadly so uncommon!

I'd suggest that scope was quite possibly used for sniping in WWI as the 1 to 6 range markings and the intervals between the lines look bang on for .303

As the scope is a bit more modern than the one shown in the catalogue, it might well be somewhere in the 1905-1914 range. The slide focus borrowed from the Davidson telescopes of the 1860s-80s having been abandoned.

I agree that an old scope really set off a nice restoration. The trick seems to be getting the old optics in the same shape as the rifles. There seems to be too few guys doing work on the old scopes, especially the German ones.

sir: you should be so proud of that restoration and congradulated
that you have saved a fine firearm for generations to come. my best