Howdy Folks;
I'm brand new to the forum and have finally made the move I fear will be the start of a sickness that is sure to turn my wallet into a black hole. I was once a serious skeet junky, traveling around the western united states competing (zone 7 if memory serves). Then about 5 years ago, after a long break, got the sporting clays bug and finally treated myself to the K80 I have lusted after for years. All the while I was happily enjoying my competition over unders there was a fascination of the classic double gun growing and the desire for the upland hunt. I managed to fight it off for years, but alas have buckled after watching this little 16 gauge VS model 4E sit in one of the local shops for the last year. It's a solid functional gun, but certainly not the cleanest example for sure. If what I believe to be the date code is in fact the date code, it's a 1952. This is my first double, but I'm sure not my last.
Anyway, I have a couple of questions. I know I have paid too much for it, but the owner had no interest in dealing and was certainly willing to wait to sell it for what he wanted and the gun was just calling me. So I'm in it $825 and I know there really isn't any collector value in these so I'm curious if I should spend any money having it cleaned up or possibly re-chocked. It's full/modified if memory serves me right. It's still in jail waiting the 10 days CA wants to make sure I'm not the next serial killer, so I only have photos of the stampings and don't know much about reading them anyway. The second question is regarding the loads I should be using. I'm a huge B&P fan and was thinking about their F2 Classic shell, but am not sure if that is a proper load for a gun of this age. Any other info those of you who know these well can share would be much appreciated. I have photos I would love to include but the site doesn't allow images to be directly inserted. I'm happy to email them to anyone that can provide me any info.
Thanks very much
