Per your advice, I talked to Kirk Merrington. By the time we added up the price for back boring, rechambering, opening one choke to Modified and cleaning the action to get at the safety to repair it, we were way over $1000. At the time I bought my Darne, there was another one, a 12 gauge with 2 3/4" chambers without any of the problems that mine has for $1250. If I was going to go the whole nine yards, that would have been a better buy. So...
I'm sending it to another gunsmith who will rechamber it to 2 3/4", lengthen the forcing cone (that will go about 3" up the barrel and remove most of the worst pitting) and open the Full choke to Modified. $140 including shipping and insurance. I have been scouring the barrel with a brass cleaning rod with 0000 steel wool wrapped around a 20 gauge brass brush chucked into an electric drill which has gotten rid of a lot of the roughness. I plan to keep the action open as a safety as was suggested. After I put the 16 gauge shells through it that I have on hand, I will decide if I want to keep it and have more work done or not. Worst comes to worst, I think I can sell it for the $640 I have in it, meanwhile having had fun playing with it. Then if I'm forced to go to a 20 gauge SxS with a pistol grip and a single trigger, the world will probably not stop turning. Thanks again for all your help in getting me to these decisions.
John
