doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Who Did This Restoration?

johnr:

Your Marlin built L.C. Smith is a restored gun for sure..... you are correct...........

1. L.C. Smith did not case color the forend iron on extractor guns and yours is an extractor gun, only ejector guns had case colored forend irons...... Restorer's commonly color case harden this part which is a 'dead give away to a restoration'.....for some reason they do not do their homework or they have a serious lack of product knowledge, or possibly they just don't care....... (For all Hunter Arms Co. and L.C. Smith Gun Co.,aka Marlin)......

2. The checkering is not a factory application, the Marlin field guns all had flat top checkering in the 16 to 18 LPI range, unless factory special ordered and lettered as such, which does happen, I have one..... The pistol grip cap on your gun is also after market.

3. The forend wood appears to be a replacement as well. Marlin used a larger size forend wood post 1946. All serial numbers prefixed by FWS basically, as yours is. It is possible that the wood was sanded down quite a lot prior to the re-checkering....?....

4. The side lock thru bolt has been blued, they were case colored from the factory, as were the forward alignment screws in the lock plates.

5. Mid bead most likely an owner or smith add on as well.....?.....(ivory mid, brass front - not factory)

**Brophy's "L.C. Smith Shotguns" is a great book should you want more details, available on ebay new old stock and used...... Houchins "L.C. Smith, the Legend Lives" is also a great book for L.C.Smith fans........

Enjoy your new gun......!....

Cheers,

I think it's restored. Everything is too bright a polish under the finishes. The stock has what appears to be a crack at the rear of the left lockplate inlet. Tough to get that on a gun with zero breech face wear.

Small chips to the stock fingers on the bottom where they meet the frame. Again not very likely on an unfired shotgun.

Lever is in the center.

Colors & polish look like Dougs from very late 80's, early 90's.
Checkering is pointed, IIRC it should have been flat topped.
Look at the small screw on the bottom just ahead of the trigger guard bow.
That's the lever spindle screw. The spindle has to be pushed over into position to be able to get the screw in. A popular method was/is to use a center punch in there to lever it into position leaving a damaged edge to that edge of the hole.
It won't be much sometimes,,other times it will be very apparent.

Factory didn't do it that way,,
Nor did the factory cut wood out of the thin web inside and push the spindle over from the side with a clamp like some 'gunsmiths' do. But you'd have to take the lock plate off to see any evidence of it.

One lock plate has it's forward screw misalligned,,not qualified.
They are fitted and then flat polished in place. No reason they shouldn't go back into place.

The bbl lug showing thru the frame on the bottom looks like it missed the polishers attention when doing up the rest of the tubes.
It's rounded, uneven and lacks the crisp polish of the frame, iron and other parts.

All that perfect wood 'original' finish and then a non original (IMHO) pad fitted w/ no disruption to that finish. Very difficult to do.

Just some observations from the photos. Pics don't always show the real story though w/ shadows, focus, etc playing tricks sometimes.

All that said,,it certainly is a shotgun I wouldn't be shy about taking out to the field.

I'll go out on a limb and say that 'Ole Ed sure as hell didnt do any restoration on it!

Nice find, beautiful gun!

Not sure about the wood but that metalwork sure looks like it has Oscar Gaddy's signature all over it

CJ

John I had Ohio Case Color Company re-case a 1920s vintage L.C. in the early 90s. I prepped the metal with 400 grit abrasive that it turned out with almost the exact same colors as your gun. Overall you have a very nice gun that will give you years of great service.

What is the finish on the exposed barrel lug? Did the covered recoil pad come with the gun? It sure is a nice touch on a postwar LC.

Bill (eightbore):

The exposed bottom flat of the barrel hook was rust blued just like the barrels......this one has been machine buffed I think and rounded down on the two sharp corners.................the pad was most likely added much later and leather wrapped probably after the initial installation.......?..... L.C. Smith Gun Co., aka Marlin, shipped all field guns in a box without pads. This pad appears to be a 60's style pad.....?......Probably a Pachmyer with the white line touched up with a red marker pen at the time of leather wrapping.........?...........

Best,

A good restoration is difficult to detect in hand. Over the internet thru pictures, it's near impossible to tell with a good restoration.

The late Marlin guns in original high condition that I've seen didn't look quite that good in hand. The colors of those I saw were not quite so brilliant. But hey, colors of a photograph are so variable, it's difficult to for me say this gun is not original based on colors. Same for stock finish. But then, stock finish on a field grade LC was probably not something they spent a lot of time on in the factory. I would bet a lot of original stock finish would have flaked badly by now.

Whoever did it did a fine job.

It appears that the verdict is "restoration". The job looks original so if restored it has been done by an "artist" with a price tagged accordingly.
Why would anyone pay what it would cost to do this job on a field grade Smith??
I think its real!
Bob Jurewicz